Chicagoan Joey Purp was the quiet breakout star of 2016 with his debut album iiiDrops. Listen to any track of his and you’re not surprised he used to be in the SaveMoney crew – he has all the writing ability of Chance The Rapper. Quarterthing proves he’s no fluke. It’s not only consistent, but it packs a few sneaky surprises that show Purp is much more than the barking struggle rapper he might’ve seemed at first.

But the album doesn’t start that way. In fact, it starts much the same way that iiiDrops did. The three-song opening left-right-left combo of ‘24k Gold/Sanctified’, ‘Godbody – Pt 2’ and ‘Hallelujah’ feels like it picks up right where he left off. The instrumentals are big and booming, jazzy affairs that sound very Chicago. And Purp is still a great writer, pulling no punches (“I just paid my momma’s rent, then I paid my homie’s bond/he got out, fucked my baby moms, loyalty is hard to find”). It’s a very soul-warming start, simply hearing a technically great rapper flexing his muscles and riding the ‘came from the dirt’ trope well.

And then it starts getting odder. “Elastic” is a straight-up low-key house number and it might end up being the best track on Quarterthing. Elegantly produced by duo Nez & Rio, it skates along gorgeously, picking up particularly when a light piano enters the fray. “Aw Sh*t!” has a distracting nursery rhyme sample in the middle, but otherwise feels like a clicky dance interlude. “Paint Thinner” has a brilliantly nutty, airy beat reminiscent of Tyler, The Creator’s “Garbage”, and Purp provides a a tongue-twisting, knotty hook that’s hard to get out of your head. This album will sound great bumping in your car.

A lot of the success of Quarterthing is owed to Purp’s understated versatility. On iiiDrops he was great at yelping out rock-hard bars, but he also showed some creativity with hit single “Girls@”. It’s that same surprising willingness to experiment that makes Quarterthing work. When Purp drops his marbly rapping voice like on “Elastic” or “Aw Sh*t!” it sounds great – he’s easy to listen to. He can write hooks too. Another standout is “Karl Malone”, where Purp literally barks out an endlessly memorable chorus. “Look At My Wrist” features a great guest verse from an out-of-nowhere Cdot Honcho, but it’s a subtly clever track written by Purp both criticising and somewhat sympathising with hip-hop’s culture of stunting. In these moments, it feels a bit like Joey Purp is who major labels thought Vic Mensa would become.

In fact, the only points where Quarterthing feels disappointing is where it doesn’t feel so ambitious. We wrote about how unimpressive we found “Bag Talk” when it released as a single a couple weeks ago, and it feels even more out of place here. The title track comes early in the piece and similarly doesn’t really feel daring enough alongside these other efforts.

But these are outliers on an album that makes it pretty clear Joey Purp is here to stay. If iiiDrops was him showing us his sleight-of-hand card tricks, Quarterthing is like checking out a drug-dealing David Blaine. Like Blaine, he doesn’t look all that special at first. Your loss, really.

8.4