oddCouple - Liberation

Pitchfork 72

Over the last few years Chicago has been one of hip-hop’s most conspicuous artistic incubators. This year alone, the hip-hop and R&B artists Jamila Woods, Joey Purp, Saba, and Kweku Collins have enjoyed breakout attention as indie auteurs with respective solo projects. All of them have worked with Chance the Rapper and others in the same scene, and two are signed to the same label, Closed Sessions. Now, that label’s house producer, oddCouple, is getting his turn with a new record called Liberation, which gathers up a bunch of this familiar Chicago talent for a showcase compilation.

Born in Milwaukee but long based in Chicago, Zach Henderson adopted oddCouple as a solo act several years ago after initially sharing the name as half a duo. Henderson played bass and cello earlier in his life, and he now folds live instruments into his beats, which are warm and muffled and frequently meander towards breakdowns instead of looping back on themselves.

Liberation follows 2015’s Chatterbox, which oscillated between a soulful instrumental beat tape and a rappers' roll call. This new one is more fleshed-out and timely, and finds oddCouple doubling down on the recent success of his counterparts and elevating his own craft at once. There isn’t an outright misstep, but since many of the featured artists on Liberation have recently released their own singular statements, a few performances feel second-rate or less than vital. Still, nothing here screens like a called-in favor, and Henderson is a smart matchmaker.

Joey Purp stands out on “Visions,” a twinkling chipmunk soul loop that gets the producer’s characteristic build-it-up-to-break-it-down treatment. Purp is a casual, confident rapper with the rare knack to boil things down to palatability while avoiding cliche. “It’s the places we live in that they refuse to go/So when we speak about struggles they can refuse to know,” he raps. The woozy and feverish “Love Above” is set compellingly against a chorus that is upbeat and whimsical. The song switches up several times, back and forth between Kweku Collins and Jamila Woods, but its Woods’ wonky chorus that sticks.

Several songs on Liberation feature strings, but none feel as big as those near the end of the album. On “Hereditary” oddCouple rolls out the red carpet for GLC, a veteran Chicago rapper who quietly helped pave the way for the city’s current relentless indie bent. (“Why you ain’t signed?/Wasn’t my time,” he rapped triumphantly on Kanye West’s first album.) The emcee hasn’t lost a step or the slur in his voice, never a flashy rapper but always a commanding presence. The Cleveland artist and Closed Session signee Kipp Stone gets a deserved look here too, making the best of a thoughtful hook with his raspy baritone, shouting “Just listen at me" and "Hands up, don’t shoot!” before the elder statesman launches into a gorgeous pair of verses.

Musically, the most interesting moments on the album come at the end of songs, when Henderson redirects and then turns away from the vocalist he’s holding up, usually stripping back elements from the beat. He has a nimble way with transitions within a song, and is never abrupt about switching gears into sparse, live-played trail-offs; these moments feel like carefully placed and immediately recognizable fingerprints. Some of that effect is missing on the lone instrumental, a sleepy track that swells towards the dance floor but never commits fully. Still, a solitary send-off is a smart maneuver on a wider scale as well, and Henderson has done more than enough to stamp out his identity as a producer throughout.