Laila's Wisdom
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

''Laila's Wisdom'' is the second studio album by American rapper
Rapsody Marlanna Evans (born January 21, 1983), better known by her stage name Rapsody, is an American rapper. After signing with music producer 9th Wonder's music label It's a Wonderful World Music Group, she released a series of mixtapes and collab ...
, released on September 22, 2017, by Jamla Records and
Roc Nation Roc Nation is an American entertainment company founded by Jay-Z in 2008. Headquartered in New York City, the company is a successor to his previous Roc-A-Fella Records label, with additional offices in Los Angeles and London. It serves as a re ...
. It is Rapsody's first album released under her partnership with Roc Nation. The album features collaborations with
Kendrick Lamar Kendrick Lamar Duckworth (born June 17, 1987) is an American rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer. Regarded as one of the greatest rappers of all time, he was awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Music, becoming the first music ...
(with whom Rapsody had previously collaborated on ''
To Pimp a Butterfly ''To Pimp a Butterfly'' is the third studio album by the American rapper Kendrick Lamar. It was released on March 15, 2015, by Top Dawg Entertainment, Aftermath Entertainment and Interscope Records. The album was recorded in studios throughout ...
''), Anderson .Paak,
Busta Rhymes Trevor George Smith Jr. (born May 20, 1972), known professionally as Busta Rhymes, is an American rapper, singer and actor. Chuck D of Public Enemy gave him the moniker Busta Rhymes, after National Football League, NFL and Canadian Football Lea ...
, Lance Skiiiwalker,
Black Thought Tariq Luqmaan Trotter (born October 3, 1973), better known as Black Thought, is an American rapper, singer, actor and the lead Emcee (hip hop), MC of the hip hop group The Roots, which he co-founded with drummer Questlove in Philadelphia. Regar ...
,
BJ the Chicago Kid Bryan James Sledge (born November 23, 1984), better known by his stage name BJ the Chicago Kid (or simply BJ), is an American singer and songwriter. Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Sledge is best known for frequently collaborating with Top ...
, and
Musiq Soulchild Taalib Hassan Johnson (born September 16, 1977), better known by his stage name Musiq Soulchild (or simply Musiq; pronounced "music") is an American singer-songwriter. His music blends Rhythm and blues, R&B, funk, blues, jazz, and Gospel music, ...
, among others.


Background

The album is Rapsody's first following her signing with Roc Nation in 2016, and follows her mixtape ''Crown'' (2016). Rapsody has previously collaborated with several of the guests on the record, including
Kendrick Lamar Kendrick Lamar Duckworth (born June 17, 1987) is an American rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer. Regarded as one of the greatest rappers of all time, he was awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Music, becoming the first music ...
, who she collaborated with on the track "Complexion (A Zulu Love)" from Lamar's 2015 album ''
To Pimp a Butterfly ''To Pimp a Butterfly'' is the third studio album by the American rapper Kendrick Lamar. It was released on March 15, 2015, by Top Dawg Entertainment, Aftermath Entertainment and Interscope Records. The album was recorded in studios throughout ...
'', which is credited with gaining Rapsody wider attention than she had had previously. Lamar also rapped on the track "Rock the Bells" from her 2011 mixtape ''For Everything''. Rapsody also appeared on Anderson .Paak's album '' Malibu'', on "Without You". Paak also appeared on ''Crown''. In early September, Rapsody released "You Should Know", featuring
Busta Rhymes Trevor George Smith Jr. (born May 20, 1972), known professionally as Busta Rhymes, is an American rapper, singer and actor. Chuck D of Public Enemy gave him the moniker Busta Rhymes, after National Football League, NFL and Canadian Football Lea ...
, as the first single from the album. In an
Instagram Instagram is an American photo sharing, photo and Short-form content, short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with Social media camera filter, filters, be ...
post, Rhymes called the album "the best album I've heard not only from a female MC but in Hip hop period as well that I've personally had a chance to hear from top to bottom in its entirety that I've probably in the last 10yrs ". The guest appearances for the album were revealed in a video featuring Rapsody in a mural surrounded by the guests that appear on the record.


Critical reception

''Laila's Wisdom'' received widespread acclaim from critics. At
Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an
average In colloquial, ordinary language, an average is a single number or value that best represents a set of data. The type of average taken as most typically representative of a list of numbers is the arithmetic mean the sum of the numbers divided by ...
score of 87, based on seven reviews. Michael J. Warren of ''
Exclaim! ''Exclaim!'' is a Canadian music and entertainment publisher based in Toronto, which features coverage of new music across all genres with a special focus on Canadian and emerging artists. The monthly ''Exclaim!'' print magazine publishes seven ...
'' called it Rapsody's best work, as well as "the best amongst her peers, the sort of album that transcends the lane she was in beforehand, transcends whatever antiquated gender biases may still permeate the genre and puts her in the same category as your favourite rapper (who's now clamouring for a Rapsody feature)." Jesse Fairfax of ''
HipHopDX ''HipHopDX'' is an online magazine of Hip hop music, hip hop music criticism and news. ''HipHopDX'' has over 3.5M monthly readers, the website encompassing hip hop news, interviews, music, and reviews. The website's founder and CEO is Sharath C ...
'' found that "Rapsody evolves on this latest album—increasingly comfortable revealing a wide range of personal facets while developing into an apt storyteller." Writing for '' XXL'', Peter A. Berry described the album as "a smooth, cohesive and powerfully insightful effort." In his review for
AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...
, writer Andy Kellman praised Rapsody's progression on the album, writing that "'Laila's Wisdom' is Evans' lyrically broadest and musically richest work, yet it doesn't have the sprawling quality of the first album. There's a finer, detail-filled shape to it, from the ' Young, Gifted, and Black' ( Aretha)-sampling title track to 'Jesus Coming,' an astonishing finale in which Evans relates the aftermath of a playground tragedy from multiple perspectives."


Accolades

The album received two
Grammy Award The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as The Grammys, are awards presented by The Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achievements in music. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious ...
nominations for
Best Rap Album The Grammy Award for Best Rap Album is an award presented to recording artists for quality albums with rapping at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards. Honors in several categories ...
and
Best Rap Song The Grammy Award for Best Rap Song is an honor presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for quality songs in the rap music genre. Honors in several c ...
.


Track listing

Notes * Amber Navaran, Max Bryk, and Andris Mattison are collectively credited as Moonchild, their band name, for their feature on "Nobody".


Personnel

*
Rapsody Marlanna Evans (born January 21, 1983), better known by her stage name Rapsody, is an American rapper. After signing with music producer 9th Wonder's music label It's a Wonderful World Music Group, she released a series of mixtapes and collab ...
– lead vocals (all tracks), engineering (tracks 3–4, 6, 12) *
9th Wonder Patrick Denard Douthit (born January 15, 1975),
better known as 9th Wonder, is an American record producer, record ...
– engineering (tracks 1–2, 5–14), recording arranger (tracks 2–14), additional vocals (tracks 6–7, 10) * Anderson .Paak – additional vocals (tracks 7, 13) *
Black Thought Tariq Luqmaan Trotter (born October 3, 1973), better known as Black Thought, is an American rapper, singer, actor and the lead Emcee (hip hop), MC of the hip hop group The Roots, which he co-founded with drummer Questlove in Philadelphia. Regar ...
– additional vocals (track 7) * Gwen Bunn – vocals, vocal arranger (track 10) *
Busta Rhymes Trevor George Smith Jr. (born May 20, 1972), known professionally as Busta Rhymes, is an American rapper, singer and actor. Chuck D of Public Enemy gave him the moniker Busta Rhymes, after National Football League, NFL and Canadian Football Lea ...
– vocals (track 9, additional on 5) * Coup de Grace – guitar, piano, recording arranger (track 9) * Eric G – recording arranger (track 9) * Ka$h Don't Make Beats – engineering (track 4) *
Khrysis Christopher Frederick Tyson (born September 7, 1981), better known as Khrysis, is an American hip hop producer and occasional rapper. He is best known as a former member of the Justus League collective, being one half of the duo The Away Team ...
– engineering (tracks 4, 12–13) *
Terrace Martin Terrace Jamahl Martin (born December 28, 1978) is an American musician, rapper, singer, and record producer. He is perhaps best known for producing records for several prominent artists in the music industry, including Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dog ...
– keyboards (tracks 2, 6, 11, 13, additional on 1, 4–5, 7, 9–10, 12), recording arranger (tracks 2, 4–8, 10–13), saxophone (tracks 10–11), synthesizer (track 10), vocals (track 11) * Merna – additional vocals (track 9) *
Musiq Soulchild Taalib Hassan Johnson (born September 16, 1977), better known by his stage name Musiq Soulchild (or simply Musiq; pronounced "music") is an American singer-songwriter. His music blends Rhythm and blues, R&B, funk, blues, jazz, and Gospel music, ...
– additional vocals (track 10) * Amber Navaran – vocals (tracks 7, 14) * Max Bryk – keyboards (track 7) * Andris Mattison – keyboards (track 7) * James Poyser – keyboards (tracks 3, 5) * Taylor Jon Shepard – additional keyboards (tracks 1, 4) * Heather Victoria – additional vocals (track 4) * Marlon Williams – string arranger (tracks 2, 5–6, 8), guitar, recording arranger (track 4) *
Young Guru Gimel Androus Keaton (born February 27, 1974), professionally better known by his pseudonym Young Guru, is an American audio engineer, record producer, disc jockey, and record executive from Wilmington, Delaware. In 2019, Young Guru won a Grammy ...
– engineering (tracks 5, 10)


Charts


References

{{Authority control 2017 albums Albums produced by 9th Wonder Albums produced by Khrysis Albums produced by Nottz Rapsody albums Roc Nation albums