In the 10 years since releasing his first mixtape, IDK has evolved into an authoritative rapper with a solid back catalogue, flipping smoothly between singing and rhyming. Outside the booth, the 32-year-old Marylander, real name Jason Mills, is an enthusiastic mentor, running a Harvard music industry academy. Inside, he’s well-respected enough to collaborate with A-listers such as Snoop and Burna Boy as well as underground acts including MF Doom and Sad Night Dynamite. So why isn’t IDK better known? Bravado + Intimo offers clues.
The album comprises 12 solid trap- and jazz-influenced tracks, shiny like a Sunday-morning butcher’s knife rather than smoky speakeasy vibes. Yet IDK’s rhymes rarely rise to the beats’ level, and are never as mischievous as on last year’s F65. Check! exemplifies this: a panel-beating thunderer studded with alternately perky and melancholic keys. Its rhythm is infinitely more involving than IDK’s pungent – and presumably well-researched – thoughts on “titties and ass”.
Water-treading single Tiffany is little better, with Gunna’s usual mellifluous hogwash floating amiably in the wake of IDK’s perfunctory lead verse. He even has the gall to huff “if she ain’t got the brains, she can’t be a 10”. Frankly, she could say the same about him.
