Hi, everyone. Sorthony Throattano here, the Internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of a new record from Blu & Exile, Love (the) Ominous World.

Yep, here we have a new album from one of the most talented, consistent, and creative duos in hip hop, teaming up once again for a brand new album. If you care at all about West Coast rap, you know rapper Blu and producer Exile. Their duo debut in 2007, Below the Heavens, was a first big breakout moment for the both of them. Really put them on the map, and regardless of whatever highs or lows their careers have been through since then, they continue to make time to link up and collaborate and make more music.

And every time it's an event worth talking about, whether it's Give Me My Flowers While I Can Still Smell Them in 2011, which is not my favorite of all the records they made together — it isn't quite as crisp or youthful or vibrant as below the heavens, but it's still a very lyrical and entrancing project that fit snugly into a lot of the prevailing lofi hip hop trends that were burgeoning at the time.

Then there was their Miles record in 2020, which is a 90-minute epic where Blu truly tests his capacity to go at length on a focused assembly of topics, life, art, jazz, specifically the ways in which he can tie it back to the great Miles Davis. But as good as these records are, Blu & Exile's respective careers can't simply be condensed down to their work they've done with each other.

In fact, Blu has been on a prolific tear lately. In fact, the last several years of his career have been the most fruitful in terms of sheer output. Just with this year alone, he's had archival releases; a new collab project with rapper and producer Evidence, where he's just doing all the beats; a sequel to his record, Good to Be Home, Back Home Again. He did an instrumentals record as well with ABC, and that's not even all of it. I can't even keep up. I mean, he's been doing so much. Why not throw an Exile album in there on top of it, I guess.

With everything Blu has been doing as of late, I'm not surprised to hear that Love (the) Ominous World is not nearly as large and in charge as its predecessor Miles.

However, I'm not going to complain about 12 new tracks and about an hour of run time, especially when Blu & Exile are both respectively meeting the high standards they typically set for themselves on their albums with colorful and versatile and textured beats that fit the tone of each song perfectly, and Blu's laser-focused lyrics that showcase his knack for storytelling, as well as his unique talent for being able to dive deep into a certain theme and idea.

So this record kicks off with the song "Hello, L. A." For Blu, it really begins things in a way that is familiar because, yeah, it's a song about L. A. If you know anything about this guy, he likes to write songs about L.A. I don't know if there's a guy who's more from L.A. than this guy. At this point, he must hold some world record for a number of songs written about where he is from. But the thing about Blu is that he's always the same but simultaneously always different because this song really is different in tone in some ways when compared to previous tracks about the City of Angels, with its cute ukulele chord samples and cheeky, sly group chorus vocals singing, "I'm from L.A." The music is bright and endearing and playful, which is a huge juxtaposition from the gritty imagery that Blu is throwing out there in his lyrics. Even if he is taking a cheeky approach with the humor, such as when he drops the bar, "Like I always tell my blood, you can be Blu, too."

Following this, the song "Undisputed" is a boom bap style trunk knocker with some saturated organ cords and what sounds like talk box vocal breaks, too, where the beat switches up. It sounds sick as hell. Exile killed it on this one. There are also some amazing DJ cuts on this beat, too. Then, of course, lyrically, Blu is bragging about his talents, his wit, his ability to string words together, his supremacy as a rap artist. But I guess what makes the song interesting is that he frames it all within a lens of fighting and boxing, specifically in the last verse of the song. There are also standout bars I like, such as, "I catastrophically rip any topic I get", which to me shows that he's well aware of what makes him special as a rap artist, which is great because it's clear he understands his own talents and he works to maintain them as he continues deeper into his career.

And deeper into the record, the topics keep rolling in. On the song "Homies", which is a tribute to both friends old and new, where Blu is waxing poetic on old memories, rap debates with friends, making music as well, and the way different people can impact your life in positive ways, bring you new experiences, open doors for you, and make your world bigger. Features Pistol McFly and Cassius King. Very much follow suit with the theme of the track, and I love how both of them, respectively, tie their lyrics back to Blue by rapping about their first experiences, having heard him and being impacted by his music. And Exile's beat here, of course, matches the heartwarming energy with very dreamy distant strings and pretty melodic licks.

There's also "Gold", which is certainly a highlight for me. Now, this is far from the first meta-commentary a rapper has ever made on chains, gold, jewelry, Jesus pieces. But the observations being made on the track are no less true. That you have something that in theory is a religious symbol, but then in practice is used as this tool of vanity. Like usual, Blu breaks it down lyrically in really interesting ways. At one point, he runs into some fans that he thinks are going to rob him for it. But then the feature on the track presents a really interesting narrative twist that I won't spoil. But again, I love that Blu has certain levels of expectations for the people. He brings on to his records to actually add to the concept of the track.

The song "Chucks", in one sense, is a tribute to Converse shoes, with a lot of clever references to the style and culture around those. But simultaneously, this track is in battle mode. This song is very much about lacing up and getting ready for war. And it's one of the few moments on this record and in the Blu discography where I think it's really the features that steal the show. For one, you have KXNG Crooked, formerly Crooked Eye of Slaughter House fame, who absolutely goes in. And on top of that, you have rap legend Kurupt, who goes even crazier. In fact, his verse is so off the rails it turns the end of the song into a skit where he's getting so aggressive and so violent and just so out of control. The song just essentially has to end.

And I love that the ending of the song segues into the following track, "Shug Knight", with, again, Kurupt finishing things off because obviously that guy has connections to Snoop and Death Row. There's these interesting connections happening from song to song. "Shug Knight" is, interestingly, a story all about how Blu almost got signed to Death Row back in the day before he really blew up with Below the Heavens. He even mentions KXNG Crooked having been signed there around the time that he was potentially going to work with them. He mentions Kurupt was the VP, too. He's just lyrically throwing in a lot of details about the whole experience that he apparently has a whole photographic memory of as he talks about passing out waters and waiting for Shug and a sound engineer working on a posthumous Tupac album. I won't spoil all the details of the track, but seemingly, Blu is peer-pressured out of going in this direction, and he seems pretty happy with the way things panned out anyway.

RBX, who is mentioned on this track as well, features on the following, the title track of the album. So again, more interesting connections. This track, conceptually, is just all about the end the world, complete pandemonium, things blowing up, not just figuratively, but literally. When that happens, who will be there to protect you? What's your plan? What will you do? It's not just merely a song about violence, but more a reaction to the world falling apart completely, which, given some recent events, I think is pretty fitting.

Following this, a song called "Precipitation" is pretty much as advertised. It's funny that Blu kicks the entire track off, literally saying, "I never thought I'd write a song like this." And yeah, the track is entirely about rain, what it is literally, but also what it can symbolize. Mentioning that at one point, natives used to pray for it, that some cities get a lot of it, some get a little. Floods, drought, the water cycle, etc. Again, just Blu continues to blow me away with just how much he can drill down into a single idea.

The song "Valley of Kings" is a lot like the "Shug Knight" song earlier on the record in terms of it strolling down memory lane. But this time, Blu is going even further into the past. Exile very much fits the bill of that theme with a dreamy patchwork of samples and melodies. Blu essentially gives us a lot of observations on the trajectory of his life up until this point. Thinking about the various moves he's made artistically and personally over his lifetime, mistakes he's made, Ws he's taken, maybe what he would do differently, how he perceives his fall off, and in one breath, feeling like he's lagging behind while in another, feeling as if we're yet to see the best of him artistically.

What I feel like this track proves is an awareness within Blu that no matter how good or bad a new record from him may or may not be, he never really loses his hunger, his passion, which is what makes his career interesting to follow regardless of how many people are paying attention. Even though Blu is a rapper, sometimes I feel like he comes into songs with the vulnerability of the softest singer-songwriter you can think of.

From here, we have an okay finish on the record, "Love is Blu", is an attempt at a big impassioned show of emotion, with Blu lyrically coming to terms with how unforgiving the world can be and adhering to love in the face of that and not allowing his flame to die out. It's a beautiful sentiment, but maybe not my favorite song on the record, and it does feature this extended outro vocal harmonies and that I think are more awkward in practice than they thought they might have been in concept.

While I'm complaining about the record, I will also say the song "Smack" featuring Fashawn. Given the long-term connections there between him and Blu & Exile, I had higher hopes for this track being just more fireworks. And yet, aesthetically, lyrically, it seems mostly standard for the three of them. And there's also "Suga and Butta", which is a love song, more of a lust song, with a so-so chorus, also an uncomfortably close feature. And a lot of bars that lead me feeling like maybe this was more of an inside thought. Points for him being as real as hell on this track, though, and I guess not pulling any punches.

But yeah, despite these minor criticisms of a few tracks on the record, I thought overall this was an excellent album from Blu & Exile, and honestly, I didn't really expect anything less. I mean, this record is proof that talent doesn't waver as long as you continue to hone it and work on it, which is why I'm feeling a light to decent eight on this one.

Anthony Fantano. Blue. Exile. Forever.