Better? Not This Time Around

Soul Position’s second full-length album, Things Go Better With RJ and AL, is difficult to gauge. It’s a record mired in dichotomies that lacks the consistency and quality — both musically and lyrically — of RJD2 and Blueprint’s brilliant debut. While calling it a disappointment would be far too abrasive and inaccurate, referring to the record as a triumphant follow-up to 8 Million Stories would be far from the truth.Things Go Better begins promising enough with an atmospheric intro bleeding into the sanctimonious rhymes of “No Gimmicks,” Blueprint’s iconoclastic manifesto to keeping it real. His words are nothing short of biting in “Hand-Me-Downs” as he basically sums up Michael Omi and Howard Winant’s seminal book, Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1980s, in 3:17. Carried by RJD2’s trademark, mid-‘70s detective-show melodies, the song pleases on multiple levels. The hits keep a-comin’ on “The Extra Mile,” a heavy-hitting, funk-drenched jam complete with exploding horns and arrogant lyrics.

The thrills are short-lived, however. The album gets gimmicky in the case of “I Need My Minutes” and “Blame it on the Jager,” the latter being an ode to Blueprint’s libation of choice and reason for acting like the same goons he bemoans on earlier tracks. For his part, RJD2’s beats on both songs don’t help as they sound lazy and lack his uncanny knack for retro-inspired hip hop. At times the album also gets careless, as with lyrics attributing homosexuality to sexual abuse on “Drugs, Sex, Alcohol, Rock-n-Roll.”

While Things Go Better is a respectable sophomore effort, it is far from the cleverness and creativity that made 8 Million Stories a classic.