Saba A Few Good Things Album
- Thread starter Mortal1
- Start date
bourgeoisie tall freak
Superstar
the vocal arrangement on if i had a dollar is insane 
add on the potent bars...saba just has IT!
i'm obsessed
add on the potent bars...saba just has IT!i'm obsessed
Really slept on this, dope project
Middle Finga U
Paper Chaser by Nature
the vocal arrangement on if i had a dollar is insane
i'm obsessed
If I dollar everytime I failed I'd be a rich nikka
I know we're only 3 months into 2022 but this is my favorite album so far.
bourgeoisie tall freak
Superstar
If I dollar everytime I failed I'd be a rich nikka
I know we're only 3 months into 2022 but this is my favorite album so far.
i done played the song out by now
something about chicago nikkas singing on an alt beat type gets me everytime..... from lupe, juice, saba, even vic mensa sometimes lol
steadyrighteous
Veteran
I like some of this but I don't feel the urge to run it back a lot like I hoped I would with a new Saba project.
Middle Finga U
Paper Chaser by Nature
I shared the video with a couple of people so far and they fukk with the song. One of them said "I like that!"
really like his albums..they just end up getting overlooked by me because I don't play them enough
but I will say, I've barely went a day without playing the song w/ Krayzie Bone since the album came out. so good.
Smino really needs to drop his shyt next
but I will say, I've barely went a day without playing the song w/ Krayzie Bone since the album came out. so good.
Smino really needs to drop his shyt next
The album opens with the track Free Samples featuring an opening by Cheflee. The track builds on Cheflee’s vocals and a spacious guitar loop until Saba comes in after the first minute of the track. Through his short opening verse, Saba reminisces about his childhood home and the houses he and his relatives lost. The track ends with the lyrics
The track abruptly changes into the track Survivor's Guilt featuring G Herbo. In the YouTube audio’s description, Saba wrote" Sheltered and innocent and guilty by association. When you see enough of your friends go, you learn the true difference whereas before you could only imagine." This track is a left-field turn for Saba as he has never really done a song on a trap beat before, but it feels important in the context of the album. Here, Saba talks about the desperation people will go through to try and make it out and get rich. Saba mentions the heavy violence Chicago faces which includes mentioning the death of his cousin and the trauma many residents of the city face, what “eating” is like when the family is starving, the fetishizing of gang violence, and how people keep hustling to hopefully make it rich. G Herbo’s verse doesn’t necessarily fit the themes of the song, but he sounds pretty cool on the track, and his double album from this year had the exact same name. G Herbo was one of the biggest faces to come out of the entire Chicago Drill scene so to see him hop on a track that discusses the grief and loss from that exact scene is pretty interesting.
an Interlude Called 'Circus' is a personal favorite of mine. The track’s short runtime is about how you may take your highest moments for granted. You could blink and it could be over. (Blink, motherfukker). You can’t let those moments go to waste. I think the “This Chicago” tag adds a real stark contrast to the uplifting style of the track. The Chicago drop was common in 2010 in a lot of Chief Keef and Fredo Santana tracks. The tag contrasts the positive track giving the track a slightly eerie feeling with how gritty the tag is.
Fearmonger had a grasp on me at the end of 2021 and early 2022. The track is funky and groovy. Saba stated that “At the time of making this record I was beginning to realize how big of a hold fears actually had on me. With big decisions to make, I was never sure if I was doing the right thing. Fearing if I was actually doing enough. I’m saying we’re embedded with this “irrational fear”. The song takes this concept and kind of turns it slightly abstract by assigning a character to “Fearmonger”. I’ve never made a record that sounded anything like this and part of the fun of releasing music is to create worlds sonically and have people trust you to show them around your own imagination.” He also dropped Fearmonger as the first single to the album as it was the polar opposite of CARE FOR ME. He did not want fans to expect another CARE FOR ME, so he nipped that belief in the bud with the first single. The song discusses the fear of losing money and going broke even with the money he’s gained from rapping due to Saba’s spending habits.
It is important to remember this set of lyrics for later. In addition, those lyrics go straight into the song One Way or Every N***a With a Budget where Saba talks about the normal day occurrences he deals with following his financial gain over the years including buying game controllers when he loses them, buying pasta in which he cannot pronounce the name correctly, sending money to his mom, and feeling different than his white neighbors in the rich neighborhood he lives in. The term one-way street is used as a way to show him giving things up to others even if they may not reciprocate those materials back, including taking care of his family and his buddies who need financial support. I think this track works as a great counterpart to the final lines of Free Samples where Saba talks about trying to be a minimalist in spending, but here, Saba talks about all the money he plans to spend over and over.
The track abruptly changes into the track Survivor's Guilt featuring G Herbo. In the YouTube audio’s description, Saba wrote" Sheltered and innocent and guilty by association. When you see enough of your friends go, you learn the true difference whereas before you could only imagine." This track is a left-field turn for Saba as he has never really done a song on a trap beat before, but it feels important in the context of the album. Here, Saba talks about the desperation people will go through to try and make it out and get rich. Saba mentions the heavy violence Chicago faces which includes mentioning the death of his cousin and the trauma many residents of the city face, what “eating” is like when the family is starving, the fetishizing of gang violence, and how people keep hustling to hopefully make it rich. G Herbo’s verse doesn’t necessarily fit the themes of the song, but he sounds pretty cool on the track, and his double album from this year had the exact same name. G Herbo was one of the biggest faces to come out of the entire Chicago Drill scene so to see him hop on a track that discusses the grief and loss from that exact scene is pretty interesting.
an Interlude Called 'Circus' is a personal favorite of mine. The track’s short runtime is about how you may take your highest moments for granted. You could blink and it could be over. (Blink, motherfukker). You can’t let those moments go to waste. I think the “This Chicago” tag adds a real stark contrast to the uplifting style of the track. The Chicago drop was common in 2010 in a lot of Chief Keef and Fredo Santana tracks. The tag contrasts the positive track giving the track a slightly eerie feeling with how gritty the tag is.
Fearmonger had a grasp on me at the end of 2021 and early 2022. The track is funky and groovy. Saba stated that “At the time of making this record I was beginning to realize how big of a hold fears actually had on me. With big decisions to make, I was never sure if I was doing the right thing. Fearing if I was actually doing enough. I’m saying we’re embedded with this “irrational fear”. The song takes this concept and kind of turns it slightly abstract by assigning a character to “Fearmonger”. I’ve never made a record that sounded anything like this and part of the fun of releasing music is to create worlds sonically and have people trust you to show them around your own imagination.” He also dropped Fearmonger as the first single to the album as it was the polar opposite of CARE FOR ME. He did not want fans to expect another CARE FOR ME, so he nipped that belief in the bud with the first single. The song discusses the fear of losing money and going broke even with the money he’s gained from rapping due to Saba’s spending habits.
The track Fearmonger is followed by the third single Come My Way featuring the legendary Krayzie Bone of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. This was Saba’s take on a “poverty song”. Saba said ““All I’m doing [is] thinking how to get some money, and then we’ll be good.” A false statement, but one that I believed at a point, and many others believe right now. This song also takes place in that nostalgic kind of setting. I’m describing many things that are normal on the west side of Chicago so that it plays like just any other day. Pretty stagnant but has so much life. “We ain’t got no time to relax.” A harsh reality for so many people experiencing this type of poor. The focus is on work and survival.” The song has an uplifting and motivating tone just talking about one day we’ll be good once we get some money. He also reminisces on his early life in Chicago. Krayzie Bone’s verse adds to the theme of the track, talking about how he’s going to be the one who keeps hustling and innovating over everyone else. It’s a really nice track.
Still features both 6LACK and Smino. I think the song has a strong nostalgic feeling to it. Something about this track strikes an emotional cord with me as we all grow up year after. Saba’s verse talks about a relationship not wanting to let go and lose its grip. Smino comes in like butter discussing a breakup and all the things left behind except for the love he still holds onto. This song is great.
Saba said a Simpler Time is “a song where I feel like shyt is moving and it’s changing. That’s the constant throughout my life and everybody else’s is that something is changing. I think you take for granted that simple shyt — being able to relax, being able to work, even. There are some jobs that I get a sense of nostalgia thinking about, or just random, miserable times that were awful, but there’s some beauty in it, where we managed to make that fun somehow.” This album focuses very heavily on reminiscing on the past and this song is one of the highlights of that concept. Saba and Merba both discuss the past and easy times as well as an outlook on the future and what comes next in life. The key change at the end of the song is beautiful and really elevates the song past another level.
Soldier features the entirety of PIVOT GANG including a verse from Joseph Chilliams. Saba’s verse builds a great story about the idea of one day raising a child getting cut short due to being killed on the streets becoming “an example” of violence. He uses metaphors of war and the army saying that leaving his family is similar to being a soldier. Joseph Chilliams continues with the metaphors of war discussing violence in Chicago trying to avoid the crossfire. Frsh Waters and MFnMelo both continue the theme of two tracks on the chorus, bridge, and the fantastic outro. This track seems very topical with the death of PIVOT GANG’s very own Squeak who got shot down in August of last year at only 26 years old. This track is a great tribute to the members of PIVOT who are no longer with the group.
If I Had A Dollar features Benjamin Earl Turner and is about how failure leads to success and how each failure helps one grow into their next endeavors. When asked about this song Saba said “If you believe you failed, then you failed, and if you believe that you didn’t fail, then you didn’t fail. I think more often than not, failure leads you to your next victory, so it’d be hard to really view failure as failure and not just like lessons or steps that get you to where you want to be.” Benjamin Earl Turner comes in the back end of the track and he drives the track home talking about all the burdens he faced along the way, but how he kept striving and moving forward and prevailing.
Stop That was the second single and the pressure Saba puts into his own head after making it in the music-sphere. Saba said “I feel like more often than not, we let our own judgment of ourselves knock our confidence off before anyone else even offers any feedback. Our own insecurities ring really loudly in our heads, to the point where we make ourselves smaller before giving anyone else the chance to. This is something that I feel like I found myself beginning to do over the years. Hiding from the uncomfortable moment. And this song works as my noticing and correcting that.” The second verse on the track focuses heavily on that topic with the pressure Saba feels like he puts on himself and the weight of success pressing on his shoulders.
Still features both 6LACK and Smino. I think the song has a strong nostalgic feeling to it. Something about this track strikes an emotional cord with me as we all grow up year after. Saba’s verse talks about a relationship not wanting to let go and lose its grip. Smino comes in like butter discussing a breakup and all the things left behind except for the love he still holds onto. This song is great.
Saba said a Simpler Time is “a song where I feel like shyt is moving and it’s changing. That’s the constant throughout my life and everybody else’s is that something is changing. I think you take for granted that simple shyt — being able to relax, being able to work, even. There are some jobs that I get a sense of nostalgia thinking about, or just random, miserable times that were awful, but there’s some beauty in it, where we managed to make that fun somehow.” This album focuses very heavily on reminiscing on the past and this song is one of the highlights of that concept. Saba and Merba both discuss the past and easy times as well as an outlook on the future and what comes next in life. The key change at the end of the song is beautiful and really elevates the song past another level.
Soldier features the entirety of PIVOT GANG including a verse from Joseph Chilliams. Saba’s verse builds a great story about the idea of one day raising a child getting cut short due to being killed on the streets becoming “an example” of violence. He uses metaphors of war and the army saying that leaving his family is similar to being a soldier. Joseph Chilliams continues with the metaphors of war discussing violence in Chicago trying to avoid the crossfire. Frsh Waters and MFnMelo both continue the theme of two tracks on the chorus, bridge, and the fantastic outro. This track seems very topical with the death of PIVOT GANG’s very own Squeak who got shot down in August of last year at only 26 years old. This track is a great tribute to the members of PIVOT who are no longer with the group.
If I Had A Dollar features Benjamin Earl Turner and is about how failure leads to success and how each failure helps one grow into their next endeavors. When asked about this song Saba said “If you believe you failed, then you failed, and if you believe that you didn’t fail, then you didn’t fail. I think more often than not, failure leads you to your next victory, so it’d be hard to really view failure as failure and not just like lessons or steps that get you to where you want to be.” Benjamin Earl Turner comes in the back end of the track and he drives the track home talking about all the burdens he faced along the way, but how he kept striving and moving forward and prevailing.
Stop That was the second single and the pressure Saba puts into his own head after making it in the music-sphere. Saba said “I feel like more often than not, we let our own judgment of ourselves knock our confidence off before anyone else even offers any feedback. Our own insecurities ring really loudly in our heads, to the point where we make ourselves smaller before giving anyone else the chance to. This is something that I feel like I found myself beginning to do over the years. Hiding from the uncomfortable moment. And this song works as my noticing and correcting that.” The second verse on the track focuses heavily on that topic with the pressure Saba feels like he puts on himself and the weight of success pressing on his shoulders.
The final stretch of tracks starting with Make Believe really sails the album home and raises the album up to new highs. Make Believe marks Saba’s first collaboration with Fousheé. The song starts with voicemails from Saba’s mother before Saba’s verse talking about how far he has come as a musician but how much he realized he misses his family and his mother. He also discusses the grief of the loss of others and how the fear of death means so little to him when everyone around him is dying. Fousheé comes in on the outro talking about pressure and how we are all afraid to lose “things”. Whether that’s money or the people around us.
2012 is similar to a Simpler Time in which Saba reminisces on his earlier life through a more positive lens compared to CARE FOR ME. His first verse focuses on an early crush of his and their shared interest in music while the second focuses on his relationships with his friends including Squeak. He told the Rolling Stones that when he played Squeak the entire album, Squeak broke down into tears specifically on this song which he said he was “talking about him because he stayed with us briefly. It’s just such an eerie thing to have played all of that, and then I don’t even think it might have been two weeks later to get the call that I got. It’s just fukking unreal still. But the beautiful part about making an album like this is…” Day Wave’s contribution is more on the background melodies but enhances the melancholy of the song.
Saba ends the album with the title track of Few Good Things. Throughout the track’s 7 minutes, Saba wraps up a lot of the concepts mentioned on the albums: life and death, poverty, the past, and the future, the family, and seeing the good with the bad. This track really nails a concept with me about living in a world with grief, but still finding the beauty in the world around us for better or for worse. There’s guilt, there’s fear, and there are bad times but you still find peace in the few good things you see. Even when there’s gang violence all around the city of Chicago, it is still easy to find the positives in the world. Black Thought comes in halfway through the track talking about growing up and the influence his mother had in his life and his upbringing in south Philadelphia nailing the theme of the family from the album. Saba wraps the track by bringing back the closing lines from Free Samples and wrapping up the concept of money and poverty. He discusses how it is important to care for his family, and how little money means to him when all he really wants is to breathe the same air as others after his entire race has been drowning for centuries through slavery and racism. Saba went from having nothing to having abundance. He has a few good things in life. It is a beautiful closer.
2012 is similar to a Simpler Time in which Saba reminisces on his earlier life through a more positive lens compared to CARE FOR ME. His first verse focuses on an early crush of his and their shared interest in music while the second focuses on his relationships with his friends including Squeak. He told the Rolling Stones that when he played Squeak the entire album, Squeak broke down into tears specifically on this song which he said he was “talking about him because he stayed with us briefly. It’s just such an eerie thing to have played all of that, and then I don’t even think it might have been two weeks later to get the call that I got. It’s just fukking unreal still. But the beautiful part about making an album like this is…” Day Wave’s contribution is more on the background melodies but enhances the melancholy of the song.
Saba ends the album with the title track of Few Good Things. Throughout the track’s 7 minutes, Saba wraps up a lot of the concepts mentioned on the albums: life and death, poverty, the past, and the future, the family, and seeing the good with the bad. This track really nails a concept with me about living in a world with grief, but still finding the beauty in the world around us for better or for worse. There’s guilt, there’s fear, and there are bad times but you still find peace in the few good things you see. Even when there’s gang violence all around the city of Chicago, it is still easy to find the positives in the world. Black Thought comes in halfway through the track talking about growing up and the influence his mother had in his life and his upbringing in south Philadelphia nailing the theme of the family from the album. Saba wraps the track by bringing back the closing lines from Free Samples and wrapping up the concept of money and poverty. He discusses how it is important to care for his family, and how little money means to him when all he really wants is to breathe the same air as others after his entire race has been drowning for centuries through slavery and racism. Saba went from having nothing to having abundance. He has a few good things in life. It is a beautiful closer.
Saba, Few Good Things and Free Samples
Saba, 2012
Saba, Soldier
Saba, Survivor’s Guilt
Smino, Still