It’s been a minute since Saba’s blown off steam for the hell of it. Listen to any of the Chicago rapper-producer’s recent albums or mixtapes, and you’ll find painstaking statements of intent delivered with unnerving poise. Bucket List Project, from 2016, lingered on unfulfilled dreams and the physical and spiritual drive necessary to see them through. Two years later, the sweetly melancholic CARE FOR ME was an album-length tribute to his late cousin; the paranoia and survivor’s remorse coursing through it followed him over to 2022’s Few Good Things. This year’s From the Private Collection of Saba and No ID is the most relaxed he’s sounded on record and in writing in years, but it still has a serious framework: the virtues of community and play in the face of encroaching oppression. The gossamer beats and effortless raps do a lot to soften the pain at the core of Saba’s music, to the point where one wonders what it might sound like for him to not be on the spiritual defensive.
C0FFEE!, his brisk and jittery new EP, is the closest he’s come to easing up on the gas. Left to ponder the successes and losses he’s sustained throughout his decade-long career, he’s finally found time to noodle, to flail his limbs and see what he hits in the process. There’s still a loose theme—all nine of the project’s songs were written and recorded in his black Ford Bronco Wildtrak, and several reference moments spent in it—but the overall vibe is loose and freewheeling, the audio equivalent of unspooling thoughts on a Sunday drive.
Saba and his production braintrust have always shown impressive range. But compared to the more bespoke curation on CARE and Private Collection, C0FFEE! is the first time their ideas scrape up against each other in untidy ways. Opener “How Many X?” turns sloping Dilla-esque drums, flecks of guitar, and a meandering keyboard riff into a platform for perseverance and chest-puffing (“How many times I kept it pushin’, even with a broken arm?”). The energy shifts immediately on the sedate “don’t be long,” where Saba adopts a spoken-word flow to reminisce on everything from the constant emails and voice notes he gets from his team to his partner yearning for him to come home to his cousin being released from prison. Then things jump back up again for the springy “my bro,” and the rubber-band whiplash snaps the mood back into place.
At the record’s best, the array of producers, from Saba himself to fixtures like Mejiwahn, FELIX!, cam.yh, and Ben Nartey, keep the atmosphere zippy, like they’re passing [untitled] beat folders back and forth in real time. “don’t be long” and the sputtering beat switch that powers “itachi” nail the exact balance between fleshed-out song and laidback recording session where C0FFEE! thrives. At its worst, the something-for-everyone aesthetic skirts into songs being little more than glorified demos. “supplier interlude,” gorgeous as it sounds, is a passing idea more fit for an Instagram Live leak than an album. It’s fitting that “LOOKING FOR PARKING,” the worst offender here, is in the middle of the tracklist, because it feels like filler, a half-finished idea taking up space. It’s also telling that “Today Years Old,” the best song here, is also among the most developed—it sounds ripped from the CARE FOR ME sessions, which makes several other tracks pale in comparison musically.
That said, these nitpicks aren’t enough to blow a tire. C0FFEE! is clearly a transitional stopgap, one for Saba and team to cleanse their palette and play with old and new sounds. I’m fascinated by the decision to not only record in a car, but to set so many of the stories being told in cars: police drug searches at the border, first romances, cold winter mornings where the heater is your only solace. There aren’t the same grand aspirations as on earlier albums, but after you’ve bared your soul so many times, even comfort and relaxation offer opportunities for reflection.
