The Iceberg is the follow-up to last year’s instrumental The Odd Tape and a small EP he released last year called Alwasta. But if you ask me, it’s the first followup to The Good Fight, one of my favourite hip hop records of 2015. “Prolific”, clearly, barely begins to describe Oddisee’s frequent output.

This time around, Oddisee has a lot more to say. Oddisee is a great emcee, but his production has often overshadowed his vocal work for me. His voice often takes a backseat to the instrumentation. (The Odd Tape was the maturation of that style; it was completely instrumental and, of course, excellent.) On The Iceberg, Oddisee’s voice is clearer than it’s ever been.

And he has a lot to say. About “Things” (the lead single) that are bringing him down, politics, race, religion — it goes on. Oddisee isn’t shy. “You Grew Up” is an outstanding song about immigration and racial tension in America. “Rain Dance” is a song about Oddisee’s musical and financial journey — but it’s also a tremendous beat.

And therein lies the difference between The Iceberg and every other Oddisee record. Odd has always been a lyrical fellow; he’s an incredible rapper and a gifted writer. But with his voice sharing equal responsibility with the instruments, it sounds like what he’s saying is more important than ever.

Oddisee is one of the most conscious rappers out there, and The Iceberg sees him growing even more conscious and self-aware. That’s a good thing. In 2017, we need more voices like Oddisee.

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The Easy Truth is the first time the two rappers have collaborated together. It’s an interesting mix that won’t be obvious until you listen to it, but putting these two together to rap over vintage, often piano-laced beats is a stroke of genius.

Brown’s beats are sensationally old-school. There’s no other way to put it: if you’re looking for old school rap, there’s no better record this year. There are obvious similarities between the beats Brown makes and the ones Kanye was making for Common fifteen years ago.

Tracks like “Jordans & a Gold Chain” even feature Nina Simone-style samples reminiscent of “Diamonds Are Forever”, but with a strong dash of morose sentiment. Apollo isn’t making a “happy” hip hop record. As often as we long for the golden days of hip hop, he’s preserving them with the knowledge that things haven’t improved.

If anything, the Brown and Skyzoo are interested in talking about how the music, the culture, and the realities of blackness in America is getting worse. That either sits well with you or makes you giggle. It mostly makes me giggle — nothing is static in life, and the record’s longing for the “golden days” of hip hop feels a little silly. But it doesn’t ruin the music: as much as it’s about hip hop, it’s also a discussion about the way the black community has frayed over the past decade and a half. Or perhaps how things have mostly stayed the same.

On the first track (“One in the Same”), Skyzoo raps about avoiding the back of a cop car growing up. It sounds like a challenge. Sadly, things haven’t changed. And at that moment, that’s the point: things haven’t changed for black people, particularly our black youth.

On the flip side, Skyzoo brings incredibly flow and poetry to the game on The Easy Truth. There’s a clear emphasis in the mix — and in the styling — on his vocal performance, and it doesn’t disappoint. Maybe it’s the melancholic beats, but Skyzoo’s performance is elevated throughout to become something truly special.

And that’s the saddest part of The Easy Truth: it’s a tremendous record, made by two brilliant minds who play well together. But it doesn’t feel of this time. It feels very much of a time, but that time was over a decade ago.

If I’m being honest, I love that sound. I love the ’90s hip hop sound. But I don’t love it in the nostalgic sense. I just love how inventive it is within its own constraints. The Easy Truth feels inventive, even if it is an echo — and that’s what matters the most.

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To that point: the same week that Chance the Rapper decides to drop a new mixtape, Oddisee is doing promotion for his new instrumental mixtape on NPR.

To be clear, The Odd Tape is not a terribly weird record. It’s a laid-back instrumental hip hop record that feels like a Saturday off for a busy guy. The track list reads that way too: song titles like Alarmed, Right Side of the Bed, No Sugar No Cream, On the Table, Out at Night, and Still Sleeping are indicative that the tracks are perhaps thematically connected only by the pursuit of a daily activity list.

It’s a record that’s well-suited to making eggs on a Saturday morning, getting a bit of work done mid-day, or lounging around at the gym, but it’s clearly not making any lyrical statements. (Oddisee is likely saving all of those for his big album release this fall.) What it is doing is suggesting that it’s okay to relax a little bit, to enjoy the day.

With The Odd Tape, Oddisee isn’t purposefully trying to be different (even though he’s usually different by nature). In this case, it’s just him noting that it’s an unusual mixtape because it’s completely vocal-less. This is his time to have fun at the boards and experiment a little bit, maybe try out some new things, focus on textures, and create a hip hop record your kids can hear you listening to, or a hip hop record that won’t get you riled up after a long day at work.

Oddisee is stepping into the avant-garde instrumental hip hop realm, and he’s doing a great job of it.

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