With a nod to Nice & Smooth’s “Sometimes I Rhyme Slow”, Heems takes to “Sometimes” with the philosophy that you’re under no obligation to be the same man you were a second ago. After the dissolution of Das Racist, delays in the release of Eat. Pray. Thug., public bouts with TSA gone awry, and theories circulating about the further dissolution of Greedhead Music, “Sometimes” answers the whirlwind of questions with the chief gesture of dismissal and a request to accept the human condition.
“Sometimes” is a preemptive strike in the form of a debut single. With dozens of looming questions awaiting Heems from the press junkets he’ll undergo in the coming months, he can dismiss the prying of his business with the Socratic method, “well, did you listen to the single?” Much like Nice & Smooth aimed to illustrate how hard it is to deal with tribulations, Heems is seeking to improve his public persona by offering himself as a two-sided coin; “sometimes it’s nice and smooth / sometimes I’m busa bus / sometimes I’m mad kind / sometimes hella rough… sometimes I’m pacificist / sometimes I pass a fist / sometimes I stay sober / sometimes it’s pass the fifth / sometimes I got the shit / sometimes I’m lacking it.” Ultimately, he concedes for a need of clarity, repeating it like a mantra, but still the same old Heems who fights poignancy with satire and vice versa.
Heems’ Eat. Pray. Thug. is out March 10 on Greedhead/Megaforce.
