The New York rapper aims for political awareness on his latest, trading out his clever rhyme schemes for more clarity. Though varied and sometimes powerful, its themes feel undercooked.
Joey Bada$$ began his career rapping about his rapping. The subject matter was secondary to how deftly he jammed together as many words as he could into his bars and most often, he executed effectively. Now on his second LP, Joey has elected to use his elevated exposure to address the societal ills of our time. As he said recently, “I personally feel like I was put here on this Earth not only to inspire, but to wake people up.” On , Joey raps about police brutality, systematic oppression and its consequences, and of course, Donald Trump. It’s a thoughtful and mature step for the 22-year-old Brooklyn rapper, five years removed from his days as the precocious teenager behind 1999. On the new record, Joey favors lyrical clarity over the tongue-twisting rhymes of his younger days. Despite the directness, however, he does not surpass surface-level awareness, rendering little more than a good intention.
All-Amerikkkan Bada$$
AABA
Joey aims for positivity on AABA. The first half, which he calls “The Heroes Side,” is relaxed—a return to form after the darkness of Summer Knights and B4.DA.$$. It’s light and melodic music with boom-bap drums providing the rhythm—the kind of unimposing tunes to soundtrack a backyard party; they just happen to veer near dark topics. The opening tracks (“Good Morning Amerikkka,” “For My People,” and “Temptation”) reflect the sunny mood, sounding like polished and complete updates of the spare Golden Age music Joey revered so greatly on past releases. Later, he cements his commitment to hope when he raps, “I exchange my negative for a positive,” on the back-half cut “Super Predator.” (As with other backwards-looking efforts, it brings to mind Q-Tip’s own 1991 request to “get in the zone of positivity, not negativity.”) The upbeat attitude both underscores and undermines the album. Optimism is an asset in times of progress, but it can sound like blissful ignorance, as on “Temptation,” where Joey chides someone who is “complaining all day but in the same condition,” and apparently “enslaved by their religion.” Yet, he offers no alternative to this ill-established problem, rapping only, “Watch me use my prophets/Get them all to listen/I’ve been on a mission.” The panacean message and “mission” remain unclear.
Joey excels greatest on AABA when he does not try to use the album as a thesis paper that tries to scan as many injustices as possible. “Rockabye Baby” and “Ring the Alarm,” which slot into “The Vindictive Villainous Side,” are tough songs that embody Joey’s anger. They are also his greatest lyrical showcases. He doesn’t prescribe advice, nor does he seek solutions. The former is a boastful call-to-arms, and the latter is a lyrical barrage with lines like, “It’s the double entendre monster/Taking haunting constant trips through your conscious,” which is among his best ever. While constant one-liners were a bit leaden on B4.DA.$$, they are sorely missed on AABA.
Along with his political ambitions, AABA is Joey’s most commercially-minded endeavor to date, containing his first gold single, “Devastated.” It’s an anonymous song that conveys no original thoughts or sounds, with lines like, “Just getting better each day/Stackin’ that cheddar cheesecake.” There’s also the similarly banal “Land of the Free,” which presents many facts but does not advance any discourse beyond what we already know: “Donald Trump is not equipped to take the country over.” Got it, thanks.
All-Amerikkkan Bada$$ is a survey of consciousness. The title of “Super Predator” could potentially prompt a young listener to learn more about the explicitly racist term favored in the ’90s ; the song, however, will teach little. The closing “Amerikkkan Idol” has a bad Lionel Richie pun and tired lines of “killing the game,” but it also has uplifting lines about black excellence, as well as a spoken word outro that name-checks the late Alton Sterling, the 37-year-old black man whose death at the hands of Baton Rouge police last summer sparked national protest and outrage.
The record is a starting point for those who may not have thought much of economic, social, and political disparity. Joey even said as much, explaining recently, “I’ve been watching all these events over the last four years and I’ve been feeling helpless…. But I feel like this is where it starts: me opening up the conversation.” Likewise, it’s a beginning for Joey, who’s still figuring out how to bring broader thinking into an artform he’s, at times, mastered. (A recent “Mask Off” freestyle should be proof enough that he can really rap when stakes are less daunting.) Throughout, the album is trapped between explication and relatability, delivering only undercooked ideas. As he says, All-Amerikkkan Bada$$ may be an introduction, but for now, it is a sacrifice of Joey Bada$$’s natural ability as he navigates toward enlightened communication.
