American Gangster Review

Watching a film about a Harlem heroin dealer gave him a route back into the only subject he has ever been great at, and the improvement over the album before it is immediate. The production is 1970s soul and blaxploitation strings, horns and wah guitars and choir stabs, sequenced as an arc from ambition to consequence. Roc Boys is a horn blast of a celebration and one of the best singles of his second act.

American Dreamin is dense and funny and desperate at the same time. No Hook is exactly what it says, three verses and nothing else, and it is the most confident thing here. Pray and Success show him thinking hard about the cost. What holds it back is that the concept is a frame borrowed from someone else's story, so the stakes stay slightly theoretical, and the second half loses momentum. It is a very good album about being reminded that you are good at something.