It tracks that Saba and No ID would take a photography class together. Both of the Chicago-raised, Los Angeles-based artists pay close attention to the ephemeral, building songs from snatches of memory and rhythm. For Saba, focusing on the small things helps to settle racing thoughts and preserve everyday joys. “Life I be taking for granted, capture the moment, the Canon,” he rapped on 2018’s “SMILE,” chiding himself to be mindful. For No ID, observation is the bedrock of producing. The former DJ has described production as the art of “studying emotional reactions,” citing the way house music crowds and rappers picking beats give immediate feedback: “The speaker never lies. When you put the speaker on and something comes out, either people move or they don’t.”
That attentive approach has helped the producer sustain one of the most unique careers in rap. No ID has variously been Kanye’s mentor, Jermaine Dupri’s understudy, and Big Sean’s and Vince Staples’ A&R. He helped usher in rap’s wintry Auto-Tune era through his work on 808s and Heartbreak and produced Jay-Z’s dad-rap missive “D.O.A.,” later pushing the notoriously composed rapper to unspool on 4:44. He’s been so versatile for so long that when he pops up on albums as varied as Renaissance, Brent Faiyez’s Wasteland, and Killer Mike’s Michael, you expect him to be there. From the Private Collection of Saba & No ID goes further, merging and morphing the artists’ styles. The album plays like a love letter to Chicago rap, bridging the sample-driven boom-bap of No ID’s production for Common with the singsong lyricism of the YOUmedia scene that shaped Saba. The pair romps through this shared history like pirates, drunken with glee.
Saba and No ID initially imagined the collab as a mixtape, but as they befriended each other and continued to record, it became an album. The title’s suggestion of wine cellars and Sotheby’s auctions is tongue in cheek: Although the svelte and opulent beats do bring to mind the plush arrangements of records like 4:44, A Written Testimony, and Nas’ King’s Disease records, From the Private Collection isn’t mogul rap. Saba’s idea of comfort foregrounds proximity and connection over luxury: “Any moment sentimental now, when you with the niggas who was missing out,” he says early on, establishing the appreciative mood.
He spends the album in this reposed and confident headspace, relishing in good company and a calm mind. The sense of play Saba usually reserves for features and posse cuts with his group Pivot Gang drives his writing. There’s a tickle to his voice on “Stop Playing With Me,” a teaser of a track set to a swinging piano melody that melts into a dreamy soul sample. Saba’s so at ease he can’t even be bothered to put on shoes: “I’m only wearing slippers this year/And I’m not leaving the crib, it’s a mission out there.” For him, control of his time is the ultimate luxury.
This easygoing spirit rewires Saba’s previously agitated music, drawing out the snap and swagger in his tumbling flows. He saunters over the crisp drums and warm coos of “head.rap,” peppering jokes like “Them neck braids helped you build backbone” into the affecting story of figuring out his hair. On “Breakdown,” he’s humble and haughty in the same breath: “Like Christ, I wash my enemies’ feet/Let ’em step wrong and they amputees.” Where Saba’s previous music dwelled at length on emotions and scenes, these songs whisk past like a montage.
No ID’s liquid production drives that fluidity. Backed by Saba and Pivot Gang members like Daoud and daedaePIVOT, he layers in drums, keys, and vocal loops that interlock and split apart like twisting gears. The funk horns on “Acts 1.5” supply both melody and percussion as No ID chops the sample into oblong bits. The clicking snares and soft keys on “Reciprocity” up the sway in Ibeyi’s watery chants—which scan as looped, but have minute inflections and shifts. Despite being stuffed to the gills with textures and rhythms, the music impressively feels ventilated and scherzo.
The swinging percussion and warm vocal tones of neo-soul, a touchstone for Saba, are a clear template for the arrangements, but the beats grind as often as they groove. The askew guitar loop in “Stomping” could be a Madlib or Alchemist flip. “How to Impress God” has the industrial clang of No ID’s Summertime ’06 beats, full of echo and negative space. These moments of darkness and friction underscore the cost of the reverie: “I be thinking ‘bout the dead most times I chill,” Saba says on “30secchop.”
If the canonical setting for wealth rap is the yacht bash, From the Private Collection aspires to be a block party: warm, open, bustling with homies and kindred spirits. Standout “Westside Bound Pt. 4,” a flow clinic with multiple beat shifts and bouncy ad-libs, channels that sense of fun and collectivity. “From a land where they wanna get high and dance/I ain’t high and mighty though, I’m one of them,” Saba spits, declining to distance himself from drill, juke, and bop. None of those homegrown Chicago sounds directly informs his music, but they’re still part of him—his own private collection. In No ID, he’s found a fellow connoisseur.
