by Dan O

Ever since his 2020 release How Do You Sleep At Night? (with Montana Macks) each Rich Jones project has had what I would describe as a “lighthouse” song on it. A song that stops everything in my world and leads me to the rest of the project and what it means. On that album it was a song called Shifts, on the Blue Beach EP (with Killer Kane) it was No More Running, on Smoke Detector (with Iceberg Theory) it was Dream Life, and on last years Sour Dub (with SINAI aka Sleep Sinatra) it was Murmurs. This time around it is one minute and forty one seconds of Truthfully.

The ”lighthouse” song doesn’t force me into a loop. Sure, I repeat it when it comes on but its power is to make me want to understand the songs around it better. My love of Truthfully made the innate cinematic groove of Flotation even better. The desperate sincerity in the delivery and writing on Truthfully made Don’t with Sir Michael Rocks sound even nastier and more confident. Rich has all the tools of song creation one could imagine in a rapper but never rests on that. Rich creates new flavors and through contrasting them makes a greater point about the spectrum of instability we all straddle. The first thing Truthfully did was force me to really listen and understand this albums first movement. Tracks one through four.

One Legged Pigeon croaks and squeeks the album to life as Rich spits perfect precision in a somber tone, describing himself as a “roachclip dreamer”, talking about the industry, the social environment, narrating from sunshine and raspberries to “misery is the secret sauce lubricating everything…” Don’t is a straight up nasty hip hop song. The beat bubbles, seethes and snarls as Rich immediately locks into a pocket and laces a superb chorus. Sir Michael Rocks gives one of the most impressive guest verses of the year. The lesson of the first movement of Comemos is that the world drives Rich up a wall. The cruelty of it overwhelms his ability to cope on a daily basis. This is connected to another major truth, Rich floats away. You heard it on Dream Life, Rich can make a song into the Big Lebowski dream sequence and needs to sometimes. Whether it is food or weed or music or friendship it transports him far enough away to feel the sun. When he does he’s easily the closest thing to hip hop Harry Nilsson.

ShowYouSuck sounds spectacular on Miracles, on a beat by Good Food that is so soulful it hedges into gospel. On first listen Spy vs. Spy was my least favorite song, none of the players were wrong. Denmark Vessey never misses on a verse, I just couldn’t figure out the tone. It’s a song with a goofy jaunt and a silly hook but its about scammers, thieves and how we deal with them. Let’s Hold Hands and Pray Over This Meal is dead serious and heavy “I’m the product of love, rooted to the underworld with eyes looking above.” By track eight: Look Ma, No Valleys you get a sense of the second movement. Its about the wear and tear of the coping mechanism. Knowing you are running away from the world, knowing it will come back. That’s why Spy vs. Spy is so silly, it’s the two worlds slammed together (watch Cool World). “Is survival worth it if my morals are extinguished?”  If you think I’m exaggerating about these movements listen to Look Ma, No Valleys it is about how to deal with this horror and yourself in the midst of it. Just listen.

Wishes, Tears of Joy, and Candles take the coping mechanisms of our start and the weight it caused in the middle and mold them into actionable momentum. While the world and his own self doubt sits on his chest every morning that doesn’t mean he doesn’t get up. Not getting up would make everything worse. “I lived so many lives in this body and brain peaked through the other side, too tough to explain. I just try to be kind, everybody takes a beating I was waiting in line for mine. Didn’t know that those lumps left me baptized…(Tears of Joy)”  The title track is a stone faced beat any emcee would fist fight to have. Davis The Dorchester Bully had to open this one. Rich is so galvanized his first line is “Forget John Wayne, were the John Browns. Labeled as crazy but why?  Because the sight of those in bondage was too much?! That’s cowards covering for themselves.”  The focus is a laser, the message is unapologetic. Comemos ends with the most romantic song (Beauty featuring Yomi) and its not an accident. Romance is us finding what we love in the world and living in gratitude for it.

I can sum up this album in one sentence and I have to thank Truthfully for guiding me there. Comemos is the kind of nervous breakdown that destroys your life but rebuilds it stronger and more realistic than before.