July 23, 2018

Saba "Care For Me" (Album Stream)


This album was recommended to me by someone that knows I enjoy music that evokes emotion. "Trust me, you'll get into it," I was told. At first, it wasn't my particular brand of hip-hop, but sure enough, it did grow on me and did evoke emotion, which is the sign of a true artist. So, with that said, I also read this via Vinyl Me Please & thought to share it: "Care For Me is the most intense, isolated 41 minutes Saba’s ever released ... the final result is a stunning meditation on grief, survival and growth. The bright palettes of vibrant optimism streaked across much of his earlier works are slathered in greys and blues. It’s neither easy nor palatable, but personal and unafraid. We’re not dealing with any superhero, we’re dealing with Tahj Malik Chandler: a man who’s spent several years teetering from stardom in his city into the national spotlight, losing his stride, finding it again and losing it once more when he lost his cousin. Saba’s finally making the music he’s dreamt of: the rapping is precise and direct, the melodies are piercing and catchy and the weight of every bottled emotion lands until it shatters the heart. Not to mention how it’s so West Side, the traces of his familial importance are left like Remus crumbs: his grandmama’s splotchy grass plot, memories of childhood conflicts and getback, how Walter finessed him a prom date and asked for some extra bread for a prom suit. The detail would suggest several agonizing months of laborious writing, editing, synthesis… but none of it was by design. It was a tribute for a fallen link in the bloodline, a therapeutic breath in a fucked-up time." Give it a chance & stream it below (Updated stream).