No Pressure

Sir Robert Bryson Hall II announced his retirement via Instagram like this: “It’s been a great decade. Now it’s time to be a great father.” While the birth of a child (“Little Bobby” was introduced to the world in a subsequent post) can inspire a new parent to work even harder than when childless, the artist professionally known as Logic has earned a break. No Pressure, his sixth studio album, arrives following a tear that began with 2014’s Under Pressure. This latest and alleged final effort is executive produced by NO I.D., the man responsible for the sound of Under Pressure and the person Logic credits with the bulk of his artistic development. If the two coming together one last time means anything for longtime Logic fans, it’s that they get the most polished and well-rounded version of their favorite MC, touching on how far he’s come as a rapper (“Celebration”), his faith (“Hit My Line”), and the handling of his successes (“man i is”) across the project’s 15 tracks. Clever bars come first here, as they always have—“I’m too alive like twins in a womb,” he raps on the title track—and he’s largely unsentimental about walking away. Around the same time he announced his retirement, Logic also revealed an exclusive deal with the livestreaming platform Twitch, so even if he isn’t focused on making music, it’s unlikely that we’ll ever really have to live without Logic.