The House Is Burning

Since the release of Isaiah Rashads The Suns Tirade in 2016, the rap landscape has warped like never before, yet on his third album, The House Is Burning, its like the rapper has just woken up from a long hibernation. THIB is, for the most part, like settling back into a warm armchair, a replication of the layered vocals, sun-touched beats, and woozy atmospheres that characterized Rashads mid-2010s arrival. Yet as the album unfolds, new directions become apparent: THIB is not only marked with a breezy openness that its predecessor lacked but stamped firmly with the sounds of the American South. Lay Wit Ya is the most overt ambassador, with an echoing Three 6 Mafia sample and guest appearance from crunk revivalist Duke Deuce, but regular interpolations and reproductions of the OG Memphis style soon provide a refreshing addition to Zay’s catalog. The other significant change on THIB comes with Rashad himself: where Cilvia Demo and The Sun’s Tirade pitched the rapper as the headline act, on THIB he feels fundamentally out of reach, clouded in vocal effects and mumbly verses. It’s not an entirely new direction -- 2016’s “Bday” offered an early blueprint -- but over the length of a full project, it proves difficult to balance. On tracks like Darkseid and “All Herb,” it gives his darker undercurrents extra gravity, his demons hovering in the corners of every verse. Yet in the album’s brasher material, it proves a sheer energy-sapper: on “9-3 Freestyle” the rapper delivers rampant hedonism with a lethargic drawl, while “Wat U Sed” pauses its vibe-heavy verses for a sleepy, barely audible interpolation of the classic “Bunny Hop.” These two new directions prove an obvious mismatch -- Rashads muffled vocals are perfect for intimate soundscapes, while Southern production is built around larger-than-life verses -- so balancing them proves instrumental to the albums success. For the most part, the rapper thrives on compromise, folding Southern flair into his laid-back formula on tracks like Headshots and RIP Young. But unfortunately, the albums best moments come when one side concedes: the small-scale keys of THIB prove a natural companion to Zays languid vocals, while the rapper returns to a bold delivery for the wistful, open-road production of HB2U. While THIB is a back-to-front vibe and an intriguing experiment for Zays mellowed-out sound, its one thats still negotiating its own limits. ~ David Crone

TDE所属ラッパーの、2021年にリリースされた約5年ぶりの復活作がCD化。ソフトな語り口のラップにフィットしたソウルフルな楽曲が中心となり、TDEの同胞であるジェイ・ロック、SZAも参加。同郷テネシーの注目株デューク・デュースを招き、スリー6マフィアの名曲をサンプルした"Lay Ya Wit"やプロジェクト・パット曲を下敷きにした"RIP Young"など要所でサウス・ヒップホップ愛も感じさせてくれる。
bounce (C)Masso 187um