AB SOUL AB SOUL ALBUM COVER PRO
AB SOUL AB SOUL ALBUM COVER SERIES

The beat sounds like the world’s loneliest single-person ping-pong game, being played in an abandoned car garage. The song 'Terrorist Threats', meanwhile, is prefaced by an incendiary quote from the documentary Slavery By Consent about imprisonment through debt. Schoolboy Q is on the song, too, and he would like you to know that he fucked your girl. But the beat, which shudders and lurches like a dying car, will make you scrunch your face and jerk your limbs like you are suffering neurological crisis. There is a song called 'SOPA' on Control System, named for the Stop Online Piracy Act Ab-Soul includes a pointed lyric about Trayvon Martin in his verse. This cerebral/visceral friction is one of the most satisfying elements of Black Hippy, and Ab-Soul arguably carries it the furthest of the group.

AB SOUL AB SOUL ALBUM COVER PRO

Ab sums it up neatly for us on 'Track Two': 'Just imagine if Einstein got high and sipped juice/ Broke rules, got pussy, beat up rookies on Pro Tools,' he offers. Being an 'actual human dictionary,' Ab hasn't chosen these words lightly: His lyrics reel from wild-eyed conspiracy theorizing (at one point, Hitler's face appears in the burning Twin Towers) to egg-headed abstractions (Sumerians, Saturn, third eyes, Andromeda) to powerful, lucid observations. Wearing Ab's head proves to be a particularly intense experience: 'You should see the shit in my cerebrum,' he tells us on 'Showin' Love', comparing his synapses to 'lightning' at another point. Ab's record is an exhilarating real-time document of that process.Īll of the Black Hippy full-lengths are powerfully internal experiences: To spend time with Kendrick's Section.80 or Schoolboy's Habits & Contradictions is to walk around wearing that rapper's head on top of yours for a while. 'I used to wanna rap like Jay-Z, now I feel I can run laps around Jay-Z,' he tells us matter-of-factly on 'ILLuminate', and I think of Lil Wayne explaining why he called himself 'Best Rapper Alive' on Dedication 2: When you are busy mastering your craft, you should absolutely feel like you are the best at it in the universe. But Control System booms with self-possession and confidence. He is probably the member of Black Hippy who has spent the most time in a headlock. Ab-Soul is the only member of Black Hippy from the suburbs (Carson, Calif.) he throws around terminology like 'paradigm shift' in his lyrics. The album will also feature two previously released tracks, “Hollandaise” and “Moonshooter,” which features a newly added Joey Bada$$ verse not included on the original single release.Now here's Ab-Soul, speaking for himself, on the opening track to his resounding new full-length Control System: 'Said I was the underdog/ Turned out I was the secret weapon.' The album opens with a quote from Janet Jackson ('This is a story about control/ My control'), and Control System similarly feels like a young artist discovering his voice. The subsequent single, “Gang‘Nem,” produced by Sounwave, paid homage to his roots in Carson, CA, detailing where he’s from and the lifestyle he grew up around. That was outlined with the first single, “Do Better,” where Stevens addressed the changes through an incredibly moving video based on real events.

AB SOUL AB SOUL ALBUM COVER SERIES

After suffering through a series of unspeakable tragedies, Stevens completed the album as a changed man with a new sense of purpose. Herbert out December 16th via Top Dawg Entertainment is a deliberately intimate portrait of the man behind Ab-Soul going back to his foundation, as noted by the name of the record, leaving the conspiracy theories he’s known for behind while emphasizing his musicality. Herbert, his first album in six years, will feature Big Sean, Russ, Joey Bada$$, Jhené Aiko, SiR, Punch, Zacari, Fre$h, Ambré, ALEMEDA and Lance Skiiiwalker, with production from Sounwave, DJ Premier, James Blake, Hit-Boy, Boi-1da, DJ Dahi, and more. Los Angeles by way of Carson, CA artist Herbert Anthony Stevens IV, aka Ab-Soul, has a new album on the way, and today he’s revealed the tracklist and art.

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