Amid the slew of clever, seamless, and versatile pop culture references on Rapsody's new album Please Don't Cry, one name gets a lot of particular love: Lauryn Hill. The buckets of ink spilled on the Fugees member's ambivalence to the spotlight become moot when compared to the musings of a fellow femcee. Rather than equate this absence to some sort of contrived deficiency, the North Carolina native chose to question what are the forces that drive artists to that space in the first place. Her answer affirms that she will not choose that path, but find another one that can provide similar catharsis, self-love, and clarity in the hurricane of fame and acclaim.
Furthermore, the five-year studio album wait for Please Don't Cry definitely feels justified due in large part to the personal weight and scope of its themes. Sonically and lyrically, Rapsody is as soulful, sharp, and wise as she's ever been, bolstered by a more tranquil albeit unshifting sonic pallet. But the difference is that the approach to themes including identity, grief, Black plight, sexuality, familial bonds, romance, mental health, and many more is much more blunt, personal, and direct than the grander concepts and stories behind LPs like Laila's Wisdom. While not every piece connects across this sprawling and dense project, its greatest achievement is not only the consistency of its quality, but also the compassion with which she translates her lived experience of growth into an equivalent body of work.
Please Don't Cry's Beats Keep It Cool
Please Don't Cry best characterizes this therapeutic approach through the calm cohesion of its production, which was mostly masterminded by BLK ODYSSEY, Major Seven, S1, Eric G, Hit-Boy, and more. The bread and butter is simple: warm bass, crisp percussion, heavenly background vocals, and light chords are all over this album. Not only does this create a lot of space, but it also highlights more subtle instrumentation in ways that more complicated beats would overshadow. Key examples are the fluttering guitar on "Look What You've Done," the gentle woodwinds on "That One Time," the watery synths on the cheeky self-love anthem "Lonely Woman," and the wandering keys on the titular interlude. However, some deviations don't hit as hard, such as the trite trap drum sequencing on "Black Popstar" with DIXSON or the boisterous "Back In My Bag."
That's not to say that this tracklist doesn't switch up in compelling ways, though, as the reggae chiller "Never Enough" with Keznamdi and Nicole Bus proves. The important part is the stasis that Please Don't Cry maintains when it returns to its boom-bap roots, and that ties Rapsody's themes together with ease and gives them the atmosphere to really breathe and develop in. Any addition to that pallet feels earned and welcome, like Erykah Badu's ethereal chorus on "3:AM," a charismatic (yet terribly mixed) Lil Wayne verse on "Raw" with Niko Brim, and a killer g-funk Monica flip from Bee-B on "DND (It's Not Personal)." Every piece lends a purpose to the overall thesis of self-betterment and self-consciousness, themes heavy enough to warrant calmer production curation. Of course, classically meditative sample worship on cuts like "God's Light" and "Stand Tall" keeps the old-school hip-hop heads happy.
Rapsody Wipes Off Her Tears
If there's any one thing that any rap listener should hone in on when it comes to Please Don't Cry, it's unmistakably Rapsody's pen. Whereas the production keeps things level, she begins the album with songs like "Marlanna" and "Asteroids" that set up her identity, her perception of self, and the totality of her aspirations, fears, skills, and passions. Little by little, the album opens itself up with more specific details, like a rumination on police brutality on "He Shot Me" or a reckoning with a family member's dementia (and also Alzheimer's later on in the tracklist) on "Loose Rocks" with wonderful contributions from Alex Isley. While the lyricism is very impressive throughout (such as the standout "Clinging to society who always label me, but can't define me quite entirely"), its graceful honesty and humility stands out here, not over-acrobatic wordplay or rhyme schemes.
Still, Please Don't Cry sometimes spins its own wheels in place thematically or takes too jarring and sharp of a turn off-road. One example of the latter is the dramatic "Diary Of A Mad B***h" with Bibi Bourelly, though there's also plenty of topical focus on other tracks to warrant these swerves from one theme to the next. There's Baby Tate's dreamy verse on "A Ballad For Homegirls," which is all about cutting an unfaithful and toxic relationship out of your life, plus a Mantragold-assisted ode to... well, "Faith." Family, God, self-worth, knowledge, and connection are the emotional pillars on this record, and Rapsody expertly links them across her life both in their totality and in their specificity. It's also worth mentioning how much she praises many of her female industry peers, and rallies against double standards separating them.
"The Only Way Out Is In"
Maybe that conflict is one of the things that Lauryn Hill wanted to avoid, something that neither we nor Rapsody may never find the answer to. But at least we know that the 41-year-old is finding her answers with her head held high, a note that Please Don't Cry beautifully summarizes. The album opened with "She's Expecting You" with actress Phylicia Rashad, who presumably plays a hair stylist or, perhaps in practice, informal therapist of Marlanna Evans'. The closing track "Forget Me Not" with Amber Navran sees her return to Rashad despite her previous state of distress, confusion, and guilt. It's a testament to perseverance, facing challenges head-on, and knowing oneself before pretending to know anything about the people around them.
There are plenty of obstacles in Rapsody's way that only time could move away, such as illness, grief, fame, or systemic discrimination. But that doesn't mean that she can't act on those problems from a personal standpoint, or that she can't put in the work to be at peace with the constant fight for brighter days the next morning. Please Don't Cry is a very healing-centric and tender album in that sense, giving listeners the assurance that Rapsody sought in herself. It's definitely not for the impatient, and some bloat can be cut out here and there, but it's the earnest result of a lot of reflection and consideration on the connective tissue across her life. As Rapsody found, and as you might find too, illusions of self-loathing can eventually lead out of that darkness to our deepest truths.