4 out of 5

Label: AVX Records

Produced by: Sol Messiah

Several times throughout Sa-Roc’s Nebuchadnezzar, she references being a god; being legendary. There’s a song even called the latter, and the former ties in to the album’s proposed theme, which links to a cyclical rise and fall of a civilization as detailed over her preceding, self-released albums. And it’s also a Matrix reference. And it’s like, about, exposing people to the truth and shit.

As I’ve critiqued on some of Sa-Roc’s later releases, she has a tendency to talk about talking about stuff, as opposed to actually talking about that stuff, and that kind of especially gets in the way here: I can only count about four tracks out of the 18-21 (depending on your version) that are narratives, and not just Sa saying how she’s the baddest rapper in town, and her rhymes are going to save the world and rise up all the little girls who want more from life. Some of this is kind of a tautology – Sa-Roc’s got some amazing bars, and has a unique way of structuring her references such that she extends the link out over a few lines or reverses the standard order of “I’m [attribute X] like [reference Y]” so that you have to process several verses to get the concept – in the sense that she may not be explaining how exactly she’s the best, but the words she’s using to call herself the best prove it, but it can still be a bit distracting when you’re expecting revelations, and instead you just get another spit about how she rhymes better than you.

It’s frustrating because, as mentioned, her rhymes are peak. The braggadocio of literary references kind of annoys me, but it’s essentially doing an Alan Moore thing for hip-hop – packing your text with names and nods you have to look up to appreciate what’s being said – and it’s undeniably executed with immense skill. If the album didn’t come with its supposed concept, and the rhymes were just allowed to be straight boasts, it’d be perfect. The guest stars make choice additions, with Sa happy to let them wholly dominate (e.g. The Who? featuring David Banner) or do more of a normal roundtable (The Holy Tablets featuring Wise Intelligent and Quadir Lateef), and Sol Messiah’s production is lock-step: soulful beats that scale up or down to how aggressive Sa-Roc wants to be on that track, her boom-bap default spit chopped up via memorable choruses, or the occasional slow jam.

Nebuchadnezzar makes it clear why Sa-Roc was a great pick to jump from self- / limited-releases onto Rhymesayers; her diction is sharp, and while not as visually wide-ranging as, say, Aesop Rock, her ability to smoothly jam so many words into one song impresses. The need to structure things around concepts which don’t quite hold together causes the album to lose some steam, but you can mostly shut that out: the material is incredibly catchy, smartly produced, and perhaps the most well-balanced capture of the rapper’s skills.