Raury: All We Need

Raury made his big debut in 2014 with the folk-leaning EP Indigo Child, which was anchored by its single and centerpiece "God’s Whisper". That EP was a daring first statement with soulful alternative rock jams supercut with real, recorded fights he had with his mother. It was stuffed with big ideas, but it often had trouble wrangling them. Still, it effectively established Raury as this sort of genre migrant who existed adjacent to the rap world without sounding much like it. The singer-songwriter has a real sense for composition and a knack for ambiguity, and he, like his stylistic forebear André 3000, remains at arm's length from hip-hop, never quite a full-fledged rapper but certainly draped in the tropes of the genre, reaping the benefits of everything cool and useful that comes from identifying with it. He is literally indie rap, and his debut album, All We Need, searches further for perfect balance.

All We Need isn't the transcendent Raury project that’s been foreshadowed since he became a blog darling, the one that reconciles genre distinctions and renders them obsolete. It isn't ahead of its time or magnificent in scope. Instead, much like Indigo Child, it's merely an exhibition for a young creative still figuring out the true extent of his genius with as many hiccups. The wrinkles haven't been ironed out yet; his genre-mashing can be scatterbrained and even hollow. Sometimes, like on the RZA-featuring "CPU", it works well and sometimes, like on Big K.R.I.T.-featuring "Forbidden Knowledge", it completely misses the mark. Raury emerged with a fully formed aesthetic, but his sound, albeit fascinating, still needs time to incubate.

From start to finish, All We Need scans as Indigo Child Redux with similar pacing and nearly identical tropes. This one is anchored by its single, "Devil’s Whisper", which puts a slightly darker tint on the hand-clapping-around-the-campfire folk of its predecessor. The album is mostly a reprise of his boho hippie rap tunes, wandering in and out of folk territory with lots of stringy acoustic riffs, hedging toward rock with hip-hop spirit, casually blending influences like a Tumblr kid that grew up in a post-Napster world. The writing is angst-y and centric to a wide-eyed, teenage worldview: chasing girls and soothing parents and saving the Earth. On the opening title track, he sets the tone for his flower child vibes: "Don’t hate, my brother/ God is our friend/ I walked for miles and/ I see no end/ To the hate."

Many of the songs call for unity and love with several mentions of an impending Armageddon, and Raury tackles these huge topics with ambitious arrangements. On "Revolution", he pleads for divine intervention over strum-heavy riffs, throbbing 808 bass, hand drums, and vocal chops. On the slow-moving "Peace Prevail", which has a tempering rhythm and melting bass, he borrows André 3000's flow to rap about being a rap outlier ("Been by myself since the White T’s/ Been by myself since Dem Franchize Boyz did that dance on that hoe in the white tee") before praying for peace with a chorus of voices at his back. There’s significantly more rapping here than on his last release, and while dextrous rapping isn’t exactly his forte, there are moments where he finds his flow. It doesn't feel like he's gotten that much better at what he does, but he seems to be figuring it out. He's got people like Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello and underground Atlanta rapper Key! on the album to help him. With an album replete with Spanish guitar jams, wide-eyed hip-hop, and psychedelic rock k-holes, there isn't much ground left for Raury to cover. Now, he must figure out how to do it all just a little bit better.