Cool Song: Big Sean, Hit Boy “What A Life”

After going through some dark times, which included a deep depression that left him suicidal, Big Sean returned last year with Detroit 2, a companion project to his 2012 mixtape of the same name.

Chock full of guest features — Lil Wayne, Post Malone, Diddy, Travis Scott and many others (including “stories” by Dave Chappelle, Erykah Badu, Stevie Wonder, and even a track with his on and off again girlfriend Jhene Aiko), the record was more than a solid effort, its clever mix of pop and soul with contemporary rap signaling that Sean’s time shrouded in darkness was something he was eager to move beyond.

Still, in a music business where there are five thousand new songs and one million new artists each day vying for the audience’s all too limited attention, it is difficult to capture the zeitgeist unless you’ve got some kind of controversy that keeps you in the news, or the music is just that good. In a sense, it’s not enough to be good, or even better than good, you’ve got to be undeniably great; with Big Sean, it’s always felt as if he existed a tad below the radar. Maybe he had too much hype earlier in his career; maybe in this latter part, he hasn’t received enough.

This new track, “What A Life,” released as part of his What You Expect EP with producer Hit Boy (who has brought the best out of Nas on his past two albums), finds Sean operating in peak form, seemingly cognizant of the fact that — like his contemporary Wale — despite being a veteran, he still seen as something of an underdog. There are many cool lines in the song, but the one I like the most is the one about being Finally Famous, and not giving a fuck about it. A reference to his first album, which came out ten years ago, it’s the kind of flex you can only make at this point in your career, when you’ve done everything, and all you’re waiting for is what you wanted the whole time — a little respect.

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