Ab-Soul has the punchlines and metaphors, Kendricks got the lyrics, Jay Rock always comes through with that straight forward aggressive verse, and Schoolboy Q has the flows. On this album he really he showed up and tried some new things. On the first track he was switching it up line after line and throughout the rest of the album he stayed changing his shyt. Lyrically the album had weak spots but that's not what Q does, it's more about the energy and vibe your getting. The whole album has a bounce to it that's one thing that was consistent, but everything else was just random you don't know what to expect on a first listen. Los Awesome is one of my favorite songs on here, that beat is crazy, reminds me of something good for the summer. My other favorite was Grooveline Pt.2, in this simp era who else is putting out choruses like that and Suga Free does what he does best with the pimp talk. "bytch I'll give your ass a noogie and a chicken nugget." Schoolboy Qs biggest risk on the album was not switching it up to crossover, with all the hype and anticipation, a lot of people gave him a chance for the first time but he said fukk it and didn't even bother catering to them. As a fan though this exactly what you'd expect like Habits and Contradictions part 2. Lyrically this album can get boring, and I think he could've benefited from a few features, Ab-Soul, a bonus TDE posse track, Freddie Gibbs on Studio, or maybe a track where Q really tries to murk it, like when he bodied Kendrick on 6'7 freestyle. If your not use to bumping shyt that just knocks and is loaded with ignorance I could see people not fukking with this. Production wise this is solid, you get the usual dark tone from the album that just about every TDE release, post 2012, has had. The album does have storytelling on some songs, and Q covers his childhood, drug addiction, drug selling, his daughter, and what it was like for him growing up. I know on his last album the big introspective song was Blessed, but on here he doesn't have anything like that instead he puts more energy into the introspection and there's not much vulnerability when his reflecting on his past. Looking forward to bumping this more and finally the year starts, Rick Ross coming next
TDE is gonna keep suffering from never living up to GKMC in peoples eyes. People want that moment recaptured, the impact it had to be repeated but you can expect this same reaction for Kendricks next album, Ab-Souls debut, and Jay Rocks sophomore.