Album Review: Isaiah Rashad- Cilvia Demo

Full disclosure—for as much shit as I talk about Pitchfork, and about certain members of its writing staff, it is still a place where I find quite a bit of information about new artists that I may have otherwise slept on.

I saw the cover art for Isaiah Rashad’s Cilvia Demo online about a month or so ago, but I didn’t really look all that closely at it, or feel the need to look into the album at that point. Not that I was judging an album but its cover art, but mostly because I didn’t know what it was, and I’m only one guy writing these, and I can’t listen to every album and song that comes out.

But bless their little career making and breaking hearts, the other day, Pitchfork bestowed “Best New Track” to Isaiah Rashad’s “R.I.P Kevin Miller,” and it was both the knighting of the song with “BNT,” as well as the name of the track itself that caught my eye.

Perhaps you know a lot about Percy Miller, a.k.a Master P. But in case you haven’t read his Wikipedia page more than once like I have, then you may not be aware that a drug addict killed P’s brother Kevin Miller in 1995. The track itself also borrows VERY heavily from Master P’s 1997 track, “Weed and Money,” cribbing the refrain “You live for bitches and blunts, we live for weed and money,” which is an expression that I have always felt is nearly six of one, half a dozen of the other.

So this was enough to peak my interest in Isaiah Rashad, and his recently released debut effort, Cilvia Demo—referred to as an EP, though clocking in 14 songs, and running just short of an hour. Rashad is loosely associated with the “Black Hippy” collective of hip-hop artists—a group that also includes Schoolboy Q, and most famously, Kendrick Lamar, an artist that you have more than likely heard of.

Since I am a subject matter expert at hip-hop, I am somewhat critical and hard to impress when it comes to modern/contemporary artists and new releases. Cilvia strikes a fascinating balance—musically, it is incredibly laid back, but Rashad’s delivery is anything but at times; always sharp, smart, and at times, too intense when juxtaposed with such smooth production and beats.

Cilvia works best as a whole, because even when it falters, the momentum of the album’s best tracks is able to carry it through until it picks up steam again. That being said, there are actually very few weak points throughout, making it a very rare and solidly strong debut effort from a young performer. Some of the tracks that stand out include the aforementioned “R.I.P. Kevin Miller,” the very smooth and relaxed “Menthol,” which features a piano-sampling beat incredibly (and possibly intentionally) reminiscent of “Feelin’ It” by a young Jay Z, and then the rather powerful and surprisingly somber and moving “Heavenly Father.”

Isaiah Rashad- "Heavenly Father"

Part of what makes Cilvia Demo such a rewarding listen is the production. It thankfully avoids the pitfalls of trap style drums and flaccid, “big” sounding synths that so many other modern and contemporary hip-hop records succumb to. One may be so inclined to say that because of this fact, it attempts a classic or timeless feeling. And if one were to make that argument, you maybe right in some regard. A song as well assembled and thoughtful as “Heavenly Father” is would lead me to believe that when rap released in 2014 is looked back on, 10 or 20 years in the future, it will be a benchmark that producers and performers of that time try to emulate.

I wouldn’t so far as to say that Isaiah Rashad’s Cilvia Demo is life changing, but it is interesting, pretty serious at times (he talks of both cutting himself as a child, along with mentioning an absentee father on more than one track), clever (name dropping Larry David at one point, a point I found pretty, PRETTAY surprising), captivating, and rather refreshing on the ears. There are hip-hop detractors that lament the current state of the genre, but people like that should take note of a performer like Rashad, who is injecting a mix of youthful exuberance and wisdom beyond his years into the rap game.

Cilvia Demo is available now digitally via the usual suspects, like iTunes or Amazon mp3.