Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers Review

He came back with an album about not wanting to be the voice of anything. The writing is as unguarded as rap gets: sex addiction, infidelity confessed to his partner on the microphone, his father's silence, his cousin's beliefs, and a whole song about a family member's transition addressed directly to them. Father Time and Count Me Out are the two that work as songs as well as confessions.

Mother I Sober is the hardest thing he has ever recorded and the room goes quiet around it. The trouble is the sound. Piano and sparse drums for long stretches, tempo changes that arrive as ideas rather than as music, and a running length that leaves no air anywhere in it. Auntie Diaries means well and gets tangled in the telling. As a document of a man taking himself apart in public it is remarkable. As a record you reach for, it asks more than most people are going to give it twice.