Denzel Curry has been on the verge of stardom for a while now. He first came into the rap consciousness with Nostalgic 64 in 2013; a raw, out-of-nowhere debut that signalled a white-knuckled rapper who actually had a bit to say. His next work, Imperial, condensed that talent into a range of brilliant thumping bangers. But it’s very clear that TA13OO is meant to be his moment. It shows the progression of a truly great artist – one who keeps constantly proving he’s infinitely better than the Soundcloud rappers he’s often bunched up with. With this record, he’s crafted one of the best rap albums of 2018.

TA13OO is split into three ‘acts’: Light, Grey and Dark. Curry defines ‘taboo’ as the ‘dark side’ of his own life on the eponymous intro track – that which is wrong or morally weak. He plays with that idea and particularly the idea of making bad choices – by both him and those around him – throughout the album. It’s an album about self-determination, about being your own role model, looking after yourself, and watching out for demons.

After the title track there’s very little slowdown. Curry raps like a jagged cascading boulder, as if he’s tumbling towards the end of each track maniacally. The ‘Light’ act is easily the softest but it’s hardly a breeze. The production is especially ambitious, sounding like an intergalactic block party. ‘Black Balloons’ features a goopy, spacey beat from producers FNZ and Mickey De Grand IV that finds Curry and GoldLink trading verses. ‘Cash Maniac’ has a booming hook from Nyyjerya and a truly mesmerising beat that takes elements of house music, old-school rap and even a tropical vibe that inexplicably works before a sparkling outro from De Grand. The beginning of the album sounds like a conscious effort to drift away from the aggro-rap that he near-perfected on Imperial.

The act ends with the single ‘Sumo’ produced by Charlie Heat. With ‘Sumo’, Denzel starts to hit fifth gear. Heat conjurs up a fiery, propulsive looping beat with sirens blaring in the background and there are few rappers around today that could match it like Curry does. He raps in staccato over and around the track with spikey lyrics that pierce the beat (‘swimming through the money like a FLOUNDER/I just want the knowledge and the POWER/Why these niggas lookin’ at me SOUR/chopper eat a nigga like CHOWDER!’). You won’t hear another rapper this year call out a flatfish with such disdain. Others would have been swallowed by such production – remember Kanye West’s awful effort over Heat’s work on ‘Facts’? By this time in his career Curry has mastered the real art of wrestling a world-conquering beat and coming out triumphant.

If TA13OO proves anything it’s that versatility might be his greatest asset. He’s never experimented so freely with flows and production as he does on this record. ‘Cash Maniac’ is an early highlight in this regard but it’s one of many. The standout back-to-back tracks of ‘Switch It Up’ and ‘Mad I Got It’ almost have the rapper showcasing a theatrical flow while he laments his changing friends in the face of fame. The beat by Hippie Sabotage and FNZ turns inside out on ‘Mad I Got It’ in the final verse while Curry begins linking his friends acts of desperation to the government’s tight grip. ‘Percs’ sounds like the soundtrack to a video game from hell, it shouldn’t work but Curry somehow manages to reign it in with a manic chorus (‘I do not fuck with the percs/I barely fuck with the Earth’).

Curry’s odd mix of ‘runaway train’ aggression with genuinely thoughtful, considered writing makes him an enticing, heady rapper. ‘Sirens’ feels like the centrepiece of the album as it plays off ‘Mad I Got It’’s final verse (‘when I shoot the sheriff if he not demoted, then bang!/this for Trayvon and Tree, burn the bush and chronic’/speakin’ honestly, we livin’ in colonies, CNN sit-comedies’) and his call-to-arms is very Denny Cascade – blunt and aggressive (‘if the shoe fits, tie it, grab the guns and riot/time to run with lions on the road to Zion’). It says a lot to admit that J.I.D somehow manages to trump him with a jaw-dropping verse that slides under the beat (‘Baby, I’m a fool because I thought you would stay/whether I win or I lose, they think we already dead/but they continue to shoot, I’m just gon’ cover my head/I need to duck and not move’).

Unsurprisingly, the album steam-rolls to a finale in the final act. The entire ‘Dark’ act sounds downright hellish. ‘Vengeance’ features a wailing verse from the enigmatic (and excellent) JPEGMAFIA (‘made it past twenty-five, I’m set bitch, let me die/bet you respect me when I check in with that .45’). ‘Black Metal Terrorist’ is clearly an ode to the old Curry sound – a blaring monster of a track with his trademark staccato flow over a bleating, pulsating thump courtesy of longtime producer Ronny J. It’s also by far the least progressive of the three acts, and will probably play best at future insane Curry concerts.

There’s little to complain about over the album because Curry has now proven to be adept at wearing many hats as an artist. There are a few blemishes and some tracks feel positively ‘old’ compared to his more ambitious offerings – ‘Clout Cobain’ is a fairly uninspiring single. But due to his versatility, Curry has a lot of routes he can take from here.

Still, he would do well to keep embracing the ‘Light’ side over the more archaic ‘Dark’ from this album or perhaps try and mould the two more cohesively. The rapper’s tracks seem to quickly jag in one direction or the other, and the best rappers of today are often able to combine the emotions brought out in those two sides onto the same track. TA13OO shows that Curry wants to be that kind of rapper – it also shows he’s probably about to become one.

8.3