The House Is Burning Review

 

    Isaiah Rashad is an interesting character and an even more enigmatic artist. His first project Cilvia Demo chronicled his tumultuous journey as an adolescent, while his soulful, self-loathing record The Sun’s Tirade saw him addressing his addictions and his helpless battles with depression. Zay’s music is that of a man who has been through Heaven and Hell, highs and lows and every place in between, only to find himself exactly where he began; out of time and fresh out of luck. The most damaging detail in Zay’s music is that so far, there was never a positive resolution or any notion that he found solace in his life throughout the odyssey he laid out in his past projects. He was always propelled three steps back and never felt as if he was out of the darkness of his own persona and bounding into a radiance of warmth and comfort. This new record The House is Burning is special not due to it being perfect because it isn’t. This record is special because it is a new form of Isaiah Rashad that we haven’t seen yet, one emerging from a cocoon of sorrow and confusion, with an emotional conclusion that might just signal his evolution towards an artist and a man who has realized his faults. Isaiah’s psyche was in flames, so now he must make the journey towards something greater but more importantly, something happier. The House Is Burning is a classic Zay record, steeped in serenity and elevated by his soulful, charismatic southern jazz rap sound that only benefits from this uncharted, modernized creative space he has found himself in.

    To understand this record we have to delve into the world of comic book super heroes and super villains. This might seem like an unrelated tangent, but Zay’s pestering notion of his own derelict and perplexing stasis are something he relates to this rather transcendental predicament. In an interview on The Fader, Rashad compares his struggles to that of Mister Miracle, a super hero who was unknowingly swapped at birth with the children of the ultimate villain Darkseid. Mister Miracle is tortured from here on but refuses to let his spirit be broken, akin to this new Zay we see throughout this record. “He was tortured his whole life, and he learned from being tortured,” Rashad says in his half-mumbled, hyper-musical drawl. “He kept on trying to escape from hell and did it so much that it became a superpower of its own. Man, you got to read it to understand…” fittingly enough the first cut off this record is a dream-shaped, trippy jazz intro titled “Darkseid,” where Zay casually delivers lines of struggle that reveal a simmering hope within him, such as the bars “You know we be scared to feel (yeah), or anything else but yeah, whatever gon’ keep my kids safe, my kids full, I’m with it (yeah).” this opener gives us a taste of the classic southern rap style Zay is going for and this is further improved upon by arguably the best song on here “RIP Young,” a gorgeous piece of mellow keys and ever harmonizing chords that ride perfectly with Zay’s charismatic flow and an insanely hypnotic synth ringing in and out, delivering great visuals and fantastic lines such as “Been sayin’ that I’m a cool cat, fuck that, Tellin’ bitches I’m a Top Dawg, get shot.” This theme of feeling cursed from the beginning continues in this track as well with powerful lyrics like “Every time I hit the red lights, just shine, Ain’t nothin’ but a good day, don’t die.” Tracks like “All Herb” continue this idea of helplessness, a zoned out, desolate instrumental popping with spacy synths and a hypnotic drum loop allow Rashad to deliver lines such as “Sleep in the back ‘cause you’re broke it’s all prefect, Sleep on the cash, it was life, it’s all real, Laid on the floor, I was broke, it’s all worth it.” Isaiah is able to transition between subjects of grief, life lessons and excitement with the most casual, nonchalant evanescence, allowing his mind to meld and have fun with the music, giving way to new hopes and possibilities that Zay couldn’t reach on his previous records. This element of the album is crucial going forward because like Mister Miracle, Isaiah Rashad is at last accepting and addressing these experiences and in doing so, he is gradually building the courage needed to become the “Hero” he sees in himself emerging after what seems like a lifetime away.

    Another fantastic portion of this album is the excellent uses of Southern hip hop samples and trip hop-esque, jazzy instrumentation. This musical style is the essence of Rashad’s hometown Chattanooga, Tennessee and it provides a niche pleasure to hear some of the familiar sounds that helped shape his music. The lead single “Lay Wit Ya” samples Three Six Mafia’s “Ridin’ N Da Chevy,” tuning the kick and snare drums in a way that allows them to emanate a more progressive sound thanks to their tenacious and aggressive new pitch tones. Rashad calls on fellow Tennessee native Duke Deuce to feature and their performances make for an intoxicating Crunk rap banger. The great thing with Zay is that even though he rarely attempted tracks like this on his past albums, he sounds right at home on these Trap/Crunk beats, bombarding listeners with a ferocious newfound artistic character and a firestorm of quotable lyrics. Highlights would definitely include cuts like “From The Garden,” a track featuring zealous drums and some ominous, alarm-like synths that give an odd sensation of grave tidings. Zay’s aggressive Staccato bars include lines such as “Check my hunnids, check my onion, We watch cable at my aunty’s, ‘Cause my papa wasn’t trappin,’ But my uncle up to something, Mr. Magic, Billy Batson, Mr. Magic, Billy Batson.” His song “Headshots (4r Da Locals)” is a gorgeous, psyched-out jazzy banger with a bassline that melts into your heart and some delicate keys that are beautifully accented by a crooning string chord as the track progresses. Lyrical highlights on this piece include the lines “From the noose to the drop and the wop, no diggity, New to the top and the rock new Tiffany, Zay you smooth like an R&B song, How you keep them hoes off you? Man they killin’ me.” These tracks and others make for a wide range of sounds and styles presenting themselves throughout the project, and all of the tracks serve to provide a conclusion to the loneliness and cataclysmic mental state Zay was in. There are mellow tracks and there are a spattering of vivid, turn-up tracks, with each equally providing a balanced escape for Zay to preface his healing with how he has been feeling on his five year hiatus and then eventually painting an image of who he is now.

    The records conclusion comes mainly from the last two tracks, “THIB” and “HB2U.” “THIB” stands for The House Is Burning and is the main “update” for how Zay has been. The instrumental interpolates Southern Rap group Goodie Mob’s “Cell Therapy” on the chorus and combines nicely with his labored, tranced-out flow that glides over a devilish kick drum and the odd-firing synths emanating throughout. He constantly repeats the phrase “Who’s that creeping in my window? Who’s, who’s that, Who’s that fucking with my conscience? I was.” This line is the quintessential bar for the record, as it lets us know that the house that is burning was in fact his own mind, and that this “other person” creeping around was a darker version of himself. The final track “HB2U” is an acronym for “Happy Birthday to You” and serves as Isaiah’s own message to himself, with the first half reminiscing and questioning his past and his career over a glorious, mellowed and triumphant sounding jazz sample. The piano chops, the vocal samples and the guitar chords are absolutely beautiful and are heightened by Rashad’s nostalgic, nonchalant, albeit saddened lyrics. The second portion of the cut has Zay finally, at long last conclude this saga of pain and sorrow by coming to terms with his life and what the future might hold. The instrumentation changes and adds softer percussion, a thoughtful bassline, somber chords and synths continuously harmonizing as Zay echoes and croons his long-sought finality. One bar stands out and seems to sum up this record perfectly, as Zay goes on, he eventually utters “You are now a human being.”

    Most artists don’t take five years to drop their next record but with Isaiah Rashad his situation was probably a little different. From the onset of his career during Cilvia Demo he was hurting and he was desperately calling for help. Those calls for help grew even louder with The Sun’s Tirade but what could we do? We could do absolutely nothing, as this was a journey that Zay had to experience himself and it is safe to say that this record delivered an emotional, conclusive end to this saga of Isaiah Rashad. The House Is Burning is an album that radiates a warm sense of comfort and healing, akin to being kissed by the sun through mellow soul samples and the meaningful lyrics. Isaiah Rashad’s courage to move forward even after the perplexing notion of starting out cursed from childhood is a brutal concept to resolve. Sure this record is not perfect, but this record doesn’t have to be perfect for us to appreciate what we are now seeing in Isaiah Rashad. When Mister Miracle was struggling with his life and feeling lost in an illusionary world, he was greeted by a vision of the character Oberon, who told him “Kid, this, all this, it’ll break your heart. You can’t escape that. But if you’re good, if you stay good, you’ll know… There’s someone out there who’ll help you put it back together.” Oddly enough it turned out that the one person to help Zay was himself, and hopefully he can continue to become a better artist but an even better person going forward.

 

 

Score: 8/10