Chicago wordsmith, Mick Jenkins has done well from the beginning to define his sound as much more wide-ranging than the high-intensity, lyrically endowed wordplay his debut project, The Water, exhibited in 2014. With Wave[s] (2015), The Healing Component (2016), and Pieces of a Man (2018), a skillset rounded out by a talent for incorporating harmonies and soft-edged emotional bouts shined Mick Jenkins in a transcendental light almost required for modern rappers to be more than rappers alone. 

 

But that being said, the heart and soul of his music has always been pure, raw rap. And his knack for it is nearly unparalleled across the entirety of the modern hip-hop scene. 

 

To wit: The Circus. His first project since Pieces of a Man, it’s a step in a new direction; or perhaps the direction that has always driven each and every of his project releases at their foundation. Every Mick Jenkins work has been strongest in its lyrical and thematic elements, never failing to evoke emotion and provoke thought with each line, every verse. And The Circus, at seven tracks and roughly twenty minutes in length, is more lyrical, meaningful, evocative, and provocative than what most other rappers are able to do with much longer projects.

 

Folding in an EARTHGANG feature on The Light as a preface to their upcoming 2020 collaborative tour, The Circus is another necessary addition to a Mick Jenkins canon that has quietly led hip-hop in a truthful and hard-hitting direction for more than a half-decade.