Everything's Fine

Jean Grae & Quelle Chris

explicit

Released on 30/03/2018 by Mello Music Group
Main artists: Jean Grae Quelle Chris
Genre: Hip-Hop/Rap
Distinctions: Pitchfork: Best New Music

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Jean Grae and Quelle Chris were practically made for each other—and not just in the sense that the two veteran rapper-producers actually became a married couple the same year this album dropped. Both artists excel at framing their stresses, mental-health struggles, and sociological concerns in ways more familiar, earthbound, and (where appropriate) comedic than alienating or bleak. And the fact that they gave their album the tongue-in-cheek title Everything's Fine is only the most obvious declaration of the sustained-eye roll vibe that powered some of their previous solo albums' most perceptively cynical moments. They're both unremittingly hilarious in their takedowns of late social media culture and the identity crises that go with it, using their gifts for voicing a litany of characters and perspectives they simultaneously inhabit and deconstruct: trend-hopping rap-poseur influencers ("My Contribution to This Scam"), reductive "type-of-guy" pigeonholers and the people they stereotype ("Gold Purple Orange"), and conspiracists whose pet theories all just so happen to fit their preconceived notions (the Denmark Vessey-bolstered "The Smoking Man"). That sardonic tone is sustainable enough for much of the album, carried through on other cuts dedicated to pure smack-talk lyricism ("Zero," "House Call"), and benefiting from a number of surprisingly fitting cameos from comedy-world stars like Hannibal Buress (bringing enjoyable deadpan-awkward raps on "Ohsh") and Nick Offerman (sarcastically delivering ignorance-is-bliss reassurance on "Everything's Still Fine"). But to avoid addressing the day-to-day pain of being Black in late-2010s America would be an evasive move that their integrity won't allow, so the rawness of cuts like racial-violence witness "Breakfast of Champions" and survival statement "Peacock" provides a necessary grounding in a reality that no amount of sarcasm can entirely obscure. Meanwhile, the production's sonic imprint might prove a little tricky to grasp at first: even if Quelle Chris handles most of the beats (with Jean's stunning, string-graced epic closer "River" a powerful exception), their grimy stoner-murk lo-fi is more texturally allusive than instant-hook arresting, the sound of uneasy moods trying to resolve themselves. But when Jean's laser-focus intensity and Chris' ruminative self-therapy get a hold of them, their lyrics reinforce a resolve of their own—the kind that pulls you along through the turmoil right beside them. © Nate Patrin/Qobuz

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Everything's Fine

Jean Grae

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Everything's Fine Explicit