Isaiah Rashad Moves Forward on ‘IT’S BEEN AWFUL’

Isaiah Rashad’s music has always leaned on atmosphere. His previous full-lengths, from ‘Cilvia Demo’ to ‘The House Is Burning’, worked as layered moodboards, stitching Southern rap lineage to raw personal detail. The new project ‘IT’S BEEN AWFUL’ does not abandon that instinct. It just sharpens it.

Rashad has spent nearly three years since his last album dealing with public scrutiny, private struggles, and the kind of prolonged stagnation that can swallow a career. The title tells you plenty. These songs face that stretch without glorifying the pain. They move through it with a lighter step than expected, pulling from the same Chattanooga soil that nourished his early work.

The production nods to Three 6 Mafia and Project Pat without turning into a costume party. Rashad’s writing stays close to the bone, cataloguing addiction, recovery, and the exhaustion that comes with both. There is no tidy resolution, no forced triumph. That restraint sets the project apart from the confessional overload that often passes for honesty in rap right now.

Top Dawg Entertainment has stood behind him through the turbulence. This release suggests an artist who is ready to be present again, not just accounted for. It does not scream for attention. It does not need to.