Okay, just for a second—as a thought experiment—let’s treat Culture as the sophomore album from the Migos. In this reality, it marks a sharp improvement from the North Atlanta trio’s debut, 2015’s Yung Rich Nation, an album that showed a tremendous amount of technical dexterity, but stiffer writing and only half-formed pop instincts. The Migos are better now, we’d say. They really grew.
In the real world, of course, Culture comes in a long, long line of hits, mixtapes, and one-offs. Since “Versace” and Y.R.N. (Young Rich Niggas) marked their breakthrough in 2013, they’ve been one of the most influential acts in hip-hop, and frequently one of the best. Their most obvious mark on the culture has been the tight, triplet-laced flow they resurrected and perfected. They also brought the dab to the world at large, and injected a handful of slang terms into the syntaxes of aspiring rappers from coast to coast.
So Culture arrives in what feels like the second act of a long career, by rap standards. The Migos came out as young upstarts, suffered through a litany of legal hang-ups and incarcerations, had short creative dry spells where they sniped at the kids on the lawn stealing their styles, and eventually came back around. This time, they have a #1 hit in tow, and they want to stick at the top of the commercial pyramid.
The first voice you hear on Culture is DJ Khaled’s, which couldn’t be more misleading. This isn’t a big-budget parade of set pieces and stunt casting; if anything, it’s remarkable for how long stretches of it are sober, somber. Culture’s midpoint is the phenomenal, Zaytoven-produced “Big on Big,” which is towering and defiant, and even flips their well-documented label troubles into a point of pride. That track is followed by two more (“What the Price,” “Brown Paper Bag”) that stick to minor keys and contemplative piano. There are plenty of stray prescription pills and idle threats to go around, but they’ve been reassembled to be eerier, more perilous. (Incidentally, this would have been a perfect place to insert “Cocoon,” their staggering loosie from last year.)
Culture is front-loaded with singles, which—perhaps counter-intuitively—makes for a nice balance. Heard back-to-back-to-back, “T-Shirt,” “Call Casting,” and “Bad and Boujee” are not only packed with color and virtuosic rapping, but elucidate exactly what each of the three rappers bring to the table, how they complement one another. Hearing Quavo float is a joy, but it’s even better when it’s underscored by Takeoff’s bass and Offset’s serration. There are also fascinating reconciliations: The Cardo-produced, 2 Chainz-featuring “Deadz” seems to find a middle ground between the sparse Atlanta sounds and Chicago’s maximalism that were warring around the time of Y.R.N.
