All You Can Do

Lyricist: Watsky.
Personnel: Rhea Fowler, Crystal Alforque (violin); Matthew Witmer (viola); Max Mueller (cello); Wes Smith (saxophone); Ryan Lofty (trumpet); Jonah Levine (trombone).
Audio Mixer: Justin Gerrish.
Recording information: Seahorse Sound Studios, Los Angeles, CA.
Illustrator: Camille Mai.
Photographer: Jonathan Crary.
Slam rapper and hip-hop poet Watsky digs beats and flows so brittle he's a borderline acquired taste, and while marveling at his word-spinning should be universal, here things get real deep, real fast. All You Can Do is autobiographical to the point where that's Watsky's poet dad on the cover, and when "Tears to Diamonds" comes round with its story of a life saved by a doctor's prescription, it's a wordy wonder that's more amazing than connectable. Returning fans, drug scientists, and those who know their Imuran from their Azathioprine may beg to differ, but like Watsky, they're thinking along the narrow and not the broad. Still, if well-written and bulging diaries are appealing, All You Can Do is just what the doctor ordered. ~ David Jeffries