Hip-hop has more than a few labels, one of them is “street poetry.” The amount of emotion and feeling that can be found in the bars of hip-hop has risen in the mainstream. Artists such as Juice Wrld and Post Malone have shown off their “emo rap” aesthetic, showing off strong emotion in their work. Speakea5y shows he is just as passionate, if not more so, than his contemporaries with his new album, Circles.
Circles is an album with a theme, as the tracklist suggests. Though the cosmic names given to the tracks speaks nothing to the grounded and very real passion of Speakea5y and his message. The entire album is charged with a heavy dose of social commentary throughout as Speakea5y riffs from the get-go about the state of society today. The starting track Apollo shows this off well, with bars about the double-sided nature of life, the man behind the man and how he says “everything leads back to money.” His emotions and anger about the inequality he witnesses is palpable in every track, yet his flow is buttery smooth across all of them. Speakea5y never devolves into a crazy yelling fit or seems to lose his cool amongst the passionate lyrics on display here. This is especially true on the track Mars. The track stands out from the rest as being a more introspective one. The passion he holds for his views on the outside world in other tracks seem to culminate here in a very personal way.
With Speakea5y cataloging hardships such as skipping a birthday to put in a day at the studio. It is a defining track for the album, giving the listener a good understanding of the struggles of being an artist today. Going into topics such as how even without a record label he still has to deal with other entities capitalizing off of his success. It is a very personal track and deserves a listen to hear all the things he lists his money over. The track Luna proves to be a fun surprise off of the album as well. The intro lulls you in with a very retro outer-space beat, so it hits hard when the track hits you with “You better work!” The entire track is a trippy ride through a nostalgic 80’s outer-space style aesthetic with heavily distorted vocals to nail it all home. The instrumental completely drives the track, which makes it something to break the serious lyrical tone of the album.
Circles is an interesting album. It serves as a look of how Speakea5y feels about the issues of today and how it affects him. The look into Speakea5y’s personal life and his own opinions of not only the world but himself are emotionally charged and delivered with a disciplined power. The features are good, and the mixing and production are fantastic. Without a label backing him up, Speakea5y’s work here is nothing but very impressive.
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