"East Atlanta Love Letter" from 6lack – Variety



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Towards the end of "Alone / EA6", the first 2016 album of Atlanta rapper-singer 6lack, "Free 6lack" (pronounced "black"), our host remembers a lesson from Candler Road alumni in the Zone 6 of Atlanta Neighborhood: "You'd better shine when the lighting is dim / Less talk, more show." After a series of vague narratives and new waves, it was a good diagnosis. But the track, as a coda for a largely independent project focused on the affirmation of independence – creative, romantic and economical – released after five years in purgatory on the Flo Rida record label in Miami, also suggested a way forward. Having established a sound and a radiant mood (if derivative), this modest but tasteful young singer, then wrapped in dreadlocks covering his face, could color his character by studying his roots.

Based solely on the title, this could be the promise of 6lack's new 14-title East Atlanta Love Letter album. The project, however, is not a homage to the city in the tradition of Common's "I Used to Lover HER" or Kanye West's Return to Home. On the contrary, 6lack devotes most of his attention to the decadence of love and moments in relationships when both parties are facing the likely outcome. The new father (his one-year-old daughter on the cover) writes with keen sense of responsibility for such results, but with genuine resistance to abandonment. "Sittin" is back in place / Cryin 'on what is left, he sings on "Sorry". Apart from a few rap drills that reflect his career, this project consists of love letters to what is lost or will be soon.

The music, performed by leading contributors "Free 6lack" Singawd and Yakob, provides an appropriate foundation. Endowed by the original sound ideas of The Weeknd, as well as the more austere work of Clams Casino and Metro Boomin, with its piano soaked in the reverb, its bewitching synth washes and heavy bass, the palace evokes a troubadour. Additional singers help make things more dynamic, such as on the title track, a wonderful duet with Future, or "Balenciaga Challenge," which makes good use of Offset ad-libs in addition to its standout verse. (Ty Dolla $ ign and Young Thug, respectively, bring uncredited background votes on the main single "Switch" and "Thugger's Interlude" respectively.)

The cavernous brilliance also serves to make the misfires of 6lack shout even louder, to which he is always sensitive. For all three sweet words like "the time will never wait for us but it can never grow old our love" (of "Stan"), it remains "life without my love is an oblique rhyme / it means that it works t really, blunting the moment. The handle of raps 6lack often fails to show up to his sensitivity elsewhere. "Gettin 'bread across the Mediterranean like a pita," he spits on "Scripture." He admits, at least, the Drake syndrome in the outro of this song: If I do not rapole nowhere, people hate me.

One can not help wondering what 6lack could do with less obscure sounds. Like popular R & B transitions slowly Apart from the scope cast by "808s and Heartbreak", the simplest arrangements are distinguished by the fact that they require little digital stuff. "Thugger's Interlude" and "East Atlanta Love Letter" would both work as piano-only ballads. The singer clings to his engineering toolbox in the same way that he struggles to lose his love.

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