Thundercat - It Is What It Is

[dr lopez]

too silly for me although the sounds are really great. tracks are also too short and way too fast but hes a bass player so i understand the speed issue.

 

it's a fair amount of fun but the amount of hype around him makes you think a lot of media people never listened to any late 70s/80s funk/soul? so weird to me. 

[Enthusiast]

His weakest record so far. There's some good songs on it but it's nowhere near the quality of the previous albums imo.

[drillkicker]

I just got around to this album and yes I am glad I did.  Thundercat really nails the sound I've been looking for.  The production is beautifully lush, the compositions are fast and technical while still being really laid back and easily digestible.  It's smooooth as heck.   My only complaint is how he lets much less talented musicians insert themselves into his songs.  This was worse in Drunk, but the Childish Gambino track still doesn't do it gracefully.  I don't know why he insists on the tasteless hip-hop trend of having "featured" rappers go off completely off-key on some unrelated thing that has to be incorporated into the track.  It's distracting and it depreciates the musical integrity of the composition.  I'd love to see Thundercat make an album with just him and a group of collaborating musicians who are just as talented as himself, in true jazz tradition.