The Great Escape Review

The pairing solves the problem the independent albums always had, which is that a fixed delivery needs a producer willing to supply the variety the rapper will not. The Alchemist builds forty seven minutes of vintage soul, warped strings and drums that swing rather than march, and every track sounds different while the mood holds. 60 Days is the peak, a beat that lifts off in the last thirty seconds and takes the whole record with it.

Palisades, CA is gorgeous. Turkish Cotton and Porsches in Spanish put the calm to work over something genuinely lush. The guest verses are chosen properly rather than gathered. Most importantly it is short, sequenced and finished, three things the solo albums are usually not. This is the record that turned a regional cult act into a name people outside the Bay Area take seriously, and it entirely deserves that.