So long as he can create how he needs, Oddisee has been content material to exist on rap’s fringes. The Brooklyn-via-Washington, D.C. rapper-producer has handled his unbiased music profession like a small enterprise lengthy earlier than that grew to become the norm, with pragmatic, athletically rapped songs and a busy touring schedule. You received’t discover him hung up on trade cred: “Being neglected did wonders for my esteem,” he says on 2015’s “Belong to the World,” one among a number of songs about the advantages of area of interest stardom. Even at his youngest and boldest, on albums like 2008’s 101 and 2009’s Psychological Liberation, his boasts have been tethered to the fact of his humble upbringing and D.C.-area environment. He went from merely making hip-hop cool once more via pure boom-bap revivalism to boiling down politics, racism, and finally, the comforts of household life to raps as terse and sensible because the amorphous live-band manufacturing he’s slowly come to favor.
However the vigor of his early rap days lingers, powering a begrudging need for respect. On “The Begin of One thing,” the intro to his tenth solo studio album To What Finish, Oddisee retraces his steps over an almost 20-year profession and provides himself a pep discuss earlier than the subsequent dash. “How I’m seen and the way I’m heard is just not the explanation why I’m working,” he says, doubling down: “I’m going off, tips on how to make 1,000,000 with out going smooth.” For the primary time, he seems like he’s making an attempt to persuade himself as a lot because the listener. To What Finish goes past being uncooked and sincere about life, society, and even hip-hop; it’s too busy dissecting the drive to take action within the first place.
Thematically, the album explores the character of ambition and the way far we’ll go to get what we would like—a profession, a relationship, peace of thoughts. As his work’s grow to be extra refined, Oddisee has embraced being the rap sport Sidney Poitier, an everyman folding his personal life experiences into flows that recall the wanderlust of Kendrick Lamar as a lot because the reverence of Little Brother. His writing was by no means withholding, however he’s hardly ever been this private. Juxtaposed with the clear, peppy beats, his newfound openness makes a few of these revelations uncomfortable, even jarring. “Individuals Watching” is essentially the most express of the bunch, taking an ax to pressured politeness and ending with one among his bluntest confessions: “Turned an entertainer as to cover in plain sight…Rhymes are with out filter, in actual life I hold it hush/I really feel I’ve stated sufficient, it’s time to step again on the mic.” However gentler moments lower the deepest. “Many Hats,” which was impressed by his first-ever remedy classes, doesn’t shrink back from discuss of labor burnout and panic assaults; “Decisions” confronts the uphill battle of avoiding your dad and mom’ errors. It’s not significantly theatrical, but it surely’s the closest we’ll get to seeing him on the ropes.
