Eat Pray Thug Album Review

Album info: Artist: Heems Title: Eat Pray Thug Release date: 3/3/2015

Himanshu Suri (aka Heems, Himanshu) is no longer the type of artist to sleepily chant about fast food ventures over a synthpop instrumental.

Since Himanshu’s departure from hip hop trio Das Racist, much has changed. Long gone is the silly party alt rap of Shut Up Dude. His solo projects since then have proven so, with releases Nehru Jackets and Wild Water Kingdom, in which we found more serious bars about heavier issues and darker takes on his brownness.

Initially, this took away from what I originally fell in love with Heems’ music for: his off-kilter flow and absurd lyricism over silly bubblegum beats.

On Heems’ solo album debut, he addresses the issue of his lyrical themes right off the bat.

The opener “Sometimes” kicks off the album addressing Himanshu’s inability to be put in a box: his own paradox: “Sometimes I write hard, sometimes I’m mad lazy,” declares Suri over a house-influenced club banger beat.

The rest of the album’s instrumental contributions follow suit. The instrumentals are mostly straight forward electronic bangers,similar to later contributions from Das Racist. Heems resists the hideous repetitive samples of Nehru Jackets again, thankfully.

Sometimes, however, the simplicity of the straightforward instrumentals can be burdensome. They vary between heavy hitting trap and club dance numbers, but never seem to wander from the electronic formula. Luckily, there is still the signature absurdity one can usually find in a Himanshu release with where-did-they-get-this samples. Some of the more trap instrumentals are also legitimately powerful and exciting, perfectly displaying Himanshu’s bravado and sometimes menace.

Lyrically, the album does not disappoint, either. True to form,Himanshu cannot be put into a box, certainly not lyrically. His rhymes are sometimes heavily conscious of racial tensions in America, like on “Flag Shopping,” while other songs are simply displays of over-the-top braggadocio and wit like “So NY.”

Some songs are sappy love songs, which vary in quality, but often find themselves dragging down the album with mediocrity and a lack of self-awareness, like love songs in Heems’ past.

Suri’s descriptions of brown America post-9/11 are sobering and disturbing. Heems does not hold back on the closer “Patriot Act,” where he turns from his heavy, on-point flow to a spoken word style that is passionate and hard to sit through.

Despite its errors, Eat Pray Thug finds the perfect balance between Heems’ goofy and serious sides over instrumentals ranging between excellent and lackluster. The album follows the tradition of Himanshu’s difficulty with balancing quality and content. Despite it’s flaws, Eat Pray Thug is an enjoyable first solo record. 6/10

#living