Honesty from Pain

On his latest LP, Chicago rapper Saba showcases phenomenal technical skill and captivating vulnerability

Saba’s 2016 album Bucket List Project is a joy to listen to. The production is excellent, Saba flows masterfully on every track, and the subject matter is compelling. Unfortunately, there isn’t much more to be said about it. Saba offers some meditative thoughts here and there on topics like depression and race but these ideas aren’t unified or elaborated on enough to make Bucket List truly compelling.

The album is clearly inspired by the bright instrumentals and optimism of friend and frequent collaborator Chance the Rapper, but Chance’s style and tone do not mesh well with Saba’s approach to songwriting, which places a focus on storytelling and complex rhyme schemes rather than charisma. Like Chance, Saba preaches the importance of positivity in the face of hardship but there is a disconnect between Saba’s experiences and his mindset. Saba has seemingly overcome his negative thoughts and feelings by the end of the album, but it is unclear how. This disconnect is palpable on more personal songs like “American Hypnosis,” where Saba abandons his Chance-like persona and instead raps passionately about his loneliness and frustration. Introspective moments like this are proof of Saba’s potential, but they are suffocated by an optimism that feels contrived given a lack of context.

CARE FOR ME is Saba’s most recent album and it centers on similar subject matter to Bucket List Project. However, rather than focusing on overcoming hardship he stresses how exhausting and hopeless that hardship can feel. Saba performs over a jazzy backdrop of drums and piano, chronicling experiences that culminate in a difficult assortment of emotions and understandings. At times the album is heart-wrenching as Saba describes his struggles with depression and loss, but that sadness is often accompanied by arrogance. At other points Saba is hopeful, but that hopefulness may transform into doubt and anger. It’s unstable, messy, and above all pure. It’s the story of adolescence, and Saba tells it beautifully.

The album traverses a diverse set of stories yet remains cohesive. The somber musical atmosphere helps unite the tracks, but the subject matter is also more thematically consistent than it was on Bucket List. Saba’s already superb delivery has also improved significantly on this album. Through careful inflections and modulations, Saba is able to showcase the emotional weight of his words. For example, on the song “FIGHTER” Saba quotes an angry outburst from his girlfriend that culminates in the line, “I know you think you listenin’ but you just waitin’ to talk.” Saba’s delivery begins frantic but gradually dissipates by the last line. As a result, you feel the girl’s anguish in trying to get Saba to change, as well as the guilt that Saba must have felt when he timidly replies, “My fault.” Moments like this showcase Saba’s attention to detail in creating an experience that is deeply personal yet universal.

The highlight of the album is “PROM/KING,” a seven-and-a-half-minute ballad that serves as the album’s climax. The song is a eulogy of sorts for Saba’s late cousin and best friend, John Walt, whose death served as a major catalyst for the creation of CARE FOR ME. The first half of the song is a masterpiece of emotive storytelling. Saba molds a simple story about prom into a tale that is equal parts sad, tense, pathetic, and heartwarming. The story itself is more or less inconsequential; what is important are the details that Saba inserts throughout the narrative to describe himself and his relationship with his cousin. Details like Saba’s penchant for passing the basketball, the realization that his cousin lives down the street, and even his inability to remember what a corsage is all help paint a picture of who Saba is, what’s important to him, and what he is trying to say through his music.

The first half of “PROM/KING” comes to an anticlimactic end, fitting given the puzzling, traumatic, and often trivial experiences Saba describes throughout the song and the entirety of the album. Even on the second half of the song, Saba pays special attention to the details of he and his cousin’s rise to fame rather than his cousin’s death, which the song thematically revolves around. He doesn’t even explicitly talk about the death of John Walt, he only alludes to it. In doing so, he suggests something profound about life itself: one doesn’t find meaning in life-shattering events like the death of a loved one but rather in everyday occurrences like playing basketball and arguing with your girlfriend.

On CARE FOR ME, Saba triumphantly declares that the key to overcoming hardship is not naive optimism, but rather the genuine understanding that comes with reflection. What matters by the end of the album isn’t whether or not Saba has found the care he seeks, but that he has finally come to terms with himself, both the good and the bad. And for now, that’s good enough.