Maryland rapper Logic offers the conclusion to his early Young Sinatra series of mixtapes as his fourth studio album, and the second project he’s dropped this year alone after Bobby Tarantino II. Undeniably skilled and possessing one of the most impressive flows in the game today, Logic’s explosion into the mainstream has also seen him step into an assumed role of changemaker and motivational speaker, not quite backing up the huge ideas he throws around with lyrical substance. On YSIV, he steps back from the preachy and heavy-handed subject material for a bit in his return to the boom-bap sound where he got his start, paying homage to rap history in more ways than one and legitimizing himself in the genre. Of course, many of the things that make Logic so frustrating at times still manifest themselves here, but this is his best work since The Incredible True Story.

Mostly produced by in-house producer and Logic’s close friend 6ix, these beats certainly hit hard in your headphones and it’s easy to see how much Logic truly loves the style – one of the most appealing things about him has always been how much he comes across as one of us, a rap fan who made it big. He’s the kind of guy to use one of J. Cole’s old ad-libs (on “The Glorious Five”) and immediately beam about the fact that he did it on the track. The genuine excitement and earnestness with which he does what he does is obvious from the start, and his legions of fans seem to have gravitated to him just because he’s a good guy – the back half of opener “Thank You” is full of 4 minutes of voicemails from fans from all over the world that confirm this, as they proclaim love for the man himself and how much he inspires them.

At the same time as he gets caught up in this excitement though, he never really breaks out of emulation of others, or gets stuck on single topics. On almost every song here he throws in a line about boom-bap over mumble rap, using the same rhymes. The opening run from “Everybody Dies” to “The Glorious Five” is essentially 3 of the same song, with a standard heavy percussion boom-bap instrumental and Logic’s breakneck flows and punchline bars. Of course, these songs are still very enjoyable and an excellent showcase for Logic’s talents, it’s just that it feels like he can still give more. He certainly is finding a better way to deliver some of his more inspirational ideas, integrating it into the larger conversation of a song instead of repeatedly hitting us over the head with it – even the Ryan Tedder-featuring single “One Day”, the most Everybody-esque track here where Logic essentially implores his fans to follow their dreams, is pretty great. The bouncy piano instrumental and wide-eyed chorus fits better with Logic’s message.

The middle and back half of the album is where Logic really starts to do some more interesting things. He gets every living Wu Tang member to feature on the 8-minute long “Wu Tang Forever”, and for the most part everyone, including Logic, brings it – enough to keep me completely engaged for the entire duration. Logic might essentially be doing his best Ghostface impression, but he’s always worn his influences on his sleeve and he sounds great on a more menacing instrumental. Best verses? I’ll give it to Method Man and Raekwon. “100 Miles and Running” features one of Wale’s greatest verses in years, and Logic accelerating his flow to a ridiculous speed while bragging about how many syllables he can fit in a sentence. It’s as old-school a beat as you can get with a funk bassline, high-pitched guitar riff and falsetto chorus from John Lindahl, and this seems to be Logic’s element. The more impressive thing is it sounds like he’s just freestyling and having fun – it doesn’t matter if he’s not actually saying anything if he always sounds as in the moment and engaging as that delivery on those repeated ‘everybody ALIIIIVE’s.

He shows off some of his most impressive lyricism in a while as well as the album comes to its conclusion: “Street Dreams II” is a vivid and engaging storytelling track as Logic runs through an action movie dream sequence, but the track “Legacy” is where we really get some insight on the perspective he has on his rap career. Logic envisions a future where he devotes so much time to music and cementing his place in rap history that he neglects his family: the fictional Logic states he’ll be remembered for generations, before someone reminds him he won’t even be remembered by his own son. We get some pretty striking verses as he depicts dying of cancer regretful, and some verses from the perspective of his wife and children before deciding as the track fades out “f**k a legacy, imma live my life”.

Logic pays tribute to the late Mac Miller on the track “YSIV”, which shares the same sample as the other Young Sinatra title tracks. A standard 6-minute Logic track of straight bars, at the end he echoes some of Miller’s early lines and reveals that he was one of his first inspirations to start rapping, using the same sample on a track from his 2010 mixtape on the first Young Sinatra.

The really impressive thing here is that this might be the first project where the only reference to Logic’s biracial status is a joke on “ICONIC” about how much he references it. Kidding, but there really is more variety on this project than usual, and it helps. As we close with an 11-minute half-spoken story of his come up titled, what else, “Last Call”, there’s almost nothing here that can’t be directly tied to one of Logic’s peers, but his fandom is part of what makes him so endearing – and with “syllability” like he has, sometimes you just have to sit back and be impressed by a technical showcase.

Favourite Tracks: 100 Miles and Running, Wu Tang Forever, ICONIC, Street Dreams II, Legacy

Least Favourite Track: The Adventures of Stoney Bob

Score: 7/10