Welp, another Anderson. Paak album out and it’s another collab album. This time, the artist du jour is… Cordae.
Yeah, I’m not going to lie. I’m not the biggest fan of Cordae — his rapping is fine, he seems like he got his head on his shoulders and yes, I know he was formerly of the YBN crew as YBN Cordae (but he dropped that part when they disbanded; he never seemed like that type of rapper). He clearly has a talent in the hip-hop game, but from the albums I’ve listened to from YBN… yeah, not the biggest fan. I don’t hate them but they aren’t that interesting to listen to from front to back. Maybe a couple of tracks stand out, but listening to albums like The Lost Boy and From a Birds Eye View didn’t really get him into my rotation. He’s in the category of rapper that has good bars but the execution is 50/50, he can be good but he can also blend in the background if I’m doing something.
Also, I forgot he had a third album released in 2024 with The Crossroads. That’s how little I cared for him as a rapper. Again, he seems cool but that’s like for a track or two.
However, in some of those albums (mainly the first and third one), he had some tracks collaborating with Anderson. Paak, and I remember liking them. Hell, the first single off this new album, “A Good Day,” shows that both of them have some good chemistry together on the mic alongside the marketing basically having that little brother/big brother thing they’re doing.
The album cover is very reminiscent of the movie Step Brothers but I don’t think Cordae would do something to Paak’s drum set like Will Ferrell did in the movie, IYKYK. (Then again, he might.)
Now, I’m just going to get my thoughts on the album out, and I can safely say that while this is another Anderson .Paak album I’m going to like, this is the first Cordae album I’m loving a lot.
For one thing, this album is a lean eleven tracks at 32 minutes: short and sweet, no filler all killer, and this is strictly their show! Meaning there are no outside features, and this is a good thing. I’m not against having features on albums, but this is the one of the few times where I’m fine with just the main performers here and no one else.
Also, some of the content in here is pretty solid. The opening track “58th Floor” does have them rapping about Paak calling Cordae to tell him how he’s trapped at this girl’s house when her actual boyfriend is there (who just got on parole, BTW). It’s pretty humorous, and it does carry that brotherly chemistry those two got going for themselves. Tthe beat is nice, too, and that’s courtesy of J. Cole. Hey, he did something I like this year!
Aye, fool, you trapped in the closet like Robert
I thought we stopped fuckin’ with bitches with baby fathers
I can pull up, that ain’t a problеm, but, shit, it’ll take an hour
Shh, man, I’m stallin’, I hear ’em takin’ a showеr
Aight, listen, show them we ain’t no bitches (Right?)
If I was you, I’d go out there and fight all them niggas (Cap)
Go right in the kitchen and grab the pot with the hot grits
I told you these niggas big as fuck, that ain’t gon stop shit
Plus, his goons in the living room watching Netflix
Out the window is looking like my best exit
But don’t she live on the 58th floor? (Whoah!)
The whole album is fully a hip-hop album, and I do mean HIP-HOP! I say that since Paak has been doing more of his R&B/soul type for the past couple of albums/collabs, and on here both he and Cordae are rapping on this. One joint called “You’re Mine” is basically another version of “I Used to Love H.E.R.” by Common, as in the girl they’re in love with is mostly personified as hip-hop and how she’s treated, like how some say that she wouldn’t stick around for long or how some people are treating her wrong.
There are some songs that go deep into their lives growing up, but also just stuff in their daily life. “Days Go By” has Cordae’s verse about how his uncle used to sell dimes at his grandmother’s house and referencing a local star athlete at a car-jacking — the car-jacker being his brother (yeah, things weren’t looking too bright). In Paak’s verse, he was the silent and sensitive one, mostly saying his mother would threaten him if he talked back and was teased/wet the bed, thus trying to act tough probably in order to toughen himself up for harsher stuff out there. Yeah, I can relate to what Paak’s younger self was going through and see the harshness in Cordae’s verse as well. And hey, speaking of family, Soul Rasheed (Paak’s son) produced this track here and like his father, he’s got a knack for music. “Crown” is another great showcase of bars from the two along with some excellent production from Conductor WIlliams.
Most of the album has been doing a lot of victory laps and showcasing braggadocious swag throughout with some real talk in there, but I feel like this cuts deep once we go into “Helpless”, and the verses go like this: the first verse is Cordae, dealing with the stress of raising his daughter in separate homes, since he was with four-time Grand Slam tennis champion Naomi Osaka (they have since split up). Granted, they don’t have bad blood but, you know, having a family can change a lot of things. Paak’s verse… well, most of you have heard Why Lawd? by NxWorries, right? Well, this is an extension of that with a verse where Paak shows up drunk at his kid’s birthday party, along with all the unresolved emotional conflict coming out at the party and how he sacrificed a lot but he can’t even get a slice of birthday cake.
I’m finna have my second child, although we still ain’t said our vows
Was never my intention to raise my daughter in separate homes
Gavе your mom my all, but the love she had for mе dead and gone
Although you ain’t a man if you can’t admit it when you was wrong
Can’t see it comin’ down my eyes, so do it through this song
Never would’ve thought as a kid that my life is this
Ten thousand square foot crib emptier than a bitch
We made it through this internet matrix, though I’m the glitch
And lil’ bro did the dash, but they caught his ass with the switch
It seem like yesterday we would fight in my grandma yard
Playin’ 33 basketball, ain’t have shit, but we had it all
And here I am, a grown-ass man chasin’ nostalgia
Years flyin’ by in a flash, times is wilder, but
“Karma Tax” does have something in here most folk can relate to: either making sure people owe you whenever they tend to borrow a lot of your money and draining you of both that and your energy or, while having a win, you noticed a loss in your life and tend to either drink the pain away. The album does end on a good note as it goes back to flexing with “Godfather II”: bragging on their skills as rappers, going from being broke to doing luxurious things and talking about them as a duo, as they say they’re like “JÄY-Z and Ye, like Raekwon and Face,like Shaq and The Mamba”
Yeah, let’s hope one of you doesn’t end up being one of those guys in those duos… although Raekwon and Ghostface are doing fine.
In short, is this album anything special? Not really, but it is a good showcase of what these two do as a duo. While I already like Anderson. Paak as an artist/rapper/producer and expected him to be good at this, I’m very pleased with Cordae here, and while I wasn’t a big fan of him when he first came out he does spit some good bars on here and I wasn’t that bored by him. The two have great chemistry and if I see them do another collab, I welcome it. I’m sure we’re more likely to hear these two collab again than Silk Sonic and hopefully, the next time it happens, Cordae doesn’t have his former record label trying to sue him. No, really. That happened.
FINAL VERDICT: Stream it first then buy it. That crown is heavy and it holds its own weight.
HEAVY IS THE CROWN is on APESH-T, Empire, Hi-Level, and Mass Appeal and is available on CD, cassette, vinyl, digital download and on streaming services.