It’s Ok 2 Cry on Your Birthday

My sister would sometimes pick me up from school during my freshman year of college in 2014. She drove a 2007 navy blue Nissan Altima filled to the brim with burnt CDs she would get from a coworker. No matter how long I spent on a blog or talking to friends. My sister could always find an artist that I’d never heard. One day she picked me up from school and asked me, “Have you ever heard of Isaiah Rashad?” I said “no,” and she preceded to put in a CD with Cilvia Demo written in red ink in the CD player. We rode home bumping it with the windows down. Even though the project just came out, it gave me nostalgia. Before we even got home, I already had Cilvia Demo downloaded on my phone and knew I would spend the rest of my freshman year listening to this.

2016 saw the release of Isaiah Rashad’s second studio album, The Sun’s Tirade; although not a household name, Isaiah Rashad was making a name for himself as a forerunner in the TDE camp. Isaiah Rashad was under the same record label that housed Ab-Soul, Schoolboy Q, Jay Rock, SZA, and Kendrick Lamar. Yet, the anticipation for this upcoming project was insurmountable. What came out was a dark album that touched upon drug abuse, his newfound fame, and the price of reaching his full potential. Isaiah Rashad’s voice fits snug over the dark atmospheric beats ranging from trap to a classic boom-bap tempo. In retrospect, I slept on The Sun’s Tirade because I was big on Mick Jenkins at the time, and during an interview, he said, “He wasn’t impressed” by his work. So after I listened to it once, I never went back to it until a couple of years later, and it was only then that I gave it the proper appreciation it deserves.

It wasn’t until 2021 where we got another full-length Isaiah Rashad project. We got leaks and brief hints about what the album will bring between those five years. While fans were desperately waiting for more work, Isaiah Rashad was desperately looking for a way out of addiction.

The track HB2U is the final track off his aforementioned 2021 release; The House Is Burning. We see Isaiah Rashad reminiscing and coming to terms with his life on this track. The song starts with an intro featuring his daughter.

Is there a Heaven? (Yes)

How do you know that? (You don’t)

Isaiah Rashad’s daughter asks, “is there a heaven” and he replies, “yes” she then asks, “how do you know that?” to which he replies, “you don’t.” A chilling concept to tell a child, but he’s not wrong. There is solace in the unknown; I interpret this as Isiash Rashad saying that Heaven is the cosmological, transcendent, supernatural place one can get to by performing good deeds. Isaiah Rashad knows Heaven is real through biblical teachings but has never seen it, so he’s telling his daughter to perform good acts still even if there is a chance that Heaven is not real. Isaiah Rashad has stated before that he has a weird interest in death, and we can see him coming to terms with the reality of there not being a Heaven.

As I mentioned before, Isaiah Rashad’s voice fits snug on almost every track. The sample from Wilmer and the Dukes — I Do Love You feeds right into that, providing a lullaby-ish vibe feeding into the nostalgic subject matter of the song.

Isaiah Rashad begins the verse by rapping.

Yeah, yeah

I hope it all makes sense to ball like this, the large address

Ain’t nothing stoppin’ me but parking fees

Many hands settle down

If you don’t ever get yourself straight, who the fuck is you gon’ help, mane? (Amen)

At the end of it all, Isiah Rashad wants to know if all of this is worth it; the opulent lifestyle that comes with Hip-Hop isn’t guaranteed to last forever. We’ve seen artists like Mc Hammer who blew through their money at the height of their fame. And in contrast, artists like Little Brother don’t get to reap their profits due to royalty disputes. Despite all this, Isiah Rashad is at a point where the only thing that can come back and bite him is an unpaid parking ticket. I see this as Isiah Rashad realizing that instances from his past haunt him; the next two bars show how that affects him now. Many people depend on him now, things have settled down, and he is in a position where to “ball like this” won’t make sense if he can’t get himself under control.

Isaiah Rashad continues to reminisce.

I pray for many Thanksgivings, I pray that Tifa don’t cook

You know her mama’ll put sugar in they greens

That’s that shit I never seen before

Bucket list, scratchin’ off some shit you never dreamed before

Sparkle up your pinky toe (Ayy)

I love these couple of lines; I can picture Isisah Rashad at Thanksgiving folding up a disposable plate of greens and tossing it in the trash, having to fake it as he enjoyed it, knowing damn well that shit was nasty. But now he’s doing the things they probably talked about doing during those Thanksgiving dinners.

We see Isaiah Rashad talk about his aspirations with some clever wordplay in these next bars.

Ayy, baby, I havе no reason to stay, baby

My dream too big for this city

And Myrtle Bеach ain’t vacation

Isaiah Rashad is from Chattanooga, Tennesse. He talks about visiting Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, a familiar vacation spot for midwesterners. I remember kids bragging about going to Myrtle Beach during summer vacation. Although it is a beach, it isn’t as illustrious as other coastal beaches, and many see it as a small slice of a more significant experience.

Isaiah Rashad then says

I can’t go far as Nevada, see, I only seen Vegas

This is one of my favorite lines on this album. It’s subtle, but we see how Isaiah Rashad uses his voice to create double entendres. Stemming from the previous line talking about vacations, we know that Isaiah Rashad wants more out of life than the ordinary things he’s already experienced. Rather than only seeing Las Vegas, he wants to see all the other beautiful things Nevada has to offer. But there is another way to interpret this; Nevada sounds like Nirvana in the song. Bringing a whole new meaning to the line. If we replace Nevada with Nirvana, the line goes like this.

I can’t go far as Nirvana, see, I only seen Vegas

Nirvana is a concept that represents the ultimate state of salvation. Las Vegas is known as the city of sin. So once again, we can replace these lyrics with their literal meaning.

I can’t go far as salvation, see, I only seen sin.

Man, I really do love this line despite how eerie it is. Add to the fact it comes full circle to the question his daughter asks at the beginning of the song about if Heaven is real. Justifying that Isaiah Rashad can’t be entirely sure of its existence since he’s only seen a life of sin. But we can see a change of thought in the following line when Isaiah raps.

If not these niggas, bet your senses betray ya

Like some niggas might do, we might have our senses betray us. So even though all Isaiah Rashad has seen is sin, it doesn’t mean he can’t see salvation as well.

In these final few lines, we get some braggadocious lines in an interesting rhyme scheme where the last line of the preceding bar feeds into the first line on the next even though they aren’t directly related.

I need a day or

Two hoes plottin’ on my cellular phone

I’m on speed dial, I’m your favorite problem, ya bitch smokin’

Meanwhile, went and got my tolerance thick (Oh)

With that Stephen Curry arm reach

Oh, we always on top

There’s not much to say about these last few lines other than stating that he raps a more elevated version of a rapper saying he’s having sex with “your girl.”

I only wanted to talk about the first verse for HB2U for now, First off, this is getting too long, and I feel like I’ve summed up the sentiment of this song. Second, the second verse leads to speculation since he references things much closer to him, and I don’t personally know Isaiah Rashad; there is only so much you can gather through someone’s music. Maybe I can come back later and expand on the chorus and the second verse.

Isaiah Rashad is one of those figures in Hip-Hop that doesn’t have a broad mainstream appeal, or if you ask someone about them, you might get an “oh, I think I’ve heard about him.” But Isaiah Rashad offers a vulnerability that isn’t hidden behind cryptic lyrics. And that’s no shade to artists who want to keep anonymity but with many people struggling with depression and substance abuse. It’s refreshing to see an artist that opens up and reveals the darkest facets about themselves. Isaiah Rashad was at an all-time high after the release of Sun Tirades, yet he was still dealing with trauma, yet he made it through it. Many things can bring you down; even on the best of days, you can feel pain, but you can make it through it. It’s ok to cry on your birthday.