It’s been four years since American hip-hop star and former member of the Migos Kiari ‘Offset’ Cephus dropped a solo studio project, his last being his first, Father of 4 (2019). A lot has happened since. He graduated from being a dad of four to five, he and his wife Cardi B weathered the storm of publicised divorce rumours, and he, most recently, lost Takeoff to a gun late last year.
In between family politics and dropping albums as a part of Migos, the last of which was the concluding instalment of the Culture trilogy in 2021, Cephus has finally broken his musical silence with his sophomore album Set It Off. The album is a 21-track spectacle, which spans a little over an hour in playtime, featuring prominent guests such as rappers Future, Cardi B, and Travis Scott, as well as progressive singer-songwriters such as Don Toliver and Chloe.
Unlike his debut, Set It Off features a wider range of hip-hop producers, a pantheon which includes the likes of Vinylz, Boi-1da, and Metro Boomin.
The guests and producers all come together well to preserve the trap-textured sound of the album throughout the project, though most of the songs, sonically, feel Migos-ish in their nature and display little to no deviation from a soloist perspective.
The album covers themes of love and death as well as the dichotomous struggle of balancing the gains of fame and the loss of one’s private life. Set It Off is not a peaceful record, but neither is it angry. It’s somewhere in between, almost as though Offset was trying to aim for a turn-up record without neglecting to use his music as an outlet to self-soothe with self-therapy.
Offset’s strongest moments in the album are, not surprisingly, when he’s rocking alongside his wife Cardi. ‘Jealousy’, the album’s lead single, is a standout in the album because of its rugged interpretation of the all-too-famous Bonnie and Clyde trope.
The song is not as hypnotising as their Grammy-nominated hit ‘Clout‘, but their chemistry is undeniable, solidifying the pair as arguably rap’s feistiest couple on the mic together. It’s no different with “Freaky”, a raunchy exchange between the two which flaunts the couple’s extravagance and sexual synchronicity.
Watch ‘Jealousy‘ here:
