In a recent interview with New York magazine, Devin the Dude comes perilously close to admitting that he made Suite 420 mostly as an excuse to release an album on April 20. That's a deeply ridiculous example of stoner logic at work, but it's also pretty emblematic of where this particular rap legend is living these days. Suite 420 is Devin's seventh solo album, and rappers barely ever reach that level of career longevity without, at some point, moving beyond their comfort zone and trying to reach a bigger audience. But Devin's persona's never changed one iota-- he's still the self-deprecating stoner everyman who'd sooner spin some shaggy dog story about a failed quest for sex than portray himself as a larger-than-life superhero.
On the four solo albums he released on Rap-A-Lot Records, Devin found ways to spin humor and pathos out of that state of being, and the often-gorgeous production of those records didn't hurt. (DJ Premier might've never made a track prettier than "Doobie Ashtray", Devin's classic lament about learning somebody's smoked his last joint.) But since parting ways with that Southern rap powerhouse label, Devin hasn't been able to maintain the sweep and lushness of those earlier solo albums. His tracks, often self-produced, have felt like cheaper approximations of those warm, expansive older tracks, and Devin himself has sounded bored and distracted much of the time, never finding the storytelling groove he once had. It makes sense. After all, you can't remain in a state of bluntedness without losing some level of focus.
As on his last album, 2008's Landing Gear, Suite 420 finds Devin in such a low-key mode that he's practically speaking inside his own head. "Still Comin'" is a song about grinding hard, doing everything you can to make a living in the music business-- except Devin lets the entire song pass by without offering a chorus, just staying silent for a few bars between verses. It could almost be a high-concept joke. He forgoes rapping for entire songs at a time, preferring instead to sing in a surprisingly confident honeyed coo. But every beat [#script:http://pitchfork.com/media/backend/js/tiny_mce/themes/advanced/langs/en.js]|||||| works in the exact same no-budget vein: An electronic lope with barely-there drums and maybe an acoustic guitar or something. And another Devin album of diminishing-returns weed-and-girls raps over that type of beat feels entirely unnecessary.
But even if Suite 420 doesn't have any burning need to exist, it sure isn't unpleasant. Devin's built up enormous reservoirs of goodwill over the years, and his sloppy-grinning persona remains one of rap's most effortlessly likable. And even his most generic stories come with little hints of specificity that reveal way more. (On, for instance, the otherwise aimless infidelity track "I Gotta Ho": "She's just another ho; we'll have to leave it at that/ Cause her husband's overseas, fighting hard in Iraq.") He still finds hidden melodies on tracks that would've left almost any other rapper adrift, and his airy choruses still get stuck in your head. He still comes through with a good joke every now and then. It's good to hear him still recording, even if he's deeply entrenched himself in his own wheelhouse and barely has a single surprising moment in the album's whole hour. But if the album never existed, nobody's life would be much poorer for it-- possibly even Devin's. At least he finally got to release an album on April 20.
