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The Crossroads by Cordae | Album Review
a storytelling rap canon display
In my hometown, there’s a school where the kids that are repeatedly disciplined are corralled, fashioned with metal detectors and teachers unafraid of both the stigma that comes with its student body and handing out the discipline these kids had so often already received. It felt very penal despite being an education center and the kids always came back to general population more jaded than ever.
The prison-industrial complex feeds off of these kids that are at both the literal and metaphorical crux in their lives, hence the name for the school — Crossroads. Cordae’s newest album, The Crossroads, takes place at a junction in his career, one that determines the trajectory of the rest after a good but not great sophomore project that spoke in-depth on the aforementioned complex. Unlike a majority of those unfortunate constituents of Crossroads, Cordae redeems himself from a project he knew wasn’t his best work.
Where From A Bird’s Eye View was good technically with rhyme scheme and beat placement, it lacked the sentimentality and verve, the personal conviction, to match the immense energy of his debut, The Lost Boy. Nothing brought me back to that album since its release. But The Crossroads reembarks on the trail of…
