isaiah rashad the suns tirade album cover

“Silkk Da Shocka” features a melody from ex-Odd Future member Syd which accompanies Rashad’s crackling voice over mellowed production from another of the defunct collective’s associates, Steve Lacy. Once the album begins its experimental phase, there are still many positive aspects to discover. On tracks like these, Rashad’s barely-there voice just makes the listening experience more boring than it should be coming from a man who made something like Cilvia Demo‘s “Modest”. Much like we just saw with ScHoolboy Q’s “Blank Face”, while some of this experimentation really works and is commendable, some falls flat. As the beats change from your more typical hip-hop instrumental to more closely resemble the chaotic and freeform nature of To Pimp A Butterfly, Rashad’s natural loud and confident rap charisma stops fitting on these tracks, forcing his laid-back flow to the forefront for the majority of the project. Some of the songs almost evoke OutKast’s brand of avant-garde southern hip-hop. On The Sun’s Tirade, as the somewhat pretentious album title might suggest, Rashad does venture into a more experimental area than his previous project.

But this is part of what made Cilvia Demo so enjoyable, the contrast between Rashad’s upbeat and joyful side which allows him to deliver lines like this effectively, and the laid-back side which he utilized to is full potential on January promo single “Smile”, which unfortunately didn’t make the final tracklist. You almost don’t notice that a major line in the chorus of “4r Da Squaw” is “Ba-da-bip-ba-ip-bap-boo”. Rashad makes the most of these beats, making semi-nonsensical lines like “Meal ticket ticket/Meal ticket ticket, comma, uh” or simply random syllables pop out. These are the songs that resemble Cilvia the most, featuring bombastic yet undeniably Southern beats from Top Dawg Entertainment’s resident Tennessean among Californians.

Rashad still has the technical ability he demonstrated on Cilvia Demo, hitting listeners with the quick one-two punch of “4r Da Squaw” and “Free Lunch” before the album begins to enter more experimental territory.

The final product he delivers is quite different from his debut Cilvia Demo, choosing to focus more on the laid-back delivery he showcased at times on his earlier work and building the sound of the album around this. Isaiah Rashad certainly understands just how anticipated this album was, as he opens his album with a voicemail from labelmate ScHoolboy Q demanding its whereabouts.

Isaiah rashad the suns tirade album cover