Set It Off

About

The initial plan, according to a tweet posted by Offset in September 2022, was for his second solo album to drop in November of that year. But on November 1, his fellow Migo and brother-in-arms Takeoff was murdered outside of a Houston bowling alley. The tragedy hit Offset hard; the trio of Takeoff, Offset, and Quavo had become the preeminent rap group of the 2010s through the sheer force of their chemistry, lifelong friends and relatives whose respective talents kept each other on their toe. If Quavo was the showman and Takeoff the glue, Offset was the wild card of the bunch, introduced to the world by the “Free Offset” T-shirts his partners wore in early videos while he served time in Georgia’s DeKalb County Jail for a probation violation. He could also be a scene-stealer, the lyrical force behind the group’s first and only No. 1 hit, “Bad and Boujee.” Four years after his debut solo album, 2019’s <i>FATHER OF 4</i>, <i>SET IT OFF</i> is a portrait of a rapper who has challenged himself to evolve rather than rest on his laurel. “My whole mission for this album was to not get caught up in ‘I’m that guy,’” Offset told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “I feel like sometimes when you get caught up in that, you create the same thing because you’re comfortable in that element.” By now he’s a father of five, healing from the loss of his friend and bandmate while navigating a solo career and the stressors that come with his high-profile marriage to Cardi B. (She appears twice on the album, stealing the show on the Three 6 Mafia-sampling “JEALOUSY” to spit, “Bitches don’t wanna go Birkin for Birkin/Bitches ain’t got enough hits for a Verzuz.”) There’s the requisite odes to exorbitant flexing with help from Future, Latto, and Chlöe, where Offset’s voice is as sharp and percussive as ever over beats from Boi-1da and Vinylz—producers he’d yet to work with before now—alongside the usual suspects like Southside and Metro Boomin. “I use the A&Rs to [my] advantage,” he told Lowe. “I feel like a lot of people talk down on the A&R, like you don’t need them. But they bring you another element that you wouldn’t have thought of.” .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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