To What End

Album review

Every time it seems like Oddisee's found a lane to be comfortable in, the Brooklyn-via-DMV rapper/producer switches things up, driven by a creative restlessness that seems to manifest as an expression of his own personal growth. On To What End, that expression feels like a defense mechanism: not so much an inferiority complex or a sense of desperate struggle, but a well-earned skepticism that comes with the precarity of existing as a hip-hop lifer in an increasingly crowded and perpetually-scrutinized underground. The sense of hustle-culture anxiety that permeates a lot of early 21st century life weighs heavy; far from a grindset influencer, Oddisee's lyrics are a bit more questioning and introspective, an ongoing question of what to do when hard work isn't enough of a reward in itself. It's also the end product of a late-pandemic process where, in his Instagrammed words, "[the] biggest adversity I faced was myself" and his sense of self-doubt, battled through late-night workaholic-auteur sessions in his Bed-Stuy studio. Oddisee's stress rap resonates because his perspective is understandable without feeling prescriptive. He's figuring himself out in public, somewhere between the flattening effects of social-panopticon culture ("People Watching") and the midlife-approaching existential uncertainty of living up to others' expectations (From "Many Hats": "To many people I'm many things/ But never me, and that's beginning to bear strain"). And if the reorientation process can be frustrating, it's the kind of frustration that's been hard-earned ever since he was born in the Reagan '80s, come to the forefront on sociopolitical salvos like the gravity of intergenerational trauma in "How Far" and the escape-route planning of "Ghetto to Meadow." But his musicality is what brings it all home: he's a producer first, rapper second, not because he downplays his mic skills, but because he spits like an auteur, bringing an intense intricacy to his flow that gives even his most didactic-by-necessity lyrics a fresh resonance. And while the beats here tend to sink in rather than shock, their eclectic-soul warmth makes for some of his most immersive stuff yet—and considering the surprise fiddle-into-house-beat transition of "Already Knew" and the glass-clockwork trap lurch of "Bogarde," Oddissee proves that he's not too self-conscious to let his weirder side cook. © Nate Patrin/Qobuz