Album Review: Take Care by BigXThaPlug
BigXThaPlug realizes that something definitely needs to be done in his life. His potential breakout second album has endless soul, and it's hard to believe he's not already halfway to Texas legend.
The hip-hop culture is worried about its new generation. After a long time as the dominant genre, newcomers have increasingly needed help to establish themselves as long-term artists in recent years. It’s often diagnosed that today’s scene lacks album artists—kids willing to create well-thought-out complete works of art. This may be right, but we should recognize how much the album medium is shaped by its time.
For example, in the nineties, every Tom, Dick, and Harry had to produce at least feature-film length on record. Even artists who would have functioned better in small doses wanted to replicate Tupac’s double album success. The opposite is happening now: 30-minute albums are a blessing for some artists. Some things want to be short and sweet. However, as a result, artists who could potentially create monumental double albums are being compressed into thirty minutes.
Case in point: BigXThaPlug could have made a potential classic from the material on his new album. The man from Texas, who has repeatedly stood out in recent years with his thunderous voice and excellent beat taste, had double or triple the potential. This guy obviously has the blood of Scarface and 8Ball flowing through his veins. The storytelling, the sampled beats, the soul: here’s the stuff for a Southern rap Section.80, compressed into half an hour of TikTok format.
You can understand why the label people are betting on gimmick hype. His big single, also featured on this album, is called “Mmhmm” and samples “And the Beat Goes On” by the Whispers, a sample already immortalized by Will Smith’s “Miami.” But when you hear the song and the organ funk against the light-footed trap percussion, you realize that the track’s success isn’t just a novelty thing. BigX is an absolutely old soul and feels at home over these vintage sounds.
Accordingly, we get an album that digs as deep into music history as few of his contemporaries attempt. And the results are sometimes strikingly beautiful. The opening title track flips Willie Hutch’s “Tell Me Why Has Your Love”, the vocals in the chorus, and the horn section in the verses. Apart from producer Tony Coles choosing the trap route, this flip and mood could easily be laid on Ye’s The College Dropout.
BigX uses this super-thick vintage atmosphere to look deep inside himself. Despite largely refusing to go beyond the two-minute mark, he packs some impressive verses into the tracks. “Therapy Session” reflects a dialogue with a therapist, “Leave Me Alone” outlines how anxiety changes you due to fresh fame.
“2AM” brings really classic storyteller rap about a very dumb decision, including a plot twist ending. For this, BigX even cracks the biblical, almost proggy three-minute mark! “Law & Order” takes Veeze’s idea of borrowing from the famous crime drama vibes. This leads to some excellent trash talk and representation, just like singles such as “The Biggest” and “Back On My BS” do.
Take Care is a truly impressive tape: On one hand, it sounds so valuable, classy, elegant, and yet grooving throughout. Songs like “Lost the Love” take classics like the rare groove queen Gwen McCrae’s “It Keeps On Raining” and preserve both the dense atmosphere and the beautiful soul groove. And BigX has the aura, the voice, but also the rap skills to do justice to the impressive beats fully.
This album could have easily answered the longing for a new album artist if it hadn’t been so cramped into a short and TikTok-friendly format. If the man himself or the label had believed in it a little more, not every song would be just two parts and a hook long. You recognize the quality as it is, but you’re left with the feeling that they unnecessarily turned a fine-dining steak into a quick, dirty burger.
Great (★★★★☆)
Favorite Track(s): “Lost the Love,” “Therapy Session,” “2AM”