I think September has to be my favourite month this year so far. We're eating this month! On the 2nd, Isaiah Rashad finally put out The Sun's Tirade, after a 2 year silence. The same day, Travis Scott premiered his highly-anticipated sophomore effort Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight. And later on that day, Fabolous released another fire tape, The Level Up, the sequel to the 2015 Summertime Shootout mixtape. September 8, nobody really put out shit. But just last week, Mac Miller released The Divine Feminine, an album that continues to show and prove the evolution of Mac's music. And now, this is the album I've been waiting for. Forget the others, this is it, guys!
In case you haven't seen the title and cover, I'm talking about Chicago rapper Mick Jenkins. Ever since listening to his breakthrough mixtape The Water[s] last year, I've been hooked onto his music and almost everything he's been doing. His sound and lyricism continues to impress me, and in my opinion, he really doesn't disappoint. Everything he has put out from Trees & Truths to now has been fire.
Mick has been working on his debut album, The Healing Component, for some time now, even before the release of The Water[s]. He has made some anticipation, releasing the EP, Wave[s] in 2015, and putting out a few joints throughout most of 2016, including the SIP! double single ($3,000 Advice/Grenade Theory), "The Artful Dodger" and "Sunkissed" with theMIND. He also previewed a few album tracks both on Twitter & Snapchat, and also during his live performances in festivals, which also interested fans (including myself) and increased their anticipation for the album. And in July, he even secured a guest appearance of Canadian electronic group BADBADNOTGOOD's fourth album, IV, on the song "Hyssop of Love".
He didn't really start rolling out/promoting the album until this August, when he finally released its first single "Spread Love", which was preceded by a bunch of SoundCloud throwaways. He followed that up with the BADBADNOTGOOD-assisted single "Drowning", which was released with an epic & deep accompanying music video. Out of the two singles, "Drowning" was the one that got the most positive reception, with many praising the video's concept and also the direct references to Eric Garner's unfortunate death.
But The Healing Component finally came out yesterday, and God damn, was I excited. As soon as I came back home from school, I instantly went and pressed play on the album. 5 seconds in, and I was already hooked. I waited 2 years for this, and it really didn't disappoint. The album's concept is pretty simple: it's about love. For the past 2 years, we've heard about the album and thought it was gonna be focusing on water, especially after The Water[s] dropped and amazed everyone with the water metaphor of truth. But we see that the water/truth has sentiments such as this. The same way Mick used water as a metaphor for truth, he uses THC, the main ingredient in cannabis, as a metaphor for love, comparing THC's healing capabilities to love. So love is not only a drug, but is the healing component.
In the title track intro, Mick thanks God for THC, while spitting some fire, giving listeners a glimpse of what to expect. And throughout the 15-track album, Mick spends the 60 minutes rapping about love. He goes deeper into the concept of love, as he tries to make a conversation out of it and he doesn't fail to impress. It's so dope and he really dives in deep into the love concept so well. The 2 singles "Spread Love" and "Drowning" already gave us an insight, especially with the latter song's powerful video, but with this album, it's interesting how Mick really steps us his lyricism and content. "Strange Love" is a song that sees him touch on a range of various topics, such as cultural appropriation, police brutality, racism, slavery and how the young generation is like nowadays. "As Seen in Bethsaida" is a short one-verse wonder from Mick as he tells listeners to not lose the love, and that it's underappreciated nowadays.
One thing about The Healing Component is that it has a lot of biblical references, which is something that can interest a lot of people who have a Christian background. This isn't the first time Mick has brought out his Christian side as his third mixtape Trees & Truths even had a few skits taken from a TV adaptation of Adam & Eve. In "Spread Love", Mick says that he's trying to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, spreading God's word. Another example is the interview skits on the album, where he says that Jesus's mission was to show and spread love through his message and that his love for us made him die for our sins. And "As Seen in Bethsaida" is actually named after a place in the New Testament, where Jesus fed the 5,000. In the final interview skit at the end of "F***ed Up (Outro)", he says that love came to him as a focus as it was Jesus's focus when he came down to Earth.
Mick gets a lot of people on the album, and they do their job very well. Ravyn Lenae's vocals on "Communicate" are beautiful, and her voice is fawkin' soothing, man. theMIND's contributions proves how his chemistry with Mick is A1, especially on "Prosperity", where he actually comes with a decent rap verse. J-Stock's verse really impressed me on "Love, Robert Horry" and it's the fact that I haven't even heard of the dude, so it really got me eager to hear more from him. Noname did her thing on "Angles", and her flow on that song is flawless, man. This is why I love her so much! Xavier Omar did his thing on that hook too. Michael Anthony came through on "F***ed Up (Outro)" with the ad-libs.
The production on here has improved from before. Trees & Truths and The Water[s] were known to have a pretty authentic hip-hop sound. Wave[s] saw Mick experiment with his sound, and even try at singing his hooks. The sound on the EP was a lot more upbeat, compared to his other projects. But now, on The Healing Component, we can see how Mick's production has amazingly progressed, thanks to THEMPeople. "As Seen in Bethsaida" is on some next level shit. Even if the overall song felt short as if something was missing, you can't deny the fire production and Mick's flow on this joint. I loved the beat on "Love, Robert Horry". That shit banged like a MF! "Drowning" has such a progressive beat from BADBADNOTGOOD, and the live instrumentation is amazing. The way it progresses just amazes me. "Communicate" was wavey AF! KAYTRANADA killed it on the boards, I played that song over 5 times and I was fully vibing out to it. "Plugged" is a lot slower than most of the tracks on the album, and it still impresses me. And the title track intro is on another level, that production is amazing.
But let's give it up for Mick's progression as an artist. Forget about the wavey ass production and how he delivered with the concept with love, this guy has really changed and knew how to evolve. I swear his lyricism has really stepped up on this album. We get bars such as "She want a nigga that can sing/But she only ever wanna hear the C-notes" and "Lot of people like to dance around/The point I couldn't even bust a waltz around it". Mick really raps his ass off on this album, and his flow has even gotten better. I remembered when I heard him try and attempt at singing on Wave[s], and he was actually pretty decent. But his singing has lowkey improved on here, y'know. He had them vocals on "Drowning", and his adlibs on the title track, "Strange Love" and "Spread Love" were nice AF.
Overall, The Healing Component is just incredible. It's been 2 years since Mick's been working on this, and it was worth the wait. I had very HIGH expectations and it just blew me away. He really played around with the love concept very well, using biblical references and THC (the main ingredient in cannabis) as a metaphor to say love is a drug and is the healing component. The production is on another level, a lot more experimental and is definitely a step up from his previous two projects. Mick's lyricism has really improved and has even got more impressive, spreading a very positive message that needs to be heard on the album. And I say this a lot, but there was hardly any bad tracks on the album, it was fire from start to finish. It was cohesive AF and tied together very well. I was really into the album and wasn't bored at all while listening to this. In fact, it really gets better with every listen. It's just sad that this might be overlooked by the masses. It's an album that needs to be heard by the world. Probably the most lyrically-driven and focused album so far this year. Love is life. Love is the healing component. Spread love...
Best Tracks: "The Healing Component", "Strange Love", "Spread Love", "Drowning", "Angles", "Communicate", "Love, Robert Horry", "Plugged", "1000 Xans", "Daniel's Bloom", "Prosperity", "As Seen in Bethsaida"
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