AB-SOUL – THESE DAYS
“These Days” is the 3rd studio album from American hip-hop recording artist Ab-Soul. The album was released June 24, 2014 via Top Dawg Entertainment. It serves as the follow up to his critically acclaimed “Control System” released in 2012.

This album features guest appearances from Black Hippy members Kendrick Lamar, Schoolboy Q, and Jay Rock, as well as Lupe Fiasco, Action Bronson, Mac Miller (as Delusional Thomas), and the completely random feature from Rick Ross. If you have heard Control System, you know what to expect from Ab-Soul: introspective, contradiction, religion filled verses. There were a few songs on the album that met those standards such as the first track “God’s Reign” which discusses how tough the world is These Days, the death of his girlfriend, and modern drug use for depression.

The second track “Tree of Life” takes a slight lean towards the more materialistic mindlessness of modern “hip-hop” (if you want to call it that). But at the same time, it includes the clever, contradictive Ab-Soul that we all know by mentioning drug use but in the same sentence mention God. He even says that “he’s got us stumped” because of his many contradictions. After that, the rest of the song is mindless until the very end. He mentions why money is the color green and relating it vegetation “the most important thing”, maybe for survival, or just the materialistic praise of money.

This album leaves a lot of things open to interpretation, which makes Ab-Soul very unique. The only disappointing thing about this album is that the songs are very hit or miss. Either they are deep and meaningful, such as the song “Closure” where he sings the whole song discussing the troubles with his new girlfriend, or they include materialistic, generic views of modern society with tracks such as “Hunnid Stax”, “Twact”, and “Nevermind that”. In those songs, there is really nothing separating Ab-Soul from other mindless artists who present short, weak verses. I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing to make a few mainstream songs for MTV, it’s just not what you would want or expect from Ab-soul.

Overall, I think he managed to pull it all together and make this a good, solid, Ab-Soul album. I give this album a 7 out of 10. I think everyone should give it a listen.