Catharsis has been such an effective coping mechanism lately that it can be easy to forget what you really need sometimes is a strong sense of meditative focus. Before you can ramp yourself up enough to go out there and Get Shit Done, you need to believe that you're the kind of person who actually can and that it matters if you do in the first place. If you cultivate your chill well enough, you'll be able to bust through barriers and push off antagonists with a sly deadpan and your energy still preserved.
That's been the recent vibe given off by prolific Detroit MC/producer Quelle Chris, a low-key incisive weed-and-brew wiseass whose halting flow deliberates like the underground's rejoinder to mumble rap. Innocent Country, from 2015, was the album that hinted at deeper existential crises beneath the veneer of comedic bravado, a curious interrogation of his surroundings on both a personal and a wide-picture scale. Last year's Lullabies for the Broken Brain highlighted that same sense of walls-closing-in restlessness with a string of bass-rich but sandpapery instrumentals that communicated an insomniac anxiety through kick drums. Being You Is Great, I Wish I Could Be You More Often is the logical progression from both: a bout of existential voyaging that can't help but catch more than just Quelle's own reflection in the mirror.
Single “Buddies” is probably the pull-quote track of the album, an ego trip statement delivered with a calmly bemused, beatifically sincere voice: “I fuck with myself/I fucks with myself/Might bring myself some flowers/I'm in love with myself.” After that hook winds up resurfacing as a reprise once most of the record's portrait has been assembled, it's a bit easier to recognize as the problem he hints at: what is there, really, to love about himself, and does he even fuck with anyone else he knows? So he questions his own intelligence along with everyone else's (“Dumb for Brains”), bites “the bullet, the case, and the trigger” en route to finding some measure of perseverance (“Popeye”), takes on a crew's worth of voices as he both champions and shoots down a rap-game-focused end run around a dead-end living (“The Dreamer in the Den of Wolves”), and generally tries to reconcile the bad stuff with the side of himself that’s worthy of celebrating.
Quelle's heaviness isn't a burden, though. His flow is immersed in a conversational ease, somewhere between classic Madlib and a Hannibal Buress routine, his inflections coming across like emotive gestures—shrugged shoulders, rolled eyes, rubbed temples. He's expressive enough to excuse lines flatter or cornier than the ones he actually brings, but mostly his cadence adds resonance to simple sentiments. When he admits, “Yes, I like to drink/Yes, I like to smoke/Yes it's an escape/I don't like to cope” over a pitched-up quasi-Quasimoto overdub on “Learn to Love Hate,” or takes a breather to rattle off a distilled barrage of pure-lyricist punchline shit-talk on “The Prestige,” Chris adapts to those shifts in tone and intensity with an almost disorienting ease.
He’s got some strong hands on deck for guest spots, too. There are characteristically quotable verses by Roc Marciano, Elzhi, Homeboy Sandman, Jean Grae, and other frequent cohorts, as well as beats by producers ranging from MNDSGN (woozily harmony-driven on “Popeye”) to Alchemist (looping psych-folk wails on “Pendulum Swing”) to Chris Keys (ruminative on three wildly different cuts). But for all the friends around him, Quelle’s personality—fractured as it is—manifests clearly through his own particular quirks. Whether it's a self-produced beat that kicks up dust particles (like the snare-melting trudge of “Fascinating Grass”) or his tendency to put on a voice that threatens to push you away before luring you back in, Quelle's whole approach is a self-examination that cuts both ways. Once you get that whole value-of-the-self situation figured out, Being You Is Great, I Wish I Could Be You More Often bumps enough to pace a purposeful movement out into the streets.
