Album Review of “Under Pressure” by Logic

Who is Logic? What is the Rattpack?  Who is Young Sinatra? What are Bobbysoxers?  These are all questions I can answer for you.  These are all terms that refer to the young hip-hop artist Sir Bryson Hall II also known as Psychological.  Hall is from an urban community in Gaithersburg, Maryland.  He is a rapper, producer, and musical engineer.

He is a member of the RattPack, which includes his friend Big Lenbo and fellow artist C Dot Castro.  He is also associated with Grammy award winner Jon Bellion, as both are affiliated with Visionary Music Group, with whom Logic recorded his first four major mixtapes with.  Logic released his debut album with the major music group Def Jam Recordings.

Logic is all about trying to the best he can to be a wholesome a young man in this day and age.  He is quoted as saying, “I think we live in a time where peace, love, and positivity are considered corny, or wack.  I think that is just evil.”  You see Logic was born into a broken family.  His father was not around often when he was growing up, and he has noted on several songs that his mother often took drugs and became violent.  He also believed that his sister’s boyfriend abused her.  Logic notes that he so desperately wanted to defend here but that she resisted him and additionally that he felt the police would consider him a delinquent.

These are just some of the trepidations from his early youth. In his early childhood Logic was more of a troublemaker.  He didn’t graduate high school, and found himself often following around some of his childhood friends.  Watching drugs take the spirit of several of his family and friends pained him, and he vowed to never fall into that lifestyle.  This was one of the very things in which he believed propelled him forward in life.

Logic worked as dishwasher for a local Red Lobster, and it was at this very restaurant in which he began attempting to rap for the first time.  In fact his manager even let him and a few of his friends who worked there perform verses for customers.  This led Logic to begin creating songs in his friend Big Lenbo’s basement.  He did this for about four years while working at Red Lobster before eventually being signed by Visionary.

Logic was relatively unnoticed until he released a mixtape in 2011 titled, ”Young Sinatra”.  With the help of Visionary, he released it onto Datpiff.com (a popular hip hop website).  This mixtape was downloaded so many times (It went platinum with over 250 thousand downloads) that some actually believed that he hacked into the website and faked the buzz of himself.  Logic admires Frank Sinatra and the original “Rat Pack” group (singers Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Joey Bishop, Peter Lawford, and Buddy Greco.)  A bobbysoxer is simply a female fan of the group.  Logic was actually signed by Def Jam after the release of his first mixtape, but kept releasing music for free for three more years.

The story of how Logic got interested into hip-hop, is actually quite fascinating.  When Logic was about 13 years old, he watched Kill Bill and decided to buy the soundtrack for the movie.  The soundtrack was produced by Robert Fitzgerald Diggs (commonly known as “RZA”).  Diggs is a music producer and rapper for the Grammy winning Wu-Tang Clan.  This is what inspired him into making music.  The first actual hip-hop album Logic bought was by The Roots, whom Logic actually got to perform “I’m Gone” with on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.

“Under Pressure” is Logic’s life story, including both the good and the bad.  It features extremely positive songs as well as a song entitled “Gang Related” inspired by the movie “Boyz In The Hood”.  He also has several lyrics transcribed by actual voice messages left by some of his friends and family when he toured with Kid Cudi.  There are also a few songs, which feature hidden messages, proving lower pleasures (money, drugs, and promiscuity) insufficient.  Rather than go “the radio route”, Logic decided to style his album more like some of his favorite artists Nas, A Tribe Called Quest, and Big Daddy.  

My favorite songs on the album are “Nikki”, “Soul Food”, and “Metropolis”.  “Nikki” is an emotional song that figuratively equates a girl with nicotine. In other words, he sings about how he feels slave to a girl, only to reveal at the end of the song his somber addiction to smoking cigarettes. The album was executively produced by famed music engineer “No I.D.” and the up and coming “6ix”.  Since the release of the album, Logic has proudly quit smoking cigarettes and gotten engaged to his longtime girlfriend Jessica Andrea.  The album reached #1 on Itunes and #4 on the Billboard 200.  It sold 73,000 copies in its first week (October 16-23, 2014).