Thoughts On: Dark Sky Paradise

Recommended Listening: All your fault, Paradise, Research

Welcome back to Thoughts On, this week I will be talking about Big Seans 'Dark Sky Paradise'. The next few weeks are going to be crazy, with spring break next week, so many albums coming out this month, and me needing to catch up on certain albums (Tetsuo and Youth for example) things are going to be a tad bit busy. But after a month or so of doing this I can honestly say I have never been more excited to be a music fan and share my opinions with the world. I also want to take this week and pose a question. What is the stereotypical rapper like in your eyes? When you think of mainstream rap who do you picture? Are you more Drake or Kendrick? The reason I ask is because I personally think Big Sean is the one of the most stereotypical rappers out their right now and this album only served to push that point.

Much like Drake I am not much of a Big Sean fan. He has had some hits like 'Clique' and 'Beware' that I really enjoy but I just never took the time to sit down and listen to him. I actually had no intention of doing a review on the album but it caught my interest more than I thought it would. Sean is a Detroit rapper (much like Eminem and Danny Brown) who has a boisterous honest rapping style and spares no punchlines and sounds confident no matter what the song. Sean has been rapping since his teens, meeting Kanye in his youth and dropping a few bars was able to get signed to G.O.O.D music and later Def Jam. However it took a few years for him to get into the public eye. Unfourtunatly Sean suffers from the people he has gotten entangled with. Having dated his high school girlfriend for 6 or so years, then moving onto Naya Rivera (a Glee Star) and things having gone sour a lot of people only Sean as “that guy who broke up with Naya”. Now the man is good in his own right but he just never gets his chance to shine it seems. In a recent interview with power 106.1 The Breakfast Club, Sean stated that even Lil Wayne recognizes is lack of good publicity and made sure to point that out on a verse on a song he is feature in on DSP. Now he has a bunch of other mixtapes and albums you can listen too because he is not by any means a new artists, however I think this album represents a change in his career which is why I am writing about it. Sean represents the typical rapper, where hard work leads to a payoff and then become thrown into a lavish lifestyle. He has spoken at great lengths about this lifestyle but has always seemed very reserved about how he feels about it. To me at least this represents the paradox of modern day rappers who are actually decent people. How do aspire to this type of life without it ruining your personality? I think that is what this album represents and darker production and moody tone only serves to emphasize my point.

So whats it sound like? Well it opens with 'Dark Sky( Skyscrapers)' in which Sean tells of how he has come from his basement all the way to the top of skyscrapers. Typical rap cliches but the striking thing is the epic production that the lyrics are paired with. The first half sounds like a movie title theme. It feels like it is moving and has purpose, with vocals, church bells, and no real hip-hop snare or drop to be found. Half way through a snare kicks but quickly pulls out. The instrumental evolves as Seans story unfolds. He has a very fast lyrical style so the way the music stays calm as he is going crazy with his rhymes just makes for a good contrast and a great introduction. As you all may know I LOVE good intros to albums, just like an overture of a musical it is important that the intro gives a good road map of where the project is going. Whether musically, tonally, or lyrically, I think intros are important. Right in the first song we are given a taste the darker mood that Sean is going for and it continues through the whole album. He also has an interesting line where he says “funny how it took four years to become an overnight success” referring to the stigma about him being a new rapper out of nowhere, much like I said before he has been at it for a decade and is finally getting to show a more wholesome sound. The next song is one of the singles, 'Blessings' Featuring Drake and it talks of how lucky Sean is to have gotten to where he is, a humble moment for the artist that is given more punch from Drakes feature. The only way to describe the instrumental for this song is haunting. It is not meant to jump to it is meant to linger. It echoes and dark chords and the snare often plays background and stops to make room for the more thematically relevant parts. Sean also talks of his recently deceased Grandmother (whom I learned played a large role in his raising) and how he is now the man of the house and cannot afford to slow down now. Moving on we have 'All your fault' With Kanye and Travis $cott. This is one of the best songs on the album. With a beat that reminds you of older kanye and lyrical features that allude to Eric Garner and recent protests it is hard not to love this song. There is a part later in the song where Kanye and Sean rap back in forth in such a way that they are finishing each others lyrics and honestly I was so shocked how little I have of this kind of rap pairing before. It shows that these two may have indeed personally worked on this song together rather than just sending a beat back and forth (which makes sense with Sean being good friends with Kanye and being a part of his label and such). I wont touch on every piece but there is a big gripe I have with this album that rears itself right in the next song: DJ Mustard. I am not a big fan of DJ Mustard, in fact whenever I hear his ad lib thrown into all his beats (which all use similar professions and tonal enhancements) I just kind of hang my head and sigh. Sean has two Mustard beats on this album, and that to me is two too many. Not a tone of rappers use Mustard's beats and have made largely popular hits with them (Rack City, Loyal, Don't Tell em, etc.) and that is fine but all those songs lack any sort of interesting message or artistic integrity. Mustard makes radio/club hits and that is about it. The start 'I don't fuck with you' has this great soulful intro that is then ruined by a typical Mustard sound and lyrics that are more catchy then anything else. This is not really a bad song it just breaks the flow of the album for me. The soulfulness returns at the end of the song along with another verse and I wish that had been the whole song. In my eyes if Sean wants to be a well respected rapper he needs to make sure his music can be taken seriously and Mustard is not serious.

Halfway through the album the song 'Paradise' comes on and it feels like a great interlude in which Sean talks about how he is in a kind of paradise. However the way that the beat kicks in, which is more aggressive and meant to match Seans lyrics instead of accompany them, and Sean's actual tone make this a very dark song. He is in a way talking about his addiction to money and the lifestyle he has always dreamed of. Getting into that kind of position can taint a lot of people and I think Sean is experiencing that first hand and coming to terms with his morals and desires. Skipping ahead we have the most inspiration track on the album 'One man can change the world' with Kanye and John Legend. This is not something I would expect on a Big Sean album. It is a piano driven ballad in which Sean talks about his dreamer days. How he can from a drug filled environment and dreamed of success. He compares himself to the stars in how they both shine. The song is about loving yourself and using that as motivation. Now here is where things get odd. He has an outro that ends with stormy weather sounds much like his album began, but the bonus version continues the darker theme. His song 'Research' with his girlfriend Ariana Grande (another favorite song of mine) has this great R&B vocal loop that sets the slow pace that Grande eventually sings to for the hook. This is about the concept of groupies researching who is the most successful artist to follow and checking out certain people before you mess with them, which I am sure Big Sean has experience with. Then album ends with 'Platinum and Wood' which serves as a better outro than the alleged outro. It sums up the theme of dealing with fame and struggling to be relevant in your own way whilst storms sound off in the background and it eventually loops back to the same exact sound clip that playing in the intro. I love the concept of bonus tracks keeping in line with the rest of the album and I want more artists to do this.

This is a solid piece of work, it does not make me feel like I need to go back and listen to Seans earlier work but I can appreciate this album for dark tale it tells of a man fighting for his art. However in spite of what this album does well is I recommend you: Save this for a stormy day, in which your mood needs this kind of music. Sean is a good rapper whose honesty and heart have carried him a long way, despite his views on just working hard for the money it seems he is finally getting into the mindset of being great for greatness sake. But none of this saves him for just not making a splash when compared to most other mainstream rappers. Next week I will be reviewing 'Tetsuo and Youth' By one of my favorite rappers Lupe Fiasco so get ready to read me geeking out over how great I think the album is.