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HipHopDX tries to answer the question why couldn't Logic stay retired if the best he was going to do was the lackluster Bobby Tarantino III

claimed he was retiring from rap following the release of 2020s No Pressure, which would have put the cap on a six-year Def Jam run that produced six studio albums and a handful of mixtapes along the way. But unsurprisingly, the bespectacled rap nerd reemerged in 2020 with a project called Planetory Destruction under the alias Doc D. The album was a throwback to the golden age of Hip Hop that he so desperately clings to and contained features from some of the eras top tier artists at the time Del The Funky Homosapien, Ghostface Killah and Tony Tone, to name a few. Then in April, Logic announced hed formed a super duo with prolific producer Madlib called MadGic, a portmanteau of their monikers. With the industry seemingly at his fingertips, Logic was poised to deliver what couldve been a dream project for Hip Hop purists everywhere Madlib beats, high profile guests features from Hip Hop legends and the Def Jam stamp of approval. But instead, he gave fans Bobby Tarantino III, the third installment in the Bobby Tarantino mixtape series. From the pointless album opener Introll which finds him just saying, Yeah, yeah, hey, yo, 1, 2 a ridiculous number of times to the predictable get off my dick anthem Vaccine, this album is largely forgettable. But perhaps the most flagrant quality of the project is Logicstendency to unapologetically bite other artists, a theme consistent throughout his career. The Doc D superhero alias? MF DOOM did it first. His flow on the trunk-rattling See You Space Cowboy? Sounds like hes consciously trying to emulate Kendrick Lamar. Going to the middle of nowhere to record his next and final project for Def Jam? Kanye West. Even when hes trying to sound emboldened on the woozy, guitar-ladened Get Up with the lines, Im too up, like a layup/I walk up in Def Jam like Fuck yall, pay up, it comes across as disingenuous. Despite his platinum numbers and the clout that presumably follows, its impossible to envision Logic coming at anyone especially label executives with that kind of destructive energy. But Logicgives brief insight into why he might perpetuate a phony image on the subdued yet pleasantly breezy Theme For The People in which he raps, I get introspective on a record with a message deep in the lyrics/But after a while, that shit get depressing, they dont wanna hear it/They just wanna turn up so thats when I come back on that Bobby Tarantino/Counting money, sipping vino shit/Its how we stay relevant to the young. He then admits hed rather be rapping on breaks/But whatever it takes to get to the young. In spite of Logics best efforts to conform, the beats he chooses to rhyme over, this time largely produced by 6ix and MTK, are the only elements that slightly set him apart from the homogenized rap that currently dominates the mainstream. But thats neither a good or bad thing in this case; many of them fail to hook the listener and fade into obscurity faster than he came out of retirement. Read more