Black Milk, “CEREMONIAL”

Looking back down the road to the start of his career in the early 2000s, Black Milk has a lot to celebrate. As both a collaborator with Slum Village and a founder of the short-lived trio B.R. Gunna, the Detroit rapper-producer had already contributed to the swing of Michigan’s hip-hop lineage before striking out on his own with 2005’s Sound of the City and its explosive follow-up, 2006’s Popular Demand. Even before foregoing traditional record chopping for sampling live musicians, Milk’s production has always had the lush dynamism of a bandleader; it’s balanced with a lyrical foresight that reflects all sides of the grind—the determination required to life-hack your way to a career in indie hip-hop.

That dynamic rears its head early on Milk’s ninth studio album CEREMONIAL. After a gonzo psych-funk introduction, “Feel Sum’n Heal Sum’n” puts surviving the “brown liquor falling all out of cups” and constant threat of policing into perspective: “Seated at this table that I made/ Started shining where they couldn’t shade/ In my lifetime, cradle to the grave.” The grungy crunch of “In The Sky” drills further into the cement, lamenting double-crossing friends and the surface-level kudos in favor of losing himself in the art. Creation and connection are Milk’s tethers to reality, and Ceremonial only tightens his death grip around his eternal muse.

The clash between the sumptuous beats and lyrics that flit from chest-beating to paranoia make for some of the sharpest musical whiplash on a Black Milk album since No Poison No Paradise. “Crash Test Dummy” sets the story of a young boy trying to soothe anger with money against sunbeams of twangy guitar, drums, and synths swirling like pinball machine sirens. In the moments where the music does get moody, like the twitchy minimalism of “Dreams Not Only Made At Night” and “OK… Nah,” the tactile details in the music—stray tambourines, sullen choir vocals dancing between bass licks—match the melancholy, everyman reporting that’s become Milk’s trademark. His streets are filled with men blowing checks on parlays while fearing police and looming gang cars, gunfire always a constant threat. Instrumental interludes like “THE FAZES” or “The Lift Off” offer touches of the Prince and D’Angelo worship that soaked The Rebellion Sessions, but they quickly evaporate, dreams in the midst of relationship woes and fretting about tax money funding the bombing of Palestine and Iran.

But Detroit ain’t never birth a musician not built to outlast the struggle. Black Milk sees himself as an outlier, thriving without GPS in a rap game geared toward clout-chasing, on “Never Never,” and as a veteran, seeing compliments and kudos as “the condiments sitting next to the main course” of artistic fulfillment on “Right Time.” For all the chaos swirling around Black Milk on CEREMONIAL, there’s a current of hope flowing through it all that bridges the gaps between the rap, soul, and dance music that raised him on Pierson Avenue in Detroit and everyone attempting to groove their way to tomorrow in one piece.