On Healing & Hope: Saba’s Return With Few Good Things
By Lydia Aga
How do we salvage a past comprised of fractured memories? How do we piece together the broken dreams of the men we reaped? Saba’s Few Good Things captures reconnection. His internal monologue is consumed by childhood nostalgia as he renavigates Chicago’s corner stores and neighborhoods decades later.
“Free Samples (feat. Cheflee)”, the album’s first track, is a perfectly crafted emotional evolution from “HEAVEN ALL AROUND ME,” the final track from his 2018 meditative album Care For Me.
Whereas “HEAVEN ALL AROUND ME” is a shift in perspective honoring his late cousin’s transition towards a higher frequency, “Free Samples” explores Saba’s own consciousness that is reborn from the hopefulness of Care For Me’s mournful concluding track. Four years later, Saba celebrates personal growth and introspection following the passing of his late mentor, cousin, and creative confidant Walter Long Jr.
“Free Samples (feat Cheflee)” embraces a perspective appreciative of life’s simplicities. Saba revisits the summer haze of his childhood block and discovers his gratitude for shade even in his search for light.
Saba’s Few Good Things explores life in the wake - the inescapable life cycle where Black death has become normative, yet we persevere onward regardless of our shortened window for grieving. Saba arises as his family’s anchor as his career has brought him from Chicago’s West Side to the sunny West Coast.
On “Survivor’s Guilt (feat. G Herbo)”, Chicago drill and both Saba and G. Herbo’s fast-paced flow compliment the third track’s emotive lyricism and storytelling. Saba remains resilient even when the onus to save the family tree falls on his back.
Undoubtedly, Saba’s imperative to consistently rise to the occasion takes a toll on him which he explains on the track’s second verse: “We facin’ the pressure of family that we watched suffer / I gotta lift ’em up out of the gutter / I make a check and send that to my mother / They root for me like Ireland and Conor McGregor.”
“Fearmonger” serves as Saba’s confessional. The survivor’s guilt that consumed him two tracks prior seeps into the core of his worries on the funk-infused song. Saba is stripped bare with his heart plastered on his sleeve as he uncovers the vulnerabilities, insecurities, and tensions that arise as he moves up the financial ladder.
“Being from a long line of poverty is not a new story, but it does come with its own traumas and judgments that can make our relationship to success feel like it’s never enough. It’s embedded into us from our upbringing so we spend our adulthood trying our best to unlearn it. It becomes you holding on to a dollar afraid to spend it or share it because you don’t know if it’s your last one. There is no family line or trust fund or rich grandparent that can help you. If you hit the bottom, it’s just that”, Saba explained according to All Hip Hop.
From Midwest rap staples like Bone Thugs-N-Harmony's Krayzie Bone, G Herbo, and Smino to R&B darlings like Mereba and 6Lack to Oakland’s own indie rocker, Day Wave, Saba cultivates a collaborative roster that is able to showcase the full spectrum of grief, celebration, and exploration that he’s underwent following Care For Me.
Saba tugs between recounting loss and looking forward on “Soldier (feat. Pivot Gang).” His mind races under flickering street lights, cigarette clouds, and roofs of aged homes while he contemplates fatherhood, failure, and the future. The track casts a shadow as his search for light begins to dwindle. Saba circles back to the past on “a Simpler Time (feat. Mereba)” - in an attempt to savor his old innocence as his worries latch onto the promise of tomorrow.
“2012 (feat. Day Wave)” revisits the atmospheric worldbuilding of “Free Samples (feat. Cheflee)” through bittersweet melodies, a singular drum guiding the track. “2012 (feat. Day Wave)” is a practice in the art of honing in on perspective. Saba embraces his younger years as they were—amidst all its complexities—rather than revel in the past with blind romanticism as he raps: “From a poverty stricken parable that our hearts had written / We come from fifty-cent bags of candy and penny pinchin' / It's like a wishin' well if we gave the concrete our wishes / We dreamt so loudly, we would wear it when the sun would slow up / On the grayest day, we on the train in our colorful clothin' / A child-like innocence, we cherished it and tried to hold it.”
Saba’s Few Good Things allows him to unearth a newfound optimism for life moving forward. Few Good Things is a powerful examination of healing through an array of vignettes that adds color to Care For Me’s grey skies.