Album: USEE4YOURSELF

Artist: IDK

Released: July 9, 2021

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Standout Features: Offset, Westside Gunn, SiR, T-Pain, Lucky Daye, Rico Nasty, Sevyn Streeter

Who is IDK

IDK, born Jason Mills is a Bowie, Maryland rapper whose first mixtape was released in 2014. At this point, he rapped under the name JayIDK. Mills started to garner attention with his second mixtape, SubTrap. Accounts suggest the mixtape stands either for Suburban Trap or Trap with Substance, but what’s clear is that even early in his career, IDK was able to stand out amongst his peers. Early reviews skew towards the positive side of mixed, with much of the praise focusing on his esoteric rap style and the varied production. He followed the release with his third mixtape, Empty Bank in 2016, joined TDE’s Isaiah Rashad on tour, and in 2017 continued his recorded output with his first full length album, IWASVERYBAD. Inspired in part by his time spent in a correctional facility for weapons charges, IWVB continued Mills’ progression of left-of-center, inspired and brutally honest songwriting. At this point, Mills dropped Jay from his name and began performing under the name IDK. His next release, IDK and Friends 🙂, was an EP that featured collaborations between IDK and artists like Rico Nasty, Maxo Kream, Denzel Curry and fellow DMV artist Wale. Shorter in length but no less compelling, IDK and Friends 🙂 was the final step that he needed to release his debut studio album.

Titled Is He Real?,the album documents IDK’s struggle with religion and understanding faith in God, his troubled upbringing and the death of his mother. The cover even speaks to the biblical parable of The Sheep and the Goat. Per Genius:

The artwork for the album represents this struggle further, as it is a reference to the Sheep and the Goats Parable. Specifically, it is a direct representation of this quote: “He will set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.” (Matthew 25:33)

The album features DMX, Tyler, the Creator, Burna Boy and JID. While varied sonically and never overshadowed by his featured artists, critical reception to Is He Real? was more mixed than IWVB. Many found it to be less cohesive than IWVB and held back by its playlist-like sequencing. There is some validity to the criticisms, but you can see flashes of his genius in songs like “December” where IDK and Burna Boy trade melodies to the rhyme of Muder She Wrote, or “No Cable,” buoyed by GLC’s familiar and warm hood prayers. The one criticism that I disagree with, however, is the weakness in the variety of Is He Real?’s production. In my opinion, it works far more than it doesn’t. More importantly, it foreshadows how IDK would approach the production for his next studio album and the subject of this write-up: USEEMENOW.

What is USEEMENOW

Released in the midst of 2021, USEEMENOW is an album that refines IDK’s myriad strengths to a much finer point. He himself has considered his primary art to be production and rap to be secondary, and as evidenced from the start of the album (3018091821), it’s clear that the sonic aspects will be important. Every sound, from the pumping of limbs in a run to the buzz of a fly that’s slapped away, feels expertly placed in the track. While this write-up won’t go track-by-track, I wanted to point this out because the album itself is enveloping, and truly recorded in a way that rewards a focused and distraction-free listen. Part of this is because of how vibrant and sonically layered the production is and part of this is because IDK’s rapping rewards a close listen. His flows often interpolate other melodies and rap elements (Red), lending his flows a chameleon-like versatility.

I hesitated to mention this, but I must acknowledge the verse by Jay Electronica in Red. Despite how impressive his flows or rhymes may be, it’s a sad fact that he has glaringly anti-vax lines in here. It’s a blemish on this song and on this album, and I think everyone should make sure they take proper steps to protect themselves from COVID-19 as best they can.

Looking at this album conceptually, it helps to see it in two parts. The first is IDK’s womanizing, isolated sense of self. He’s perfectly aware of his status as independent, both in his career Santa Monica Blvd and his love life (Red). He’s a man who struggles to connect with love, instead losing his otherwise mindful self to lust and mistrust (10 Feet, Puerto Rico). For this version of IDK, money rules it all, his competition surrounds him and even the escape of sex and love serve only as temporary distractions. This version of IDK dominates the front half of this album, but the second half allows us a view of IDK’s introspection. He self-diagnoses his behaviors, attributing them to the fractured relationship he had with his late mother (1995). There’s a momentum to this half of the album, an unsettling rise that builds to the heartbreaking revelation that he is a survivor of sexual assault (Hey Auntie). It’s tragic to hear his confession, to know that every boastful and headstrong line was a bluff to mask some of the most immense pain imaginable that comes from such a horrible betrayal of trust. Once the lynchpin is pulled, though, the floodgates open, and suddenly IDK is able to verbalize the ways in which he felt let down by his mother, and that despite his love for her, the way he grew up fucked him up (Cry in Church). The final song of the album loops back to his previous release, addressing the ultimate question on IS HE REAL? Put succinctly, the question of whether an all-knowing, all-loving God is real is impossible to answer until you’ve realized love in yourself (Closure).

Why Should I Listen to USEEMENOW

Despite how heavy USEEMENOW is at times, it is also a relatively easy listen. That’s part of its genius, I think. Songs like “Peloton” are catchy and quotable, “Keto” exemplifies the dancefloor energy that IDK is so good at utilizing and songs like “Shoot My Shot” allow IDK to be in his rapper bag with full aplomb. For every fault lobbed at IDK for albums like IDK and Friends 🙂 and IS HE REAL?, he manages to polish those into gemstone moments that are truly unique in comparison to much of his competition.

USEEMENOW is a truly beautiful album, a beautiful showcase of growth and versatility and honesty and vulnerability from IDK. He’s described the album as the one he needed to make to be a better person, and it’s evident that there was a huge amount of baggage that he has started to let go of in this record. The journey that this record carried me on was one that I could not predict, and one that was imminently relatable as a black man in America.

Though my circumstances are very different from what IDK experienced, I can also say I know friends and acquaintances who, through their own admission or behaviors, struggled to break from the trauma of their youth. Kids who were cut off by their families who grew to idolize money and equate it with security, kids who lost the understanding of safety and boundaries because of an uncle or an aunt or a stepfather or a second cousin who betrayed them physically or emotionally, adults who are having to redefine what being a parent means because it wasn’t until they were grown that they really had no healthy template of fatherhood.

And that’s the true purpose of art, isn’t it? To make something for listeners in which they see not only themselves in a new light but the people, places and circumstances around them? Isn’t the truest of art the kind that lets you walk away with a bit more empathy and understanding for others? It’s what IDK achieves here so fully, in my opinion, and it’s an album that lends itself not to comparison to other artists but a celebration of who we see before us, fully, for the first time.

Can We Talk About USEEMENOW?

This album has songs that are lighter and more catchy, and deeply personal confessionals. How do you feel about the duality of this album? Does it shine more in the lighter, hook-driven songs or the more personal and confessional ones?

Given the myriad features, interpolations and references on this album, what are your favorites? Least favorites?

Having listened to this album, where do you rank it among the other albums you’ve listened to this year?

Thanks for reading, everyone.