Few Good Things, creative regeneration, and defying lazy narratives
thefader.comSaba’s been in a creative mood recently. But before he does anything else, he has to finish unpacking some boxes first. When we talk over a video call two days before the release of his new album Few Good Things, he pans over to show a stack of shoeboxes, saying that he never thought about how difficult it’d be to drop an album and move to a new house at the same time.
Despite the busy schedule, the Chicago musician is beaming with excitement you can feel through the screen. “I’m back in a space that feels similar to when we first started making music,” the 27-year-old rapper said. “We thought we were the most amazing, the coldest to ever do it.” Saba credits his refreshed outlook to the much-needed break he’s had, half his doing, the other half caused by the ongoing pandemic.
In April 2018, he released his meditative sophomore album Care For Me, a delicately constructed album that navigated loss, relationships, loneliness, and family.
Memories of John Walt, Saba’s cousin and a founding member of Pivot Gang who was killed in February 2017, are immortalized in the grief-stricken stories of Care For Me. “I was listening with one of the producers and he actually pointed it out: ‘Damn dude, all of these songs are about Walt,'” Saba told Rolling Stone in July 2018.
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