AS artists, essentially we’re all telling the same story. It’s that synonymous universal language we all speak into thus the ease it comes with to relate, nonetheless nothing new under the sun, but the magnificence of the ordeal is, no two-man are alike, and so the uniquity embedded in every creative’s DNA manifests and expresses itself through the idiosyncrasies of the artists we love to ride or die with.
So that’s how we tend to overlook the whole truckload of the ubiquity of the world because we as a people make it better. We, as a people, add that zing to a world that’s pretty much seen it all.
Isaiah Rashad is telling a story we all know all too well, but he does it in a way that can only be him. He’s such kind of an artist who’s taken the slightly unconventional route in the genre, embedding heartfelt melodies and choruses, delivering deluding verses that are icebergs if you dip your head inside the water to see, that speak directly to a specific people and simultaneously to a whole universal demographic as well. It’s almost like love. Haha.
For 5 years he let us jam to 2016’s The sun’s tirade, letting us share and echo the same sentiments on the where u at interlude that opens the project. For the past five years, Rashad left his die-hard fans to wallow and hope he gave more because we wanted more. But nonetheless, the good thing about making timeless music is, it allowed us to bump and dive into The sun’s tirade even deeper as time went on and we had done some living. But the wait is over, and listen up kids, Rashad brought more music for the vibes, and personally, I’m ecstatic, because he’s the fancy car that keeps me going, since The Sun’s Tirade, and now the House is Burning.
see you gon’ hear about this kid called Isaiah (Zay) Rashad, and this because this kid got the house on bleeping FIRE.
Listen I said you gon’ hear about this kid a’ight.
Cause he done arrived from Top
and brought with him a burning and flaming rooftop,
and well the roof, the roof, the roof is on fire!
Note from some random superfan Stan
Going into the record the first time, I bumped through it straight through the first half without even realizing I was that far in, straight after it dawned on me, I opened my word, and penned that gem in italics up there. Let me take you through it.
Rashad starts off ……..and soon after came out busting doing all theses flo,,,,,,,,with a Lil Uzi Vert on that wildin too cause these boys really came to ball, then we mellow into the rip young that’s furnaced in a beat that a lot of Rashad fans out there had already had foresight on prior through the sample,that had been sampled a lot as well in Isaiah Rashad type beats way before. From then on we delve into the club bumper track where Rashad’s tryna lay wit ya cause last year you was his bitch but now you his baby girl okkuuuuurrrrrr with another dope feature from Duke Deuce shoutout. We get some more on the Claymore with a Smino feature, then Headshots (4DaLocals) which was definitely one for the locals,
Note from random superfan Stan II who for purposes of —had to be cut short
It’s been quite a ride listening to the project since it came out. Having only recently removed it from my phone for maybe the second or third time since it came out on July 30th, I know for a fact it will forever serve as a soundtrack to this chapter of my life in my reminiscence and nostalgia. It’s easy to bump to Zay’s tracks and kind of let the verses go over your head, stuck in a trance to the melodies in the choruses and bridges of his records, but once you start listening, you can never go back, just as you can’t back away from a conversation you’re already in part halfway into. It’s sort of gripping in a way. Moving, some would say.
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Tightly embedded into the project are features from the likes of SZA, JAY ROCK, 6LACK, SMINO, IAMDOECHII, KAL BANX, LIL UZI VERT, YGTUT, DUKE DEUCE, and AMINDI, whom if I must be candid makes an impeccable collaboration with Rashad as their outputs in two of the record’s tracks All Herb and True Story undoubtedly makes the album’s some of its best tracks. In All Herb, the opening line serves as a reminder to Insecure’s Issa when she felt a way about Lawrence’s ‘next’ Condola reaping the benefits of his time with her and getting the nigga with potential when she dealt with the nigga in progress, as Amindi sings
Fuck it, I’ma get it off my chest though, made a nigga perfect for his next hoe, and continues New one tryna bang me like a set, if I’m giving ten percent, I’ma need it back tenfold.
The song has an aura of being that catches you instantly, and stays with you for a time as you linger around the words every time, picking up on expressions of what you’ve always felt but never known.
What I want and must do…they don’t always match/
Laid on the floor, I was broke, it’s a worth it/ Laid on the floor as you’re drunk we all stupid
I’ma be an isolated mess/ I can call this phase how to break up with a breakdown
True Story – the other track where the pair’s collaboration features once more, alongside Jay Rock and Jay Worthy – has a silver lining sewn through the track of the song of a perfectly harmonized and vocalized chorus by Rashad and Amindi. It goes like this;
I’m giving what I got until it ain’t me mane
My brother was my partner died like last week mane
Can’t make it to Antlantis on a jet ski mane
Tried leaning on my partners
My brother going corporate, he was pitching that raw
Our daddy copped an eighth, he wasn’t working at all,
The song also has a recurring adlib by Rashad that ties through the whole track,
Smoking on a few yesterdays, huh!
It also comes along with notable moments with Jay Rock’s verse.
Zay we gotta eat with this, still hungry they peeping it
Clean the plate off immediately and completely, we ain’t leaving shit
One song that must be mentioned, is CHAD. If I wasn’t rapping baby I would still be riding Mercedes, which Future interpolated on Drake’s N 2 Deep, If I wasn’t rapping baby, I would still be trapping baby. The track is a chilled bumper track that bumps in the car driving down the avenue in a levitation.
when I’m working the ave, it’s ash and fire inside the whip,
when I’m done I’ma pass around the cash, go buy some more
Zay will have you obliviously bumping to a song with underlying dark tones, which is what perhaps easily makes him an artist you either constantly listen to or always go back to, digging through because you know there’s something more there.
I just put blades on a bulletproof Range, I could cripple Liu Kang, it’s on, Via that drank I ain’t feeling my face, I ain’t feeling no pain, it on
Baby come down lemme deal with that stress on top of your head
Baby lay down, can you handle that high
Can you handle yourself
It would of course be absurd not to also notably mention the album’s title track THIB, an ode to Missy Elliot’s classic Supa Dupa Fly, as it captures the nostalgic and reminiscent vibes of the 2000s, the music stan in me would not allow. On the track, he’s basically giving a rundown on how he has been following his 5-year-hiatus, and so consequently he opens up about his struggles with alcoholism and substance abuse while paying homage to southern rap by interpolating Goodie Mob’s Cell Therapy on the chorus. But it’s so easy for one to overlook once again the dark undertones that Zay project because of the musicality in his artistry. The interpolated Goodie Mob’s 1995 track Cell therapy is in the introduction, outro, and chorus of the song, and Rashad flips the violent nature of the original lyrics to draw in the listener by speaking on his current mental state as the chorus shows how he’s crippled by his anxiety working himself up over a figment of imagination.
Who’s that creeping in my window-
Who’s that fucking with my conscious-
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Another element of Rashad artistry that makes him who he is, is that he tends to low-key serve as a reminiscent echo of Kid Cudi stoner vibes, as the lonely stoner seems to free his mind at night, the lonely loner seems to free his mind at night, and on THIB he puts together a tight verse, which is a clear reference to Missy’s legendary second verse on The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly),
‘I’m driving to the beach,
top-down loud sounds see my peeps
give them pounds, now look who it be
it be me, me, me and Timothy
…
sway on dosie-do like you loco,
can we get kinky tonight,
like Coko, so-so
You wanna play with my yo-yo’
I’m mobbing to the beach
Top-down, loud sound, see my peeps
Smoke a pound, stomach growl, let me feast
I need-need everything in my reach, that’s what we preach
My niggas know I’m loco,
Don’t tell Rashad he’s a star on the low low
And raising bars like Lamar on the pogo
I’m selling art, selling souls by the bo-go
At the dojo
Isaiah Rashad’s House Is Burning is available on all major streaming platforms.
