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For the better part of a decade, Los has staked his claim as one of Detroit rap’s foremost hyperrealists. The stories of his reliably built, relentlessly grayscale world are thick to the point of suffocation with granular details of underworld operations. His music is unflinching and unglamorous, the kind of leaden street reporting that feels close enough to touch but distant and glassy-eyed, delivered with matter-of-fact gruffness. Negotiations go bad, burner phones ring off the hook, and houses smell of tar from whatever’s bubbling on the stove. He and his brother, WB Nutty, are prolific as a unit, but not intimidatingly so, leaving enough space between their releases for the uninitiated to find a way in and the diehard to catch their breath. Los has a keen understanding of economy, knowing how to keep an audience’s attention with a withering punchline or well-timed drop.
His latest album, Raquel Baby, populated DSPs on Christmas Day with little ceremony beyond a handful of Instagram promo posts sprinkled throughout December. There isn’t much information to be found about the record aside from the cover art and tracklist—you’ll have to scan the comments of each YouTube upload in hopes that the producer has claimed the credit—but it’s more considered than a stopgap upload meant to clear space on the studio hard drive. At a swift 21 minutes, it’s as lean, efficient, and hard-nosed as any of his past solo work, but it manages to stretch into strange, adventurous territory. In the opening cut, which is more sound collage than mission statement, Los cobbles together mentions of the name “Raquel” pulled from throughout his discography. It’s as inscrutable as it is trippy, but it sets up the album as a piece of devotional music, a declaration of love for family, appreciation for life, and dedication to the game.
Los usually favors production that jumps around the maximalist barrage of early 2000s Atlanta trap, the bullet-sweating pace of contemporary Michigan, the players’ ball silkiness of Doughboyz Cashout-era Detroit, and the chintzy symphonic thump of Mannie Fresh. All of those sounds are present on Raquel Baby, but where he often drains them of color, here, they’re dazzling and variegated, pushing against the boundaries of his usually hermetically sealed universe. The tracks have plenty of idiosyncrasies, like the ’80s orchestra stabs and splashy snare that keep “Dancing Wit the Devil” from being a boilerplate Flint template, or the SZA-like vocal sample flanked by glassy, muzak synths on “Abuse My Love.” “Put Ya Boots On” could be an anonymous “type beat” but for its New Orleans bounce influence in the kick drum pattern and tempo, and “Coach Carter” is a psychedelic triumph that riffs on the hypnotic keyboard line snaking through “Sippin’ on Some Syrup.”
This animated production pushes Los into deeper contemplation. He offers fewer of the harrowing vignettes of his previous work, instead taking a step back to ponder their impact. Over the rain-streaked Memphis blues of “Back on My Set,” Los explains how, where he’s from, it’s “either trap or die,” but that eventually, the two verbs become synonyms. He breathes a soul-deep sigh of relief on “Money Goin Money Coming,” pointing to the sky and granting, “The way I made it there and back, I know that had to be God.” In between the flexes and stone-faced warnings on “Real Rap (Outro),” Los offers some of his most heartfelt bars, memorializing loved ones that have passed and giving words of encouragement to those still stuck in the mud. Halfway through, we hear a brutally real moment: “My homegirl smoked crack, and I went to school with her/She got her head down when she see me roll through the hood/I crack a joke and make her smile, try to make her feel good.” There’s plenty of his signature bloodshot imagery, and his coarse voice still sounds like he’s croaking out every line like a final exhale. But there’s a new lightness in the music, an easy listenability that feels like an invitation.
