American rapper Logic has officially returned from his self-proclaimed retirement with the third installment in his ‘Bobby Tarantino’ trilogy, Bobby Tarantino III.
Back in the summer of 2020, the Maryland-born MC announced that he was stepping away from his career to either focus on his family or become a Twitch streamer. That decision lasted less than a year, as the rapper born Sir Robert Bryson Hall II has released a number of new singles and collaborations since then.
The last four months have been an especially busy time for Logic: he’s been releasing songs like ‘Vaccine’ to preview his latest addition to the ‘Tarantino’ now-trilogy, he’s been working on a project with producer extraordinaire MadLib that’s produced songs like ‘Raddest Dad’, and he’s also found time to cover Mazzy Star’s ‘Fade Into You’. Retirement must have been pretty dull because Logic is back with a vengeance.
If you were hoping that Bobby Tarantino III was a major artistic statement that collects all the most potent and forthcoming thoughts that could have only been gathered through a period of reflection, then bad news: Bobby Tarantino III sounds like every single other Logic album.
That’s not exactly a bad thing: Logic raps about how happy he is to be a dad and have a family of his own, not paying attention to the haters, being the best rapper alive, etc. etc. etc. It’s well-produced and features the pillowy synths and hypnagogic pop influences that come from pouring over physical mixtapes and creating his own, but it also plays like his retirement never happened. I have no idea what his time off looked like, but from an outside perspective, it doesn’t seem like it had much of an effect on him as an artist.
For better or worse, it’s all pure Logic. There’s only a single guest spot, Cynthia Erivo’s on ‘Inside’, and it runs at a brisk 33 minutes, which makes it physically impossible to be too upset over. Tracks like ‘Call Me’, ‘God Might Judge’, and ‘Get Up’ are highlights, and I’m sure they’ll be embraced as new summer jams for the tail end of the season this year. It’s light, breezy, and fun Logic music. If that’s what a brief retirement does to you, then Logic should take a retirement every six months.