Quelle Chris's album, Being You is Great, I Wish I Could Be You More Often, is one of the most poignant, self-aware, and hilarious rap albums in recent memory.
For the Mello Music Group release, Quelle assembled a veritable hip-hop Justice League: Roc Marciano, Homeboy Sandman, Denmark Vessey, Jean Grae, Elzhi, Cavalier, et. al. Then there’s the production, mostly handled by Quelle, but aided by crucial assists from MNDGSN, Iman Omari, Chris Keys, Swarvy, and Alchemist.
The title comes from a real-life discussion about the difficulties of consistency. How each of us are subject to both our own bad spirits and bursts of inspiration, those unavoidable Serotonin and dopamine peaks and valleys. Being You is Great is an attempt to catalog those moods. It’s about learning to love, or at least recognize, the best and worst of one’s self. It’s about loneliness and comfort.
It’s not an exuberant celebration of human life, nor is it a politicized condemnation of what got us here. It’s a record with beats that will make you bob your head and tap your feet, and clever lyrics that will make you laugh and scrunch your face. But most of all, it’s a record with a tremendous reserve of empathy. Something that captures the wonder and madness of being human. Something relentlessly honest. Something great.