Rapsody makes dope hip hop albums. That process takes time: it’s been five years now since she dropped Eve. That was a monolith from left field, a concept album about black femininity. What could have easily been an art school trainwreck instead turned out to be a dynamic, powerful album. An album type album, too. The LP was over an hour long, something rare enough to be approaching extinction in ’24.
The North Carolina MC occupies a very strange space in a music industry that runs only on narratives. Rapsody is simultaneously slept on & widely acclaimed, an under-appreciated rapper’s rapper who also manages to sell out venues every time she tours, chart on Billboard for weeks at a stretch, and get accolades in every major print publication. Her latest album features Lil Wayne and Erykah Badu. Somehow, all that success constitutes disrespect. “Give Rapsody her flowers!” insist fans who are unclear about what more an artist signed to Roc Nation can really achieve at this point.
Then again, perhaps this is the purest form of postmodern success: having a fanbase so devoted it’s kind of embarrassing. No culture without cults, right? And anyone angry about the state of the culture is almost definitely right, no matter what their complaint. Post Malone is headlining at Bonaroo. America is fucked & on fire. The Genre is doing fine, though, and we’ve gotten a lot of incredible albums in 2024.
Please Don’t Cry is one of them, a 22 track slab of lush, funky new music. The recipe doesn’t change because it doesn’t have to. It is often said that 9th Wonder is Rapsody’s secret weapon, but this is dumb. Her advantage is not her connections but her innate musical taste, her life-long study of what makes great albums great. More impressive than the hour-long runtimes is the fact nothing in her catalog is bloated or over-cooked. Every track is exactly as long as it needs to be, and her sensibilities are steeped in classic R&B. This is not a boardroom full of VP’s product testing singles, this is a living organism.
So it’s not even weird that this video opens with a minute-long promo spot. True creative types are like that; envelopes must always be pushed. “Back In My Bag” is a pure demonstration of technical skill, all careening flow patterns and Kakalak swagger. It’s also a reminder that Rapsody’s clear, confident delivery has always been better than her bar game. Few people are in this game for the same reasons, though. There’s no foul if her flavor of “lyrical fitness” is more J. Cole than Supastition. It takes all kinds.
Rapsody is reclining comfortably in the same boat as Jay-Z, JPEGMAFIA or Aesop Rock. Their fanbase is not their fault, these things just sort of happen here in the Kali Yuga. Give Please Don’t Cry an honest spin if you ain’t already. Four Dickies.
