red vinyl version! Jay Rock shrugs off the delays that plagued his early career and settles into another quietly amazing album! Whether sharing his actual beliefs or adopting those he grew up around, Rock fully embodies a perspective from the inner city looking out, less celebrating his outlook than walking us through how he got there. It's a method that recalls one of rap's great storytellers, Scarface, who Rock has actually grown to sound like at times. He takes meaningful pauses between wordy bars on "For What it's Worth" and "Broke +-," he favors down-home piano instrumentals— although he doesn't delve quite as far into trauma as the Houston OG, he's increasingly posing himself as a West Coast spiritual successor.
Accompanying this increased maturity are far fewer neck-snapping beats than we heard on 90059, which are instead replaced by some that are more muted and in tune with where the rest of rap is right now. For every "Bloodiest," a RZA-style taste of samurai noir, there's a "Rotation 112th," a song that uses similar sounds but to much more pop-friendly ends. You don't usually think of an artist getting poppier as a sign of maturity, but on Redemption, Rock seems to have settled into a place in which he can play around with some modern sounds without losing his essence. It's like a dyed-in-the-wool '60s hippy deciding in 1977 that he can enjoy a few disco cuts in the club without being a sellout.
| A1 | The Bloodiest | 3:03 |
| A2 | For What It's Worth | 3:08 |
| A3 | Knock It Off | 3:11 |
| A4 | ES Tales | 3:31 |
| A5 | Rotation 112th | 3:32 |
| A6 | Tap Out | 3:20 |
| B7 | OSOM | 5:23 |
| B8 | King's Dead | 2:41 |
| B9 | Troopers | 3:23 |
| B10 | Broke +- | 2:54 |
| B11 | Wow Freestyle | 2:55 |
| B12 | Redemption | 3:31 |
| B13 | WIN | 3:35 |
