Ab-Soul is more yin and yang than good and bad, and you can hear him sincerely trying to take these gangsters to church. TDEвЂ™s SZA, вЂњ he mixes lyrics about having вЂњyour lady with literature in her Louis bagвЂќ with lyrics about how big his girl вЂ s tits are. He told me that injecting messages into music that people turn up to was his mission, and he wastes no time doing that on his new album These DaysвЂ¦ On the first track вЂњ God Will Reign ft. When I told him that his song вЂњ Terrorist Threats вЂњ with Jhene and Danny Brown was being used to motivate Dream Defenders in Florida, he beamed with pride. Ab-Soul would be next.ДЄb-Soul is an important lyricist. Schoolboy got a chance to have his moment. I was interested to see how that would play out once people start checking for Ab-Sou l more and he has a bigger roll- out. What set him apart was how much he refused to stunt, and his focus on the similarities between himself and regular folks rather than the differences. Soulo was able to exist in the industry and see the world with Kendrick, yet somehow maintain his everyman presence on every track. My son got me into Ab-Soul, and the mixtape Longterm 2: Lifestyles of the Broke & Almost Famous was my favorite project. He wanted to hang out in the studio but there was far too much weed smoke in the air. In fact, when Ab-Soul and Jay Rock stopped by to record wit h me one night, my son was star struck. However, my son, 16 years old a t the time, said that Ab-Soul was the member of TDE that he really liked.

A couple of years later, a pre-Interscope Kendrick Lamar visited my home studio with LA group U -N-I, and I knew he was a force to be reckoned with. I got to see how the Top Dawg crew moved back then, and I was impressed. When I was signed to Warner Brothers, Jay Rock was my labelmate. In fact, the first incarnation of Death Row cast a huge shadow over LA hip-hop that was hard to break out from under for years. West coast legends like Snoop, Kurupt, Daz, Rage and RBX paid homage to the sour of their city, but still had BARS. I recall how DMX, Eve and the Lox used to push each other creatively in the Ruff Ryder heyday, or the focus of Roc-A-Fella Records became laser-sharp when State Property and Dipset were brought into the fold. Every once in a while a hip-hop collective takes the world by storm and reminds us that power does indeed come in numbers.

Old ab soul albums and mixtapes