Disclaimer:
I actually like Logic. I admire his creativity, his passion for his art, his sincerity, and how prolific he is. We also have a shared admiration for Nas, Kill Bill, and a certain blue-eyed crooner from Hoboken. Still, the following has to be said.
I picked up on Logic with 2017's Everybody, then went back and listened to a lot of older stuff (Under Pressure, The Incredible True Story...) I then followed him through YSIV and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, until finally, with the 2021 release of Bobby Tarantino III, I was able to articulate Logic's place on the hip-hop landscape with this statement:
"Logic is the official poster boy for mediocre rappers."
Yeah, occasionally he'll wow you with a "1-800" or a "100 Miles and Running", but generally Logic is that dude who is technically proficient as a rapper but who doesn't quite have enough personality and uniqueness to his flow. Whose rhymes are serviceable, but not memorable. Whose beats are almost interesting... until you listen closer and realize they're actually monotonous. His latest LP, Vinyl Days, is another reminder of all this. It's also a reminder -- or should I say a summation -- of all the things Logic has spent seven albums, five mix tapes, and pretty much his entire career reminding you of. It also speaks to a couple of new developments in his life we seem similarly destined to hear about for the next decade.
He's bi-racial
You're alerted to this fact quite often whenever you listen to his lyrics. Oh yes, you'll learn fast that he was "a biracial baby... born to a black father and a white mother." You'll understand in no time that he's a "BLACKWHITEBOY" from a "half breed family" because, as he explains it, "I'm black again.. fighting for credibility from the lack of blacker skin"... It gets quite tiresome at times.
And hearing him going over this same ground again and again is even more tedious than Eminem complaining about his ex.
He's from a really rough neighborhood.
Yeah, so are Ice-T, Nipsey Hustle, Naughty By Nature, Gucci Mane, Future, 21 Savage, Lil’ Durk, NWA, Biggie, Eminem, Young Thug, and T.I., just to name a dozen. Spitting rhymes about the crime-ridden area he grew up in is yet another way Logic fails to set himself apart from other rappers.
He "grinded" and "worked for SO LONG" until he finally made it...
... even though he started in high school, signed with an independent label at twenty, and got a Def Jam contract at twenty-three.
He retired (but now he's back.)
Check the chronology:
No Pressure - Released July 2020
Bobby Tarantino III - Released July 2021
Vinyl Days - Recorded 2021–2022. Released June 2022
So two albums and a mixtape in less than two years... When exactly during that brief time frame did he manage to squeeze in a retirement?
He made a lot of money in crypto.
In the fall of 2020 Logic posted on Instagram that he invested $6 million in cryptocurrency. On Vinyl Days, he brags:
Stupid motherf**ker, oh, yeah, you got a deal
But you spent your whole advance on a chain
I invested mine in crypto, and now I'm sailin' out to Spain
And also:
Now I think I'm a good father figure 'cause I was sonnin' rappers before I was a father, go figure
My cryptocurrency is in the seven figures.
Last month it was widely reported that the overall market capitalization of crypto assets had plummeted from about $3 trillion in November 2021 to now less than $1 trillion.
Hmm... Maybe this is why he needed to come out of retirement?
He's leaving Def Jam.
Mostly on good terms it seems but to hear Logic tell it, the label still owes him a lot of money -- although you wonder why this would bother him since he made so much in crypto.
He's the best rapper alive.
If you don't want to believe Logic himself the numerous times he's staked claim to this title, then perhaps you'll trust Morgan Freeman, who on the intro of Vinyl Days, informs "every other rapper in the game that Logic is the GOAT."
Boasting of this type has been part of hip-hop literally since Day 1 -- but with Logic you somehow get the sense that he actually believes this absurd declaration could be true.
It's not of course. He's not the greatest rapper of all time. Not the greatest of his era. Maybe not even the greatest from the state of Maryland, depending on how you feel about Wale.
Perhaps moving forward he'll be able to produce superior material that better demonstrates the abundance of talent and creativity he's been blessed with -- but no, right now Logic is simply a solid, often redundant, and mostly mediocre rapper.
