If you ask any rapper, basically ever, they’re underrated. No one gave them their props for inventing that style everybody uses. They paved the way for your favorite rapper to do that shit they do now, and also, they’re your favorite rapper’s favorite rapper. And they’ve got the biggest dick, which really isn’t talked about enough. They can be rap legends who don’t crack enough top-five lists for their liking, or the talented underground wordsmith who won’t be respected until they suffer an untimely demise. In nearly all cases, regardless of merit, the general sentiment is this: The world doesn’t fuck with me enough. It’s a tale as old as Sugarhill Gang, and, though he’s nowhere near as entitled as those vague rapper composites I just listed, Saba continues the tradition on his new track “Acts 1.5,” where he begins a literally dizzying stanza with an honest career summation: “I’ve been slept on and stepped over, the less noticed.”

Put aside his general status as a critical darling and you’ll see he’s pretty much right. Saba has been stepped over. But if you consider his contemporaries, you can see why. He’s a marvelous technician but lacks the charisma or melodic instincts to make a track like Chance The Rapper’s “No Problem.” Good as he is, his level of poetry doesn’t match the abstract, spoken-word magic of Noname. He’s not as experimental with aesthetics or rhythmic approach as MIKE or other groggy rappers. Instead, he’s been a steady force of earnestness and heady craftsmanship, which he showcases again on From The Private Collection Of Saba And No ID, a joint album with producer No ID that won’t win them new fans but is still worth a listen anyway.

The album brings together figures from two generations of Chicago rap, matching Saba with beats from No ID, the legend who produced ’90s backpacker tracks like Common’s “I Used To Love H.E.R.,” mentored a young Kanye West, and has continued to find connections with vital artists like Vince Staples (a decade ago, he handled most of the production on Summertime ‘06). They’ve been teasing a collaborative project for nearly two years, since the release of “Back In Office” in April 2023. Today, it’s finally out, with guest spots from Kelly Rowland, Raphael Saadiq, Ibeyi, Smino, Madison McFerrin, and more.

On Private Collection, No ID frames Saba’s lucid reminiscences in pensive jazz and soul that only enhances the gentle, calming effect of his voice. Swirled together, it’s the sound of casual clarity; imagine your homeboy telling you what’s what at the coffee shop. For tracks like “Head.Rap,” he cruises supple strings and hand claps as he turns the evolution of his hairstyles into peaceful sojourn to self-discovery. Gliding over a beat fit for a trendy jazz lounge for “Stomping,” he lets loose a charming tale of newly blossoming romance, distilling it all with writerly detail and easygoing, conversational wit: “That’s the trumpet, couldn’t place where it’s from, but she was hunting/ She would snap her fingers like, ‘Umm, what was it?’/ I’m a smooth talker, I could sell a NFT to Jesus.”

Over the course of the album, Saba can be breezy and subtly kinetic or deeply contemplative. It’s all as graceful as it is restrained — a throughline for an artist whose songs are more meditative than electric. Still, he can speed things up and talk his shit, too, as he does on “Acts 1.5” and “Woes Of The World.” On the latter, he twists syllables and pronunciations into fun phonetic configurations you wouldn’t have seen coming; it’s cool to hear someone rhyme barrel with referral. He punctuates the first verse with another nod to his own mic prowess: “Who is the GOAT? I wanna go toe to toe with it/ ‘Cause I just know I’m not second to no niggas.” It’s a nice bit of customary shit talk to hear from an artist as thoughtful as Saba, even if it’s a lofty bit of self-praise to live up to.

While Saba’s raps are sharp and No ID’s production is lush, it feels like there was room for more sonic imagination. Tracks like, “Every Painting Has A Price” relies on a Marvin Gaye sample that’s obvious enough to be a cliche, and polished as it all is, the album doesn’t push Saba’s vocals or the canvases he inhabits into new directions. He’s rapping well, but he’s doing so without any novel sounds or song structures. With its linear production and general formalism, Private Collection ultimately feels like it could have dropped during any part of the late blog era. He doesn’t need to make a sexy drill album, but there are a lot of folks who can rap; blending that with more aesthetic imagination or more obscure samples (like, say, a Roc Marciano or Armand Hammer) would go a long way toward making Saba’s latest album more distinct. That lack of holistic stylistic invention has always limited his ceiling. It’s an approach that lends itself to … blending in.

So does Saba’s muted tone. It’s relaxing, and his beats are equally tranquil, and while that can make for engrossing experiences, it can make the affairs feel monotonous. Saba is more about pristine control than explosions; he would be a deliberate driver like Brandon Roy rather than an explosive slasher like Ja Morant. He’s never had flashy superpowers that helped differentiate him from other spawn of the blog era. He’s not a master of absurdist humor like Action Bronson. He doesn’t have a grizzled gangsta voice like Freddie Gibbs, and he’s not nearly as weird as Danny Brown. But in a world of keeping-up-with-the-Joneses irony and nightmarish extremes, there’s comfort in that, even if that makes it easier for his workmanlike consistency to recede into the background. It won’t earn him new fans, but his latest project is a reminder that, even if he’s stepped over, Saba’s too good to be stepped on.

COLD AS ICE

ROAST ME

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— кιηg'ѕ яαηѕσм 👑 (@cc33_rl) March 12, 2025