Isaiah Rashad - The House is Burning ALBUM REVIEW
(A/N: I figured I shouldn’t have to say this, but my ratings are based on pure enjoyment of the music. I’m not gonna sit here and shit on everything because I’m trying not to go out and find the bad stuff anymore. Sure, if I get a request to review something and I end up not liking it, I don’t like it, but I won’t say a song is bad because the mixing is off. I just needed to get that off my chest.)
Zay, call the fire department, man. You gotta put this fire out.
I’ll just let the cat out of the bag right now: There was a time where I never really cared for Isaiah Rashad’s music. I’ve listened to his past two albums, and while I thought that Cilvia Demo was a cool TDE debut and The Sun’s Tirade was pretty ambitious, it just never landed with me. Not to say that it was bad on any level, but I understand why he has such a dedicated fanbase. When he officially announced his next album, The House is Burning, I was pretty excited for it mainly because both of his albums had really grown on me in the five years that he was relatively silent. The singles leading up to this were pretty good, especially “Lay Wit Ya” with Duke Deuce. The features here are pretty cool too. TDE cohorts Jay Rock and SZA are here, along with Lil Uzi Vert, Smino, Amindi, Jay Worthy, iamdoechii, Kal Banx, YGTUT, and 6LACK. So, is The House is Burning as fire as its name? Let’s find out.
This album has much more of a trap influence than his past releases, and I do think Rashad benefits off of this. Along with it being trap, I do think that this is his most mellow album yet, mainly because of some of the more jazzy pieces here like the closing track “HB2U,” a massive highlight where he talks about making this album for his baby. Another highlight on here is “Score” with Zay’s laidback performance and the contributions from SZA and 6LACK working so well here with Kenny Beats’s smooth instrumental. Throughout the weekend, I’ve been seeing some criticism directed towards Rashad about how he sounds on this. I even saw a comment saying that he’s the ‘Joe Biden of rap’ because of how much he mumbles. We don’t need every rapper to fit the standards of how you want them to sound. They can make whatever kind of music they want to make and rap the way they want to rap. That being said, I think Rashad sounds pretty good here. The mellow atmosphere of the album compliments Zay’s flows pretty well on here, and even when he does get loud on “From the Garden” with Lil Uzi Vert, he sounds fucking great. Also, “RIP YOUNG” is one of my favorite songs of his now because of just how freestyled it sounds, even compared to the actual freestyles on this album.
Even if there are some loud groups of people criticizing it, I do think that The House is Burning will go down as a highlight for rap in 2021. Isaiah Rashad comes back to the booth to deliver a great tribute to Southern rap. From the production to the lyrics, it all just works. I’d even go as far as to say that in a few years, this will be regarded as Zay’s best album and one of the best to come out of Top Dawg Entertainment. This is hands down TDE’s best album since SZA’s Ctrl and I hope it doesn’t take another five years for Rashad to make another album.
10/10
Listen here
YouTube Music
The House is Burning is a Top Dawg Entertainment release.
Zay, call the fire department, man. You gotta put this fire out.
I’ll just let the cat out of the bag right now: There was a time where I never really cared for Isaiah Rashad’s music. I’ve listened to his past two albums, and while I thought that Cilvia Demo was a cool TDE debut and The Sun’s Tirade was pretty ambitious, it just never landed with me. Not to say that it was bad on any level, but I understand why he has such a dedicated fanbase. When he officially announced his next album, The House is Burning, I was pretty excited for it mainly because both of his albums had really grown on me in the five years that he was relatively silent. The singles leading up to this were pretty good, especially “Lay Wit Ya” with Duke Deuce. The features here are pretty cool too. TDE cohorts Jay Rock and SZA are here, along with Lil Uzi Vert, Smino, Amindi, Jay Worthy, iamdoechii, Kal Banx, YGTUT, and 6LACK. So, is The House is Burning as fire as its name? Let’s find out.
This album has much more of a trap influence than his past releases, and I do think Rashad benefits off of this. Along with it being trap, I do think that this is his most mellow album yet, mainly because of some of the more jazzy pieces here like the closing track “HB2U,” a massive highlight where he talks about making this album for his baby. Another highlight on here is “Score” with Zay’s laidback performance and the contributions from SZA and 6LACK working so well here with Kenny Beats’s smooth instrumental. Throughout the weekend, I’ve been seeing some criticism directed towards Rashad about how he sounds on this. I even saw a comment saying that he’s the ‘Joe Biden of rap’ because of how much he mumbles. We don’t need every rapper to fit the standards of how you want them to sound. They can make whatever kind of music they want to make and rap the way they want to rap. That being said, I think Rashad sounds pretty good here. The mellow atmosphere of the album compliments Zay’s flows pretty well on here, and even when he does get loud on “From the Garden” with Lil Uzi Vert, he sounds fucking great. Also, “RIP YOUNG” is one of my favorite songs of his now because of just how freestyled it sounds, even compared to the actual freestyles on this album.
Even if there are some loud groups of people criticizing it, I do think that The House is Burning will go down as a highlight for rap in 2021. Isaiah Rashad comes back to the booth to deliver a great tribute to Southern rap. From the production to the lyrics, it all just works. I’d even go as far as to say that in a few years, this will be regarded as Zay’s best album and one of the best to come out of Top Dawg Entertainment. This is hands down TDE’s best album since SZA’s Ctrl and I hope it doesn’t take another five years for Rashad to make another album.
10/10
Listen here
YouTube Music
The House is Burning is a Top Dawg Entertainment release.
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