SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 13 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ EE E3
impressed that she ended up giv-
ing me that piano.” He lasted
three years with the instrument.
Though he could play back what
he heard, he couldn’t read music:
“It got so overwhelming that I
just wanted to stop.” He took
what he’d learned playing piano
and started making beats. “I was
playing classical recitals, but I
didn't desire to do that,” Saba
says. “I was just trying to learn
how to play an instrument so that
I can use what I learned in a
studio setting.”
Rapper MFnMelo met Saba as
a precocious 13-year-old who al-
ready had a keen ear for arrang-ing music. He would hang out in
the budding musician’s basement
and rap over the instrumentals
being created. The seeds of what
would be Pivot Gang were being
planted.
And Melo knew Saba would be
special. “He’s just very sure of
himself,” he says. “Even when he’s
uncertain about something musi-
cally, he’s sure he can figure it
out.”
Pivot Gang performed at open-
mics throughout the West Side
and quickly became popular. “We
would yell out Pivot and every-
body would say that s--- back,”
Saba recalls. “Hearing that? Itdoes something. We’re teenagers,
so hearing the power and the
name of our collective, we knew
we had something.”
Over the next three years, Saba
released two well-received mix
tapes (“GETCOMFORTa ble” and
“ComfortZone”), was featured on
Chance the Rapper’s break-
through mix tape, “A cid Rap,” and
released his debut album, “Buck-
et List Project,” to widespread
acclaim. It dropped in 2016 amid
a wave of noted releases from the
city’s emerging talent: Noname,
Smino, Jamila Woods, Ravyn
L enae and Mick Jenkins. Then
“CARE FOR ME” came out andthe raves were nearly universal.
Suddenly, Saba was an ascendant
star. “How everyone sees him
now is how I saw him at 13,” Melo
says.
On “Few Good Things,” Saba
looks back with a slight grin and
not a furrowed brow. By his own
admission, “CARE FOR ME” was
dark (“You had to be in the right
head space on a Sunday night
with headphones,” he jokes).
Here, he wanted a lively record
that made the subject matter
more palatable. While tracks
“Come My Way” and “If I Had a
Dollar” actually predate the pre-
vious album’s release, much of
“Few Good Things” was created
in 2020 during the height of the
pandemic. Initially, Saba was go-
ing to put out a mix tape — “just a
collection of some fun songs,” he
says. But when the world shut
down because of the coronavirus,
the music he’d planned to release
didn’t fit the mood. It was much
more festive and didn’t tell a
story, so he reworked the album,
recorded the song “Fearmonger”
over Zoom last year, and came
back with a more honest project
that represents the time.
Family is also a dominant
theme on “Few Good Things.” On
the cover is his grandfather, Carl,
sitting against a chain-link fence
in front of his mother’s house,
with his face peering through
pastel-colored flowers. Saba
name-checks his granddad on the
opening track, “Free Samples,”
and includes a phone call with
him for the promotional film.
In t he short film, against a slow
blend of abstract scenes, Carl and
Saba discuss the house in ques-
tion, and why they sold the house
in the first place. “I had those
savings to fix it up,” Carl tells his
grandson. “I wanted to keep it ...
for 40 years or 50 years, every-
body would go into the house.” It
wasn’t just his mother’s house; it
was a respite for people in the
neighborhood who needed safe
haven.
The house becomes a character
on “Few Good Things” and an
asylum for Saba himself. It’s why
he looks so fondly at it: It raised
the people who raised him.
“I want people to go away with
something,” Saba says of the al-
bum. “What you feel is up to you,
but feel something. It’s a lot of
emotions. There were a lot of
worlds we went in and out of. It’s
a culmination of everything.”BY MARCUS J. MOORENear the end of a promotional
short film for his new album,
“Few Good Things,” the rapper
Saba looks up at a window on his
great-grandmother’s old town-
house. He glares affectionately
from his car, his face wistful, as if
he’s remembering the years of
hugs, fights and Sunday dinners
that must’ve taken place there.
But the curtains have been
replaced with tattered plastic.
The house sits vacant, another
sign of a bygone era.
Gentrification, financial stabil-
ity and survivor’s guilt are at the
heart of Saba’s new album, his
first since the critically acclaimed
“CARE FOR ME” almost four
years ago. But where that album
found him processing grief in the
wake of his cousin’s slaying, “Few
Good Things” finds him taking
stock of the life he’s amassed and
the pressures that come along
with it. Yet he doesn’t just cel-
ebrate the fame and padded bank
account; he’s thankful but cir-
cumspect, remembering those
who didn’t make it to this point.
“I think losing people early,
people who are close to you, you
always wonder what you could
have done differently to change
that,” says the 27-year-old rapper
over Zoom from his Los Angeles
home. “You can feel survivor’s
guilt and it doesn't even require
death. It’s based on the grief of
like, ‘Everybody’s not going to
experience what I'm experienc-
ing.’ It ends up sticking with you
in a way that is damn near un-
healthy.”
The album arrives following
the death of yet another friend in
his inner circle. In August,
Squeak — a DJ, producer and
member of the Pivot Gang rap
collective with Saba — was
gunned down on a neighborhood
street in Chicago’s West Side. He
was 26.
“I lose somebody close to me
with every release,” Saba says
woefully. “A nd I know that's a part
of aging in general, but it leaves a
bad taste in your mouth when it's
not natural.”
Born Ta hj Malik Chandler,
Saba was raised on Chicago’s
West Side by his grandparents;
his parents were around and ac-
tive in his life. When he was 5, his
father, an R&B singer and pro-
ducer named Chandlar, moved to
New York City to pursue his music
full time. In 2004, he released the
album “Strong Emotion” to little
fanfare, but it led to performance
opportunities with Jaheim and
Missy Elliott on the road. “So
that’s where the idea of music was
introduced to me, really,” Saba
says. “A nd I think that’s also
where the idea of the fearlessness
that comes with being a musician
was introduced to me, because I
watched my dad give up every-
thing that he had in Chicago.”
Saba grew up in a musical
family. His younger brother made
beats; his grandmother and pa-
ternal relatives were singers. He
listened to rap artists like Phar-
rell and Dipset as a 6-year-old,
and became a fan of the rap group
Bone Thugs-N-Harmony after
hearing “Notorious Thugs,” their
1997 song with the Notorious
B.I.G., on a burned CD. “I listened
to this song back to back ... like
nonstop,” he says. “A nd then I
thought, ‘Oh, I need to hear more
of their music. That’s who I need
to be listening to.’ ”
That’s when Saba realized rap
music could be anything; it didn’t
have to sound one way. “It’s a
canvas,” he says. “You can make it
whatever you want. When I heard
that song, it was like, ... ‘Oh, okay,
now I can do this.’ ”
Saba took piano classes soon
after. “My mom taught me how to
play ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ on a
toy piano,” he says with a laugh. “I
went to my great-grandma’s
house, where she had a real pi-
ano. I played it and she was soChicago rapperfinds inspirationclose to homemusicDAWIT N.M.
Saba’s new album, “Few Good Things,” addresses survivor’s guilt and more.Kennedy-Center.org(202) 467-4600Groups call
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Now through March 20 | Hall of Nations
Author, illustrator, and Kennedy Center Education Artist-in-Residence
Mo Willems exhibits a series of large-scale abstractions inspired by the
music and genius of Ludwig van Beethoven.Three Fourths! Gianandrea Noseda opens the program with Bach’s
G major Brandenburg Concerto No. 4—a staple of the repertory
that has influenced countless composers. Listen for traces of
the famous work in Bachianas Brasileiras No. 4, Villa-Lobos’s
symphonic blend of Bach and the passions of Brazil; as well as
Mahler’s heavenly Symphony No. 4, also in G major.February 24–27 | Concert HallFREE EXHIBIT!February 22–March 13Opera HouseNoseda conducts Haydn& FarrencNSO principal musicians take the spotlight in Haydn’s Sinfonia
Concertante. Then, Noseda conducts the energetic Third Symphony
by Louise Farrenc. Though often overlooked, Farrenc flourished at
the center of 19th century Parisian music—admired in her lifetime
as a teacher, scholar, and brilliant composer.February 17–19 | Concert HallNoseda conducts Bach& MahlerWNO’s Presenting SponsorMajor support for WNO is provided by
Jacqueline Badger MarsThe NSO Music Director Chair is generously endowed by the Roger
and Victoria Sant Trust.
Major support provided by generous Noseda Era Fund supporters.
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extraordinary support
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