For what it's worth, he loses his usual composure on tracks like 'Never Been a Ho' and 'My City,' lashing out at detractors aggressively. The grotesque model of masculinity regurgitated in the first verse of 'I Don't F- With You' is the kind of bullshit we need to leave behind, and it's not offset by the sappy, sentimental 'Run This Down' that follows right behind. Honestly, 'Codeine' can be unpleasantly crude. But perhaps it is exactly that familiarity with isolation and desolation that enables him to act as a shepherd to people in similar situations - and at times rise completely above, as he does on 'You Ain't Gotta Worry,' a particularly inspiring moment on his second 2017 full-length, 'Codeine.' That's where Z-Ro's special brand of socially conscious rap risks becoming plain old ego trippin'.ДЄfter twenty years Joseph McVey has rooted the Z-Ro character so deep in the trenches that the action is almost exclusively shot from the same angle. Yet when listening to his music, his audience experiences such emotions exclusively through the medium Z-Ro, who's the pivotal point of the majority of his songs - and precisely not some Joe Shmoe. This makes Z-Ro actually less detached from reality than many of his more successful peers when with artistic sincerity and steadfastness he speaks about things average people can relate to. In the context of rap, this concept is bound to foster a fanbase eventually, because it lends the prevalent idea of superiority a human touch, a complicated note, an air of Wolverine or Batman. Rather than a victim of social exclusion, he's a maverick at his own will. That lone wolf angle has introduced a kind of character into the rap cabinet that is not only unique in its remarkable consistency but also distinguishes itself from most other outsiders by being portrayed as a winner, not a loser. The feelings he harbors are typically negative, to the effect that Z-Ro thinks he's better off alone. If that's not being conscious of your social environment, I don't know what is. If Z-Ro was on a mission to Mars, he'd still flip the bird at the rearview mirror while hollering a defiant 'I don't need y'all anyway.' Just to let you know. Z-Ro gives new meaning to the term 'socially conscious rap.' The rapper, who as a young artist came to the compelling conclusion (in song form) 'I Found Me,' proceeded to spend the rest of his career defining himself by his relationship with others, song after song, inadvertently proving the old saying right that no man is an island.

Zro new album 2018