Ab Soul's Control System

The all around winner of hip hop in 2012 was Kendrick Lamar, and with good reason. His debut major label album, good kid, m.A.A.d. City, is a triumph of lyrical virtuosity, impeccable production, and vivid storytelling. But another album from the past year, largely overshadowed by good kid, is also deserving of recognition: Control System, by Lamar's fellow label-mate, Ab-Soul.

Control System is a weird album. It includes one track named after a region in the brain (“Pineal Gland”), another named after a piece of legislation (“Sopa”), and another describing a symptom of Ab-Soul’s rare skin disease, Stevens Johnson Syndrome (“Black Lip Bastard”). And yet, from this weirdness emerges a unique and thoughtful perspective on ideas treated far more conventionally by mainstream rap.

On "Pineal Gland," for example, Ab-Soul deconstructs his drug-induced high in an almost scientific manner: “We in a space where matter don’t matter / just spirit molecules and geometric patterns.” He also describes his former poverty: “I was po’ like Edgar Allen.” This is not the type of allusion often found in mainstream rap. On “Track Two,” Soul describes himself first as an “abstract asshole,” only to then rap: “Just imagine if Einstein got high and sipped juice / Broke rules, got pussy, beat up rookies on Pro Tools / You probably call his ass Soul Brother #2.” The lyrics of Control System always make for interesting, unexpected listening.

Beneath this eccentricity sits a layer of grief, specifically for the loss of Alori Joh, who committed suicide earlier in 2012. Joh’s vocals appear several times on the album, including on “Empathy.” The album’s catchiest track, "Empathy" explores a melancholy, on-again-off-again relationship with presumably Joh: “I guess things ain’t going as well as you expected / but baby don’t stress it / I hope you learned a lesson.”

And then, on “The Book of Soul,” Ab-Soul is heart-wrenchingly candid:

But I'm such a nice guy, why Lord?

Why Lori? Why'd you have to take her from me?

Guess you needed your angel face for all of heaven to see

Your picture still on my mirror and it's so scary

I swear I still ain't looked at your obituary

So now I'm so doped up I think I'm flying

I hope the spliff will never finish

I guess the Mayans wasn't lying

2012 my world ended

You used to say that I could see the future

You was wrong, cuz you was in it

Honest, mournful, a little quirky – this is what Control System is all about.

That’s not to say that the album is a complete downer. It’s also full of certified bangers, including “Track Two,” “Bohemian Grove,” “Mixed Emotions,” and “Lust Demons.” The rich production, provided largely by the Digi-Phonics, helps make the album a cover-to-cover listen, though it does require a few plays to get oriented. Dense, introspective, and mournful, yet also virtuosic, mesmerizing, and unexpected – Control System most certainly represents a high point in hip hop for 2012.