Recommended Album: AKAI SOLO – ‘Only The Strong Remain’ / ‘Verticality///Singularity’

Of all of the bars being raised from the New York City rap underground, AKAI SOLO seems the least concerned with precision, though the Brooklyn rhymer exacts his thought bubbles as justly as can be even if they’re more wandering and take more time to process than his city limit peers. Bless the mess that is this artform nonetheless, as mind warps make for ample reward once digested. Only The Strong Remain and Verticality///Singularity, an ambitious doubling of LPs both released on short notice before year’s end and well past the point of listmaking consideration, seems like an intentional flex to punctuate that point. SOLO has a lot on his mind to be heard without any outside noise or distraction on the follow-ups to last year’s standout, Spirit Roaming, with both coexisting symbolically between the thresholds of pitch black dark recesses and a place of light, though a bridge builds itself naturally between the two. Only The Strong Remain is the headier listen, built around a heavier weight of psychedelic beats and effervescent soul samples steeped into a deep fog as he grapples with depressive thoughts and self-doubt as well as everything else fucking things up in this world. SOLO eventually surfaces from the other end of it all with a mastery over his own miseries in ebullient triumph, and this is where Verticality///Singularity takes flight into the air. The album doesn’t exactly coast through the breeze with ease, however, with SOLO’s bars toying around a grimier, exploratory soundboard of experimental production that abstracts electronic bits, soul samples, and free jazz from the likes of Earl Sweatshirt, Wavy Bagels, and TwentyFifthNight where its shifting energy empowers confidence in his flow. There’s two stories happening here, and yet, it feels necessary to acknowledge them in the same breath, with one album peering into AKAI SOLO’s inner darkness as the other hears just how far he can fly when he allows himself to be released from it.

Only the Strong Remain Highlights: “Chaos!”, “God Be Coy”, “2 Meters Short (Pyre!)”

Verticality///Singularity Highlights: “Bespoke”, “No Hold”, “Murphy’s Law”

AKAI SOLO’s Only The Strong Remain and Verticality///Singularity are available now on Break All Records.