So if Kanye wants to go off on his Alan Vega/Suicide jag, let him. We have a homegrown replacement right here in Takeoff Eyeslow, dropping an album that is a better follow-up to Graduation than anything West has done since.
On The Prescription, the Norman rapper exudes sleepy passion. The first track, “Papa Robert,” doesn’t take you by surprise as much as it just obliterates without warning, lobbing bombs of “real n—a shit from a poet,” showing his fear of losing sight of the simple things on his path to success. It’s a fear that few people, let alone rappers, profess to.
As for the mini-opera of “Dosage,” “The Prescription” and “Overdose,” I’m pretty sure it has to do with drugs, but I am too entranced by the beats and nodding my head to get too deep into it.
The Prescription requires numerous listens to fully grasp the genius behind it. It’s not a party album you can dance to; it’s an album that you have to dissect, study and interpret. I have no idea the last time I said that about an album, hip-hop or otherwise. —Louis Fowler
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• Kanye West’s Yeezus album review
This article appears in Jun 19-25, 2013.