Rapsody
The Idea of Beautiful
Hip-hop
Rapsody’s debut album The Idea of Beautiful is a perfect display of genderless musical talent.
“The Cards” samples a snippet of Jay-Z’s “Justify My Thug” saying, “I just play the hand I’m dealt.”
In it, Rapsody advocates using her gender to her advantage as it comes to the hip-hop community.
However, this project seems to do exactly the opposite.
The rapstress forces listeners to appreciate her music for its own merit rather than praise her ability to excel “despite” her gender.
By now she’s eliminated the frequent and massively patronizing “Oh wow, this girl can actually rap,” comments, and has made the audience completely ignorant to the expectation of the manifestation of gender in rap and hip-hop music.
The Idea of Beautiful resembles the soulful feel of our favorite conscious rappers Mos Def and Talib Kweli, with jazzy old school samples that take us back to the ’90s golden era.
She’s reorganized famous lines from artists who were instrumental to the aforementioned golden era, specifically the Fugees, with songs like “Beautiful Music” and “Believe Me.”
The Idea of Beautiful is rich in features with other prominent artists such as Mac Miller, Childish Gambino, The Cool Kids, Ab-Soul, Raheem DeVaughn and many more that make for an unmatchable dynamic of tracks.
Although the features make for a solid and enjoyable project, they detract from the focus on Rapsody herself, as an underwhelming five of 18 songs are without feature.
Despite Rapsody’s underrepresentation on her own album, The Idea of Beautiful is still a work that is both wonderful and worthy of praise.
Dive verdict: 3.5 of 5 stars
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