Very, very quietly, B.o.B released his fourth studio album, Psycadelik Thoughtz this past Friday, August 14th. The project finds B.o.B “returning to his roots,” by his own omission. Not sure what those roots are though, B.o.B has always been an eclectic artist who was somewhat of an enigma from his early mixtapes, but the hunger in his lyrics made him exciting to listen to.
Friday album releases haven’t been good for urban artists, the exception being Tyrese who got in right when the switch from Tuesday to Friday began. While that’s already a big obstacle to overcome, B.o.B just hasn’t fared well with trying to fit in with urban music. When he came into the game he was supported by an XXL cover and a T.I. co-sign that helped convince fans that he could be a top five name among the new age of emcees, even though singles like “Nothing On You” and “Airplanes” told another story. Nonetheless B.o.B found early success. But his last album, Underground Luxury clocked in at number 22 in the first week on the charts, selling just 35,000 copies and we expect this surprise album to do much less.
Psycadelik Thoughtz finds B.o.B. trying to find the sound that got him knocking on the door of super stardom on his debut studio album B.o.B presents: The Adventures of Bobby Ray. The reality though is that sound was a thing of years past and it doesn’t work for Lupe Fiasco, Kid Cudi, Charles Hamilton or anyone else who is stuck trying to perfect it. That’s not to say it’s not good music to lay back to, maybe smoke or drink to, there just won’t be any career resurgence because of that music or sound.
B.o.B gets trippy with the title track opener, as well as songs like “Back and Forth” and “Hourglass” but, we wish he would have done more lyrical records. The early part of the album sounds like it could use an injection of the rapper from Underground Luxury, it features no impressive lyrics, its all about the pleasant sound.
B.o.B has a couple more options going forward or he risks making himself even more irrelevant than Meek Mill. Either way he needs to revamp quickly and strongly.He can produce something in the realm of an Andre 3000 album. Or he can go completely rogue and go into the world of Flo Rida or Pitbull, which would still be a great fit for him.
With all that said, B.o.B still deserves credit for putting together great songs for this album. Standouts such as “Violet Vibrato” and “Joburg” make this album worthy of a few quality streams. “Plain Jane” and the Sevyn Streeter assisted “Love Life” can have some success at radio potentially, but they misrepresent the overall album as singles.
Overall, Decent music, but let’s face it, if this does worse than Tyga’s surprise album, Atlantic Records may have no choice but to sever ties.
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