Yahoo News Offset Plots a Powerful New Course, Post-Migos, With ‘Set It Off’: Album Review
It’s been a long, hard road to Offset’s second solo album. Originally scheduled for release in November 2022 before the shooting death of fellow Migos member Takeoff, “Set It Off” shows major artistic growth for the Atlanta rapper and sets a new course for him as a solo artist — and features top-level collaborations from Travis Scott, Future, Don Tolliver, Latto, his wife Cardi B and more, and production from hitmakers like Metro Boomin, Boi-1da and Vinylz. With 21 songs sprawled across an hour, not every track is a classic, but the best moments find this fiery artist at the absolute top of his game.
Sampling Kirby’s “Black Leaves,” a retro-blues anthem used for the ABC miniseries “Women of the Movement,” “On the River” kicks off the album with an inventory of Offset’s lavish lifestyle (“White Rove / Twenty hoes / White gold / Mink roll”), which is a less sensitive reintroduction than one might expect after Offset’s experiences of the past few years (detailed at length in his Variety cover story earlier this year). But maybe a “don’t forget what I earned” anthem is personal, especially when he pauses to offer a status check — “I became the one when I got out the group” — although later in the album, on the Metro Boomin-helmed “Night Vision,” he admits, “I wouldn’t be lying if I said I miss the three.”
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Things get more serious on “Say My Grace”: “Why I lose my brother to bullets? Why I lose my grandma to cancer?” he asks, before adding the introspective line, “Why I keep getting all of these chances?” Later, Don Tolliver’s chorus on “Worth It” perfectly complements Offset’s verses as the rapper contemplates his relationship with a lover who’s more trouble than she’s worth but too tempting to resist. Meanwhile, producers ChaseTheMoney and Heavy Mellow merge the beat from Busta Rhymes’ eternal banger “Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See” (itself lifted from Seals & Crofts’ “Sweet Green Fields”) with an acoustic guitar that evokes Sting’s often sampled “Shape of My Heart” for a track that’s propulsive and soulful at the same time.
“Broad Day” picks up the pace as Offset and Future flex over a beat by Daoud and Nick Papz that bounces like a latter-day “Get Low.” The second single “Fan,” meanwhile, isn’t sure if it’s lashing out, confessing feelings or offering a statement of defiance, and it’s all the better for the uncertainty; even as the call-and-response chorus announces “Fuck them n—as and them bitches, everybody.”
Not surprisingly, the two Offset-Cardi duets here make a strong case for a full album from hip-hop’s first couple. As usual, she doesn’t hold back — “Don’t you know this pussy pump out platinum plats” — but there’s an intensity that they seem to bring out of one another, and neither seems to hesitate to say exactly what’s on their mind, no matter how raw or raunchy. When they later reunite for “Jealousy,” the album’s first single, Offset’s opening verse is blinding fast and ferocious — so much so that following it with anything less would be a letdown, and Cardi does not disappoint.
From there, he glides effortlessly through another tribute to his own success on “Skyami” (aided unmemorably by Mango Foo), then delivers a gangsta love ballad with “Dissolve.” Coproducing the latter with Dez Wright, Offset maximizes the seductive vibes, delivering one of several of the “female records” he mentioned during his interview. Another, “Fine as Can Be,” finds Latto delivering a fiery verse complete with a tribute to Cardi via a “WAP” reference. On a lighter note, “Princess Cut” is a duet with Chlöe in the style of her breakout single “Have Mercy.”
If the album feels complete by the time Offset gets to “Jealousy,” he ventures into more experimental territory on “Upside Down,” a drumless, guitar-drenched song that evokes the emo balladeering of Travis Scott or Kid Cudi. Yet its abrupt ending after two minutes, followed by his uncharacteristically direct religious yearning on “Healthy,” on which he sings “Praying for a sign, Lord can you help me?”
Offset takes a lot of big swings here and while not all of them connect, he rarely plays it safe — which is exactly the place where an artist carving a new path for themselves should be.
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