Isaiah Rashad’s Confessions
Rashad seemed somewhat out of step with the hip-hop mainstream when he first surfaced, and the gap has only grown in the years since then. Those OutKast albums he loves are about as old today as the Beatles’ albums were when OutKast was recording. Rashad’s previous release, “The House Is Burning,” had some tracks that tried to channel the rowdy energy of Generation Z hip-hop, but “It’s Been Awful” is more engrossing, partly because it seems to more carefully reflect the climate inside Rashad’s brain. Anthony (Moosa) Tiffith, Jr., is the president of T.D.E., and when I asked him to describe Rashad’s fan base, he said, “vibers,” though he conceded that this term might be a euphemism for stoners. To promote the album, Rashad’s team scheduled events not only in Los Angeles and New York but also in Dallas and San Diego—not traditionally strong hip-hop markets, but places where Rashad does especially well. Rashad told me that he knows the people at T.D.E. are particularly enthusiastic about his more aggressive, syllabically dense tracks, and Tiffith confirmed it. “I mean, we are a rap label,” Tiffith said. “He’s got this laid-back thing that he’s been doing real heavy, but we still want to hear him rap.”
On the day after the event on Broadway, Rashad and his team made their way out to Elsewhere, a night club in Bushwick, where he was performing a couple of free sets to celebrate the album. The crowd was enthusiastic and somewhat glassy-eyed, and people lined up patiently to buy records and merchandise, and to get a chance to meet Rashad. Selling music in person is generally not a great way to make money, but it’s a good way to make an impression on Billboard, which weighs physical album sales much more heavily than streams. In the end, “It’s Been Awful” made its début at No. 18 on the Billboard chart—a respectable number, but also a decline relative to its predecessor, which arrived at No. 7. For a successful but not world-conquering rapper like Rashad, making a living relies on making sure that fans continue to feel connected to him. More than one person at Elsewhere reminded him of a rainy concert at Pier 17, in 2021, when SZA showed up. SZA and Rashad were signed to T.D.E. around the same time. Their careers have lately diverged, though, as SZA has emerged as probably the best and most important R. & B. singer of her generation. On this night, as Rashad posed for pictures in Bushwick, SZA was a few miles away in Manhattan, walking the red carpet at the Met Gala. Tiffith told me that he was hoping “Boy in Red” could be a breakthrough for Rashad—the label had made accommodations to make sure that SZA had time to record her part. But he said that he wanted to be patient, and to encourage Rashad to be patient, too. “I think he’s got as much time as he needs,” Tiffith said.
Rashad seems happy, for now, to be working his way toward a sustainable life, and perhaps a sustainable career. Later this year, he is planning to go on tour, and he told me that, in order to make sure his lungs are at full strength, he plans to stop smoking cannabis. At Elsewhere, though, this prohibition was definitely not yet in effect, and he seemed to be in a good mood, despite the arduous promotional schedule, and despite the rather uncheerful tenor of the album he was promoting. After nearly an hour of signing and posing, he headed upstairs to the roof deck, where the sun was setting, and fans were waiting. A hip-hop show is almost invariably a celebration, no matter the subject matter of the rhymes, and Rashad seemed energized by the sight of a packed audience, ready to rap along. Halfway through, he performed “M.O.M.,” from the new album, which has bleak lyrics about something resembling cocaine psychosis, matched to a suitably frantic beat. “I know y’all ain’t got a lot of room, but if you can find it, and you feel like it, dance,” he said. People started moving, and near the end of the song, Rashad retreated to the d.j. booth to watch them, and for a moment he looked satisfied. ♦
