With a minimal old school beat accompanied by just a few notes on the piano and an upright bass, Ab-Soul once again displays his expertise with words. As a member of the black hippies, which also includes Kendrick Lamar, Schoolboy Q and Jay Rock, being described as “cerebral” carries a lot more weight than it might in most hip hop crews. Ab-Soul’s last full length, Control Systems, contained the lines “literate as Oscar Wilde” and referenced Edgar Allen Poe and Frodo. I can’t imagine many hip hop artists that could rap about romantic poets and hobbits and still manage to maintain enough street cred to live to tell the story. With that in mind, have fun navigating the wordplay on this track, “The End is Near”.
