#jackman.

Jackman. (2023) is the newest album from Kentucky rapper Jack Harlow, who gained international fame with his pop rap song, WHAT’S POPPIN (2020). However, he breaks from this style in Jackman., exploring the genres of conscious rap and storytelling in rap, over the short span of 24 minutes divided into 10 songs.

This album follows last year's release, Come Home The Kids Miss You (2022), which disappointed many critices and fans alike. In contrast, Jackman. has received a lot of praise, with people reacting positively to his change in genre and citing his lyricism as having greatly improved He shows clear inspiration from artists such as Drake, with songs like Is that Ight? and It Can’t Be which is reminiscent of a J. Cole track.

The album kicks off with Common Grounds, a song where Harlow critiques American white suburban kids who appropriate Black American culture. In doing so, he seemingly acknowledges his own part in rap culture. However, this is later downplayed by It Can’t Be, where Harlow sarcastically states that his success is solely due to his hard work and not his skin color, neglecting to acknowledge the privilege he has.

Throughout the album, the instrumentals are stripped down to give space for the lyricism, but this does not always work in Harlow's favor. His flow is very uniform throughout, and he neglects to take full advantage of the auditory storytelling elements. However, They Don’t Love It is an example of one of his stronger songs on the album.

On his lyrically absolute strongest song, Gang Gang Gang, Harlow sets the tone with its eerie-sounding hook:

Ride for my dawgs, lie for my dawgs, die for my dawgs

This is heard between verses of storytelling where Harlow experiences the disgust and horror of finding out two childhood friends, one of whom grew up to be a serial rapist and the other a pedophile. The storytelling is one of the strongest elements on the album, but it is still somewhat lackluster and flat, undercut by the fairy tale ending of the song.