Big Sean-Dark Sky Paradise-Official Album Thread (2/24/15)

PREVIEW: BIG SEAN’S “DARK SKY PARADISE” SERVES AS HIS COMING OUT PARTY

This past weekend was a pretty eventful one for Big Sean. As the Grammy Awards rolled through Los Angeles, it was the California born-Detroit raised G.O.O.D. Music mainstay that made one of the biggest impressions of anyone throughout the weekend. Although Kanye West’s antics during and after the popular awards show, it was his protege that got most of the people talking throughout the weekend.

It started on Friday afternoon when Sean invited select members of the media and industry folks to listen to his brand new album, Dark Sky Paradise in it’s entirety. The listening session, which took place in Soho House in Los Angeles, started off with a video montage that chronicled the rappers journey from his humble beginnings and rapping for Kanye West outside of a radio station to where he is now. Narrated by the MC and devoid of any background music, the video really hammered home Sean’s trials and tribulations since the release of his critically-panned yet moderately commercially successful sophomore album, Hall Of Fame.

He would touch on his failed engagement with Naya Rivera, the passing of his grandmother, falling for Ariana Grande, and his own struggles for growth as a solo artist. The album has a decidedly more focused and serious tone that hasn’t been seen since the release of his masterful mixtape, Detroit. The loss of his grandmother seems to be the focal point of Sean’s growth, which he briefly speaks on in his single, “Blessings.”

The album begins with the lo-fi produced “Dark Sky (Skyscrapers).” Much like on the intro for Detroit, and intros of his past work, Sean catches you up on what you may have missed about his journey. Sure by now, you know all about how he got here (rapping for ‘Ye at a radio station, album pushbacks, mixtape delays, eventual success), but this is the first intro where he specifically states why he’s here. In the past, he’s always spoke about how proud he was of his grandmother and the strength that she showed throughout her life. Mildred V. Leonard, who passed away at the age of 93 this past December, is as inspirational as it gets. She was black female Captain in World War 2 and was a police officer in the city of Detroit. When Sean dives deep into his own consciousness to find strength in his life, he often times mentions the strength her grandmother had in a time when it wasn’t easy to have it. That is driven home on the album’s intro, which sonically serves as an interlude to “Blessings,” featuring Drake.

The third song which features Kanye West and distant adlibs from Travis $cott is titled “All Your Fault.” Produced by West, OG Webbie and Mano, it is an early stand-out on the album. Riding off of the momentum of “Blessings,” it features ‘Ye and Sean trading verses back and forth in the style of their early hit “Marvin Gaye & Chardonnay” but without the cheekiness of their earlier collaborations. The song features the soulful production precision of earlier West music with the hard-hitting energy of recent G.O.O.D. collaborations like “Mercy” and “Clique.” That song leads right into the E-40 featured hit “IDFWU.”

The massive “IDFWU” is followed by a song which has the potential to be just as big a hit for Sean called “Play No Games.” Produced by Key Wane and featuring Chris Brown and Ty Dolla $ign, the song has just as much soul as anything Sean has put out in his career. Much like all the collaborations on this album, and contrary to his past work, Sean doesn’t let the feature artists of the song overpower him on the record. Brown and Ty’s contributions to the records are mostly there to enhance. While Brown handles hook duties on the record, Ty Dolla brings it home at the end with a memorable bridge that drew a round of applause once the song ended in the theater. It was one of those songs that you hear once and knew that you were going to hear it over and over again in the coming months.

“Deep” was a record that I wasn’t crazy about as it started. However, a memorable Lil Wayne verse saved all of that at the very end. While most would probably think Wayne would take his spot to talk about how great he is, he dedicated the entire verse to Sean’s lyrical prowess. He explains in vivd detail why Sean doesn’t get as much credit as he deserves, pointing mostly to his clean cut image devoid of any tattoos or gang affiliations. Wayne says that if Sean was more like the Young Money maestro, alluding to his own criminal past, tattoos, and gang signs, that Sean would be more celebrated. He details how hard it is for a young rapper to bare his soul on records about family, fame, betrayal and love while ending his stanzas with “man, that s**t deep” like a lyrical comma.

The soulful tone throughout the album hits a crescendo on “One Man Can Change The World” featuring West and John Legend. While this Kanye feature is a lot more subdued than the earlier “All Your Fault,” John Legend does his John Legend thing where he makes us pass around a collection plate mid-song. If this writer was executive producing this album, he would’ve ended the album right there on this track. However, Sean’s “Outro” serves as a nice bookend to a project that serves as his best work since Detroit. In many aspects, it is better than Detroit because of the cohesion and the laser-like focus on this record. It seems like Sean refused to stick to one flow on each song and when he uses one verse to ride the beat, he almost always on cue goes for a double-time verse on his next stanza.

The bonus cuts have a decidedly different tone than the rest of the album. Although the songs are good, you can tell that they didn’t fit with the desired theme of Dark Sky Paradise. The PARTYNEXTDOOR-featured “Deserve It” has the OVO Sound crooner in more of a rapping pocket than a singing pocket. While the fun-loving “Research,” featuring Sean’s main squeeze Ariana Grande, has just as much single-potential as any song on the album. “Research” serves as an anthem for people in relationships who live in a social age of finding out everything about a person you are romantically interested in on the internet, in your cell phone, or through mutual friends. Sean turns the tables on women in the song who fish for something wrong in phones, DMs and more while name-dropping famous artists that a women he may have met that may have been linked with. Artists like Trey Songz, Drake and Chris Brown are rapped about by Sean, in which he mentions that they might all laugh and giggle when he would bring a girl around, knowing that she may have been “loving the crew” in more ways than one.

All in all, Dark Sky Paradise is a welcomed return to form for Sean who seemingly had the world in his hands in 2012. He refused to be out-rapped on any record on the G.O.O.D. Music collaboration album, Cruel Summer, and followed up those standout performances with what was arguably the best mixtape of that year in Detroit. While Hall Of Fame had its moments, it seemed to linger on entirely too long while a lot of the songs were heavy on features but wasn’t as lyrically dense as Detroit.

Dark Sky Paradise is concise, focused, and soulful. It’ll be hard to find fault in his latest work. Sean’s already a success, but this album should be the project that brings Sean to the upper-echelon of his rap peers. Drake took the first step and J. Cole joined him after the release of 2014 Forest Hills Drive. Only time will tell if this is Sean’s coming out party. It should be.

Dark Sky Paradise hits stores on February 24th, 2014.

http://thestashed.com/2015/02/10/preview-big-seans-dark-sky-paradise-serves-coming-party/

Big Sean - One Man Can Change The World (ft Kanye West & John Legend)
http://www.sharebeast.com/wt9rvfk5c00s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CC5u0eNT34

Album leaked