It took just over two years for fans of Saba to get a follow-up to his breakthrough ComfortZone project, but just about a year removed from his last full-fledged release, the west side Chicago native returned with a tightly-wound project, Care For Me, that hit streaming platforms and the like late last night.
Any music from Saba is going to be filled with passionate bars and a sort idiosyncratic thoughtfulness that seeks to bring you into his brain. If ComfortZone was his coming to terms with himself and Bucket List Project was his spreading his wings, this project appears to be a more introspective look at himself as a way of understanding the world at large. To be sure, the last year has been one of many ups and downs for Saba, who lost his cousin John Walt last year and then subsequently had perhaps the most successful year of his life, with his PIVOT brethren by his side. That series of experiences would be enough for anyone to take a long look at things, and that’s precisely what we get from one of the most consistent rappers Chicago has seen in recent memory.
On the music side, features are kept fairly low here. theMind makes a cameo on the opening track, “Busy/Sirens”, Kaina gets a further nod from the higher-ups, beautifully handling her part on “Fighter” and, after a project away Chance The Rapper finds his way back to Saba’s tracks on “Logout”. Online, Saba stressed listeners to take the album in for the first time by themselves, describing it as a distinctly solo journey through soundscapes that he feared may be lost in a group dynamic. We’ve done so a few times, its about time you did too. Check out the project below, streaming on all major platforms and, of course, catch the new stuff spinning on Mild Sauce Radio every night at 8 PM!