When Sage Elsesser first began anonymously self-releasing his music, listening to him felt like urgent an ear towards a bed room door, eavesdropping on a troubled man and his muffled prayers. Contemplating the neighborhood he’d sprouted from—trendy Fairfax children, skateboards in a single hand and sponsorships within the different—his have an effect on was markedly sober, a bare-bones hush that foregrounded little greater than pen and paper, rhymes and loops. Since then, every of his albums as Navy Blue has been a examine in self-interrogation, reckoning with the issues closest to his conscience: household, spirituality, and the voices of his ancestors. All of the whereas, his sound has been steadily evolving from the sparse, confessional-booth digs of his earliest days, branching out to accommodate his increasing worldview. Progressively, the microphone hum has light, together with the scratchiness of the loops and the grainy languor of these grand piano swells: By final yr’s Methods of Understanding, it didn’t sound like we had been stealing secrets and techniques by a closed door anymore. Navy Blue was presenting a fully-produced snapshot of somebody who had grown up.
For all its existential baggage, this progress made Navy’s fourth LP really feel like a cornerstone of his saga, a glimpse of how he might rap with greater than only a distant snare in his headphones. Few moments handed the place he was alone—there was continuously a fellow vocalist, a seductive melody, or an ornate live-band association to maintain him heat within the nightfall of his turmoil. (“I can’t do that shit alone,” he sang on “Freehold,” and it sounded prefer it.) Scaling again these accouterments makes Memoirs in Armour, his first launch since leaving Def Jam, equally uncooked and rewarding. In a minimal report that elevates his voice, he ventures again into dusty early-career closets, commanding the no-frills confines he as soon as discovered his footing in. Stripped-down because the music could also be, his phrases carry greater than sufficient weight to fill out the room. On Memoirs, he doesn’t appear almost as excited about promoting soundscapes as sitting us down and telling us tough tales.
Though Navy isn’t preachy, his raps can depart you questioning whether or not you’re going to hell. A part of that is the sheer mass, the brooding existential glare, of the issues he reckons with: the circularity of life, the looming specter of loss of life, the cathartic gratitude that threads these items collectively. These are hefty topics in their very own proper, although Navy’s message is fortified by his disposition, the steely cadence he’s lengthy wielded to synthesize his heaviest burdens. Stern and unflappable, he spends Memoirs staring you within the eye, daring you to avert your gaze. Fittingly, there’s just one monitor right here (“Working Sand”) that eases his onslaught with one thing near a refrain; even then, he’s grim, as if studying his lyrics from a crystal ball: “Conceived, you born, you reside, you die/My mama mentioned don’t rush it, I can’t perform with my delight.” He’s proper—it isn’t delight that traces his voice, however reverent longing, stripping the partitions of his previous selves then learning the particles.
Memoirs in Armour attracts from a deep bullpen of visitor producers, together with the soulful Budgie (“Take Heed”), who labored extensively on Methods of Understanding, and Chuck Strangers (“Boulder”), who shares Navy’s meditative East Coast stomping grounds. For all of the prowess they pack on their very own, it’s compelling to see them take a backseat, parting the Pink Sea for the rugged prophet at middle stage. It’s much more compelling to observe Navy navigate the dry earth. “Time Slips,” a jarring eulogy of his sullen previous, opens with fairly the candidate for Introspective Hip-Hop’s pledge of allegiance: “That is the primary time anyone would ever say this on a rap track, however are you able to flip me down?” Somber as he could sound, his imaginative and prescient is as clear as ever. “Despair was the start of Navy Blue,” he raps. “My message is to serve a better you.” He’s speaking to us, however he might simply as effectively be speaking to himself.
