Isaiah Rashad is about the vibers. The Top Dawg rhymesayer has always repped Chattanooga, TN and the South — quoting Pimp C and workshopping Project Pat and Three 6 Mafia samples into trunk rattlers that are a touch smoother than a Penny Hardaway step back — and it’s made his hallmark simplicity downright contagious. ‘Cilvia Demo’, ‘The Sun’s Tirade’, and 2021’s ‘The House Is Burning’ were multilayered mood boards that slid on momentum and while they found a rapper stenciling his misgivings and addictions in the key of ‘Aquemini’, they worked towards one common goal: growth. His latest effort, ‘IT’S BEEN AWFUL’, follows suit but it channels his transformative years into a vulnerable constellation of sounds that flip the bird at complacency.

Rashad has always been his own genre and ‘IT’S BEEN AWFUL’ reaffirms it. The 16-track disc, which was primarily recorded in Los Angeles, serves the usual as its self discovery maneuvers through lucid KTC beats, Manzzano excerpts, the trials of trying to balance beam earth’s highs, and visual snippets that pay their respects to Real 97.7 mixes and 1960s Airstream trailers. But instead of being an interjection of messy rap confessions, it leans into a desire for redemption.

On the cold open ‘THE NEW SUBLIME’, Rashad promises not to lose himself over his sister’s reincarceration and a timeline “going crazy” even when it’s in his nature to test the flames. “Ask me who I’m fucking, I been fucking up,” he notes before being fully liable: “If I romanticize them Percocets, I might relapse; again”. Even on ‘10 STATES AWAY’, a Jansport J cut that observes post-breakup depression through a pair of rose-coloured Versaces, Zay gets smitten about his extended history with slow ass beats before briefly admitting he’s been trapped in another daze, continually plotting an escape route: “When we die where do rappers go? / Found there was no control in the bottom of the bag / In the shower pouring liquor in the air / I was fucked up, baby”.

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His melancholia can be insufferable for listeners who are blasé about rappers squaring up with their insecurities, but Rashad’s vulnerability extends beyond his own problems with escapism as ‘IT’S BEEN AWFUL’ is a transportive piece on his love for music. ‘SUPAFICIAL’ day sips on jazz standards while musing about accent lights and a need for a bond that’s more than a password. ‘DO I LOOK HIGH?’ slides on a ‘Lonerism’ groove, tethering Julian Sintonia’s croon to how that powder will make you miss the innocence of “writing poems for the girl in chemistry class”. And whereas ‘719 FREESTYLE’ and ‘SCARED 2 LOOK DOWN’ are ‘Cilvia’ coded, ‘AIN’T GIVIN UP’ flips Khruangbin’s ‘White Gloves’ into a lucid hit of mod soul that raises the album’s ceiling. The SZA-assisted ‘BOY IN RED’ is a clear standout as it proves their chemistry is limitless, grinding indie pop undertones with a teardrop of ‘S.O.S.’ to roll something for the summer. It’s no ‘West Savannah’, but it’s ear candy for lovebirds: “Aye baby come inside / I wanna play sum fye shit”.

As usual, Rashad is still finessing flows like Timmy Duncan. Every track floats in and out of the mix like a passed note and his scattershot raps still slip, tumble, and skate around the album’s highs and lows — letting instrumentation pop your eardrums before a bar breaks an ankle. On ‘M.O.M.’, he glides on a post-bop rhythm, getting loose with admissions like “High and I’m fried / Can you order some fries for me?” while on ‘GTKY’, a Will Gell x Rascal x WU10 ‘90s R&B beat snaps into that raw: “Do me wrong, Fu-Gee-La / Lemme burn one, this a doubie love / You ain’t an angel / You my death date”. Every verse bustles like Zay, even when Dominic Fike appears on ‘CAMERAS’ to turn birthday candles into an innuendo, and his versatile rasp catches a wave when his conversational phrasings aim for the soul. “How I make it through all that bullshit, ion know / How I get sober, fucked up, then clean again, ion know” he quips on ‘SUPERPWRS’ as some brass blooms in the backdrop. He’s effortlessly immersive, even in his emotional depths: “I ain’t tripping love / Them days I had might cloud my mind, but they ain’t dark my heart”.

‘IT’S BEEN AWFUL’ might be TDE’s most TDE-sounding project since ‘DAMN.’ and it’s thanks to Rashad and his team cleansing their palette to create something timeless. It’s a record that fades genres, crosses up trends, and uses intermittent shots of T-Neck Records funk and The Soulquarians to go, as he puts it, “beyond the facades”. Baring your heart so many times can leave you overstimulated and craving love — hanging on to a string that detached eons ago — but there will always be a sense of comfort in letting art take the mic for a minute. For Isaiah Rashad, it pushed him to pour himself into something for his sanity. And trust, he’s got a jam.

8/10

Words: Joshua Khan

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