Ab-Soul ft. Kendrick Lamar - Illuminate

Ab-Soul’s status as Black Hippy’s loc’d out young mystic is already well grounded, and though he didn’t get a spot on Kendrick Lamar’s world-beating album like label mates Jay Rock (who delivered a guest verse on Money Trees that was only marginally less arresting than MC Eiht’s gruff interruption on m.A.A.d city) and Schoolboy Q (whose uncredited vocals also pepper the second title track), he released the quietly impressive ‘Control System’ last summer.

Illuminate is one of the more emotionally raw moments in an album concerned with sephirots and government conspiracies, and the stakes are similarly high in its post-apocalyptic video, giving a glimpse into the anxious mind of a pre-album Lamar and a stand-out personal and technical statement from the lead man.

Top Dawg Entertainment released ‘Control System’ in May 2012.