Black Milk released a few singles for this album and I resisted the urge to listen to hear it with virgin ears. Consider my ears deflowered. 

Album starts with opener “God Willing”, wasting no time in reminding us that Black Milk is the G.O.A.T. The production here sounds downright magical. You always hear Tyler the Creator raving about chords and this and that. He needs to listen to what Black Milk does with ’em. It’s also been super interesting to witness Black’s evolution as a lyricist. In the early days he was all about the ladies and the typical lyrical bragging. Now all he does is talk about life. The little beat flourishes he uses throughout this track are insane. Not to mention the outro. 10/10 album opener. This has potential to be my favorite Black Milk album ever. 

The second track “For How Much?” is just as perfect as the first. I can’t wait to hear this album live. Black is always dope with the bars, but man, he really is the best ever to do it on the boards, I think he’s about to finally establish that with this album. It’s hard to even trace the veins of Black’s music at this point. Sure, early on you could see the Dilla lineage, but Black has taken his music to his own place, and man is it beautiful. While I enjoyed Fever and DiVe, they were also probably my least favorite albums of his, though both were unique and dope in their own right. This album sounds like a huge evolution, but with some of the Fever/DiVe roots. Yet somehow I like it infinitely more than those thus far. 

The third track “Wait Til Fate” segued from the last track so nicely that I didn’t even know the track had changed lol. So smooth. This man is a master. Another excellent track. I really get the feeling that this is going to be an absolute classic and possibly his best album ever, which is a massive statement given his discography.

Track #4 is a banger, named “Downs Got Up”. I like what Black is doing with the vocals on this and a few other tracks so far, with a little sing-songy type of echo, maybe a music nerd would call that reverb lol. Black is 4 out of 4 so far. This album is sequenced perfectly. First two tracks got me super hyped, now I feel like I’m relaxing into the music. The outro on this track was magical, sad it only lasted 12 seconds lol. Classic Black Milk tricks. 

And here we are with “Is It Just Me?”. It’s almost getting hard to describe the music Black is presenting to us, because it’s so complex, but all comes together so perfectly. The drums as always are coming correct on each track. If you’ve seen Black Milk live, you know he knows how to arrange musicians like no other, and you can tell with all the live instrumentation on here that he did just that in the studio. This track is also epic. Can’t wait to hear what others have to say about this album. If Pitchfork misses this, I’m gonna be heated. Better get that “Best New Music” tag. He hits us with another unbelievably wavy outro with some slick guitar work. Master at work here.

“The Black Surf” is the sixth track, and like the others that preceded it, you can make a case that this is the best track on the album. The beats being presented here are enough to make a classic album. Quelle Chris is on this track, and he is rising to the occasion. This might be the best beat on here so far, but it’s hard to tell from my writing because I’m hyping everything up lol. I really wish I was stoned rn, as that’s how I love to experience classic albums for the first time, so the second listen will be brand new. Will be getting very stoned on my next listen.

Seventh track “Let Me Know” was released as a single, and features Brandon Myster who is clearly skilled with the R&B vocals. I’ve never heard of him, but he sounds perfect on here. The way Black manipulates vocal samples is absurd.. Dilla would love this shit. 

Then we move to track 8 “Ain’t Nobody Coming Down To Save You”, which almost sounds like its own genre. Another heavenly track on this album. My god. We are 8 tracks in, and this is for sure his best album ever on these 8 tracks alone. Now I’m convinced that this is my favorite track, but I’ll probably say that again by the end of this album. This track blew my fucking mind. Goddamn. 

“Fews & Trues” track 9 features the legendary Karriem Riggins on the drums. An instrumental here, no lyrics, but no lyrics were even necessary once on this album. All the instrumentals are PURE FLAMES. Black killed all of them though. Dope to let this one ride though. Black never takes away from a beat when he raps, and his beats never lose their luster without lyrics. He’s on another level here.

Track 10 is fucking crazy too. I literally sound corny as fuck at this point, but I also am corny as fuck. The sequencing here just feels perfect, like we are heading towards the end of the album. The guitar work on this album is so raw. Not to mention all the spacey atmospheric sounds that Black adds to the beats. This shit is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S. Black’s lyrics really cohesively explain life as how I see it, ups and downs, all things we can relate to. Fun to watch him grow as a lyricist and musician. He needs to change his name to Black Wine, because he is aging like fine wine.

I was waiting for #11 as it features Phonte, one of my top 5 DOA lyricists. All of the songs here are just flames. I am SO THRILLED that Phonte decided to rap on this. Omg. He is murdering it. A full length from Black Milk and Phonte would change the fucking world. This is absurd. Phonte spits like a 2.5 minute verse… he knew what he was hearing on the beats. 

Album outro is here. Me sad. “Yeah Really” is another absurd beat, such a head-nodder. I got contact high from this album. Perfect outro. I’m absolutely stunned. This is the best hip-hop album I’ve ever heard musically…. and man the lyrics and R&B additions.

Final thoughts: I don’t usually do full album reviews and probably won’t until Black’s next album, if he does a listening party again lol. This was so fun. Such a magical album here. I think this one will end up in my top 5 all-time. My expectations were honestly not this high, as frankly I didn’t love Fever or DiVe, his last two. But I still enjoyed those. This one just blew my fucking mind. I feel absolutely inspired right now. This is grown man’s music, but shit it’s also for the kids. I’m not going to go back and edit this review, because I want it to just be my initial thoughts. Maybe I’ll write a follow up review on this someday, it’s that fucking good. Holy moly. Play this while I’m dying and at my funeral. This is DMT on wax (DMT I guess releases in your brain when you die, or that’s what they say). I LOVE YOU BLACK MILK, I’M FAN GIRLING OUT RN. AAAAAAAAA. MASTERPIECE. FUCK. 

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

About

The Author

I wrote this blog for a few reasons. One is because nobody in my circle of friends ever puts me on to music or things that are dope that I haven't heard about (step your game up friends!) as few people nerd out as hard as me on the dumb things I focus on. The other and main reason is because I am so tired of The NeedleDrop and Pitchfork, from the way Fantano talks about music, to the way that Pitchfork writes about it. Both cause me physical pain to read or watch, yet I for some reason occasionally check their review scores, because they are the only sites I know that do stay on top of music (to a degree), and they focus on genres that I'm not tapped into, so occasionally I find something good. Is it worth the pain? No. So let me save you the pain, by only sharing with you my favorites, and maybe you'll find a new favorite. Oh and I also love talking shit, so I'll do that too, but this blog is about showing love to great art.