I always thought Burnie’s should be called Pilot Talk 3 instead, but tacking it to the end of this release might tire out listeners. Pilot Talk 3 isn’t as good a Pilot Talk release as Weekend at Burnie’s, a lovely little record that rivals the first two tapes in the trilogy. Here, it darkens the mood as the album seeps into its late hours. Taken on its own, it’s the least of the tapes by a significant margin. Riff Raff even appears on “Froze,” rapping though a frightening Travis Scott filter. Ski is less involved here, and accordingly, it’s slower, less lush, more Southern. It’s more story-oriented, opening with a narrative of Curren$y’s come-up and featuring the only song among the tapes where his perpetual philandering and home-wrecking actually seems like a cause for concern (“Cargo Planes”). Pilot Talk 3 is the black sheep of the three, released nearly five years after the other two into a vastly different rap landscape. It’s a little weirder, a little harder to just put on in the background. Pilot Talk 2 is all about language, light on the choruses and heavy on the shenanigans, and the beats are earthier and less baroque than on the first. The first Pilot Talk is the most song-oriented and, accordingly, has the best individual songs-“Skybourne,” a posse cut with Big K.R.I.T., Smoke DZA and the psychedelic shimmer of a Shuggie Otis song and “Breakfast,” which is the best song about getting high I’ve ever heard.

It’s a listening experience not unlike Todd Rundgren’s Something/Anything?, the gold standard for double albums that deepen and get weirder as they go on. So the compilation passes by like a cloud, and the individual tapes blend into each other.

It’s the kind of luxury rap you can listen to in just about any situation and feel like you’re sipping mimosas by the beach. If you miss a detail, there’s bound to be something else you can sink into a couple bars down. And though his rhymes are dense and drunk with language, they’re never hard to follow. Pilot Talk: Trilogy Play album More actions Listeners 38.2K Scrobbles 395.6K Join others and track this album Scrobble, find and rediscover music with a Last.fm account Sign Up to Last. He’s not far off on “Montreux” when he compares his music to Marvin Gaye’s 1980 performance at that famous jazz festival. His music is weightless, decked out with lounge guitar and gossamer string samples.

Curren y pilot talk trilogy playlist