Busdriver’s perennial perch upon the catbird seat of underground hip-hop receives even more solidification with his release of “Thumbs,” a 42-minute mixtape that — according to the album’s website — “further explores the concept of a homogenous citizenry” through “the isolation born from racial politics.” Perhaps the greatest rapper that nobody has ever heard, Busdriver has long-stymied fans with dizzying verses, riddled with abstraction but always purposeful in intent. While poring over the minutiae of his verbiage extends well beyond the reach of this album review, make no mistake, Busdriver’s most recent work is his most combative and thoughtful yet.
“I just really wanted to be included in the conversation,” Busdriver said on one of the project’s singles, “Ministry of the Torture Couch.” However, at the conclusion of the Los Angeles rapper’s latest effort, it would seem that he had done far more than simply put in his two cents. “Thumbs” grabs the torch from Kendrick Lamar’s “To Pimp a Butterfly” as the next great challenging, but ultimately rewarding, hip-hop listen.
The album, executive produced by Busdriver himself, features a wide pallet of beats and vibes from the lush production on the album’s opener, “Absolutions in the Hottentot Supercluster,” to the hard-hitting “Hyperbolic 2,” to the album’s other single, “Much.”
But porous lyricism can lay waste to any serviceable amalgamation of beats and Busdriver stays true to form in offering up some of the most complex and thought-provoking wordplay of his career. Lines like “there are no black militants to benchwarm, the feds are using your phone data for revenge porn” display the artist at his best: divisive with just a pinch of conspiratorial. This album is riddled with fascinating song concepts, inextricable from the conceptual foundation laid by his 2014 release, “Perfect Hair.”
“Black Labor (as understood by Equiano)” is a fascinating look at the history of black people as laborers in America, using references to Olaudah Equiano — a freed African slave who became a pioneer off the abolitionist movement in London — as the song’s conceptual underpinning. The line, “I develop my dreams in the same house my homie was sold at, and you should know that,” is the typical harrowing, oft-forgotten line that Busdriver omits as an aside on some of his projects.
Busdriver does have his indulgent moments on “Thumbs” too though, lest he risk disappearing into his own abstractions and consciousness. “Hyperbolic 2” and “MUCH” represent two wildly different forms of indulgence: the latter is Busdriver’s lone foray into trap stylings, a repetitive chorus and ear-splitting production, while the former is the artist’s most accessible and soothing track on the album emanating happiness from its onset.
Busdriver makes great use of the album’s final track, “Species of Property” where he raps lines like “they’re telling me that my body’s free, but we’re the species of property” and “they got my essence under lock and key, no, no, you’re mistaken not me” to bookend the album with tracks that bring to light the dispositions faced by the black community in America. With contemporary examples of police brutality underpinned by a display of knowledge regarding America’s interracial anthropology, “Thumbs” is a perfectly encapsulating glimpse into the mind of a thorough and contemplative artist.
Busdriver has a longstanding philosophy regarding his role in the social discourse. As he raps on the track “Ministry of the Torture Couch,” “just reach for the sun, I shoot from the hip with teeth in my gun,” Busdriver views his art as his weapon of choice. After the album’s closer, he lets the chopper spray with a monologue worthy of anybody’s thorough contemplation, and probably, a separate review in its own right.
Regardless of your political or hip-hop allegiances, Busdriver’s “Thumbs” is a standout release in a year full of stellar output, and it demands your attention. Maybe then, as Busdriver tweets, some of the greatest American writing can finally be released from its underground.
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