Toward the end of QUARTERTHING, a distinction is made: “There are two types of people in this world: the type of people that look and the type of people that see.” Joey Purp has long been in the latter camp, possessing both a steely awareness and the ability to detail the nuances of the world before him. He is proudly a dope dealer’s son but wants a different future for his own. He’s so attuned to his own contradictions and the ways they reflect the communities that made him, that he often sees all the angles—a byproduct of a life spent straddling binaries. QUARTERTHING is where everything he’s seen starts to bleed together. It’s an expansive album that casually balances his puffed-up swaggering and his conscience-stricken morality.
He’s been vocal about his commitment to defying the expectations of what it means to be a Chicago rapper, something he’s been building toward since 2012’s The Purple Tape. QUARTERTHING is his most daring progression, rewrites the laws that previously governed his songs and takes a sledgehammer to any sonic barriers left. It’s a transformation similar to the one Vince Staples underwent from Summertime ’06 to Big Fish Theory, shifting from clear-eyed documentarian to composition-concentrated aestheticist without compromising the integrity of the powerful, personal stories captured inside. Some raps stumble upon episodes from his dealer past, others are all about securing the bag, but his actions speak louder than his words.
Many rappers contain multitudes, but Purp is among the most effortlessly pliable. He can be two different things in the same breath. On QUARTERTHING, he is a survivalist who is only a few steps removed from his days as a co-conspirator in a family drug enterprise and from making it out of a crime-adjacent life for good. He spends a lot of time dreaming, and reconciling those dreams with crushing realities: “Dreaming about the problems money bring/When you used to not having shit young niggas brag about everything,” on “Look at My Wrist.” You get the sense that he’s speaking directly to QUARTERTHING’s thesis: that Purp has entered the stage of his rap career where he’s seeing more money than he’s ever seen before, and this is him making a big show of that big payoff.
| A1 | –Joey Purp, Rayvn Lenae, Jack Red | 24k Gold/Sanctified | 4:01 |
| A2 | –Joey Purp, RZA | Godbody - Pt. 2 | 2:33 |
| A3 | –Joey Purp | Hallelujah | 2:15 |
| A4 | –Joey Purp | Elastic | 2:06 |
| A5 | –Joey Purp | Aw Sh*t! | 2:36 |
| A6 | –Joey Purp | Quarterthing | 3:09 |
| A7 | –Joey Purp | Paint Thinner | 2:33 |
| B1 | –Joey Purp, Cdot Honcho | Look At My Wrist | 2:58 |
| B2 | –Joey Purp | 2012 | 3:04 |
| B3 | –Joey Purp, Queen Key | Fessional/Diamonds Dancing | 3:26 |
| B4 | –Joey Purp | Karl Malone | 2:37 |
| B5 | –Joey Purp | Bag Talk | 2:31 |
| B6 | –Joey Purp | Lebron James | 2:19 |
| B7 | –Joey Purp, GZA | In The Morning | 0:31 |
