6LACK - East Atlanta Love Better (2018)

“It wasn’t just verses, it wasn’t just appearances,” 6LACK told Beats 1 host Zane Lowe about the collaborators on his sophomore album. “It was people stepping into my world and saying what they might not say on their track.” Part of the Atlanta native’s launch to stardom was “Ex Calling,” a biting yet conspicuously turnt-down reinterpretation of a song called “Perkys Calling” by fellow Atlantan Future. The revamp clearly was taken as flattery because Future appears on East Atlanta Love Letter’s title track, their voices layered together to sing about how their words “hit like a Draco,” the pair likening their pillow talk to the firing of a handgun. “I’m an R&B n*gga wit a hip-hop core,” 6LACK confesses on “Scripture.” It’s as accurate a definition of the artist’s genre-toeing music as you’ll find. East Atlanta Love Letter is another collection of 6LACK’s street sensibility delivered as an R&B confessional, even if the features (J. Cole and Offset among them) skew toward rap’s top spitters.