We Only Talk About Real Shit When We’re Fucked Up

Bas is one of a few Dreamville delegates who has yet to experience a true breakout moment. The Paris-born, Queens-raised artist, who has also lived in Qatar and briefly went to college in Virginia, is the son of a Sudanese diplomat. That recipe should make for an interesting perspective; in practice, he combines a flexible New York-cool rap style with beats that blend trap, boom-bap, and dashes of Afrobeats and R&B. It has led him to decent success, with four studio albums and two RIAA-certified platinum releases to his name. But his highest-streamed song on Spotify, a 2018 J. Cole collaboration called “Tribe,” stands out more for his guest’s electrifying verse and producer Childish Major’s peppy, guitar-led beat than his own contributions. He’s certainly come a long way from near-death shoot-outs on Hillside Avenue and helping his brother—Cole’s manager and Dreamville co-founder Ibrahim Hamad—pass out mixtapes at the North Carolina rapper’s early release parties. Still, he has yet to cross over like fellow Dreamville signees JID and Ari Lennox have. Though he’s a competent rapper with a good ear for beats and a distinct background, he hasn’t quite cracked how to translate those unique traits into a full project.

His fourth album, We Only Talk About Real Shit When We’re Fucked Up, attempts to split the difference, with more R&B melodies and heartfelt vulnerability than ever. The general idea—finding the courage to be open about your life and struggles while sober—is a ripe one, but Bas only occasionally transcends the hokey weedism of the album’s title. Startling revelations, like stories of friends stealing money from Dreamville artists and reflections on his life before fame, bring new depth to his writing: a heartbeat to back up the flashy flows and shit talk. But these thoughts are only explored in fits and starts; Bas often defaults to the boilerplate posturing and jet-setting flings of his earlier work. It’s a naked attempt to open up to fans on a more personal level, and the inconsistency makes it even harder to connect with.

Opener “Light of My Soul” is at least a promising start. The first verse rides in on a mournful vocal sample, its melancholy accentuating his tales of strained friendships and drunken nights. By the time the drums thud into place, he’s completely baring his soul, delivering lines about wearing sunglasses to hide behind his pain and working through his people-pleasing tendencies: “Mama told me ‘Treat ’em to the light of my soul/The light of my soul, and don’t expect nothing back’/The light of my soul, but shit, I want something back.” Exasperation is uncommon on a Bas song, and hearing him navigate this emotion over such a forlorn beat is as uncomfortable as it is gripping.

For every white-knuckle storytelling display or reflection on his Sudanese heritage and self-destructive drug use, there are a handful of songs that either fall back on old habits or redress them in surface-level ways. Singsong ballads make up the bulk of the tracklist—a first for Bas. Though his harmonies are smooth, they’re occasionally monotonous; at the very least, it’s somewhat of a risk. If several of these songs didn’t revolve around the same bland relationship stories he’s been rapping about since 2014’s “Fiji Water in My Iron,” it’d feel even more adventurous. “Choppas” seems to compare a fraught romance to the spin of helicopter blades, an awkward conceit that muddies an otherwise gorgeous FKJ and Christo beat. “Black Jedi” and “Decent” abandon the specificity of his writing, coming off more like faceless BET rom-coms than relatable or vulnerable admissions. No one is asking him for an entire album of Ab-Soul-style introspection, but it’s undeniable that the soul-baring tracks stick more than the rest.

Because this is a solo album, it’s ironic that outside of Real Shit’s confessionals, Bas sounds most comfortable and self-assured when rapping next to Cole, who appears here on three songs. On “Home Alone,” he adopts Cole’s sputtering flow, trading traumatic anecdotes and flexes over bouncy synths and drum work from producers T Minus and Cubeatz. “Passport Bros” comes across like a more leisurely version of their previous track “Tribe,” with its bright guitars and drum shuffle sauntering underneath stories of lovestruck, boozy boat rides. On a more structured album, a song like this would welcome a sunny moment after intense reflection. But here, it feels far removed from the album’s concept and speaks to where Bas’ interests and talents are best suited. Once hailed by The FADER as Dreamville’s heir apparent, Bas wants to be all things to all people. But as a solo artist, he winds up doing the one thing he feared most: spreading himself too thin.