Albums
Spiritual Conversations - EP
2018
Release Date: 2018
By Paul A. Thompson
Reviewed March 12, 2018
The Sacramento rapper’s six-song EP brings his themes of psychological trauma to the foreground, suggesting alternate readings of his previous work.
“No Choice,” the third song from Mozzy’s new EP, Spiritual Conversations, opens: “You don’t wanna live like this, let it sink in.” The line is a callback to the title track from Bladadah, one of the Sacramento rapper’s handful of breakout moments: “It’s deeper than a punchline or trying to sound lyrical/You don’t wanna live like this, my life difficult.” Mozzy’s music, typified by last year’s excellent , has long meshed menace with a moral center, where the violence is unapologetic but not unexamined. Spiritual and psychological trauma seem to guide his songwriting, but they appear most frequently as subtext, or as codas on extended narratives. brings those concerns to the foreground. While none of these six songs would be out of place on any other Mozzy record, hearing them arranged here, one after another, serves not only as an interesting aside in his catalog but a suggestion for alternate readings of his previous works.