The discrepancy sticks out whenever they both talk about love. On the Bill Withers– and Ice Cube-interpolating lead single “A Good Day,” .Paak rattles off Three 6 Mafia and Backstreet Boys references and Cape Cod yacht trips before listing the different nationalities of his flings. It would be standard stuff on his solo albums, and the Hollywood Cole beat is a textbook example of functional but spiritually empty nostalgia bait, but it plays like Drake’s “Janice STFU” compared to Cordae, who’s aiming for charismatic nonchalance but comes up flavorless. The song’s funniest and most awkward moment, when Cordae asks .Paak if he can borrow a condom, only lands because .Paak nails the punchline: “We ain’t the same size!”
.Paak also has plenty of groaners and generic lines throughout Crown—would-be anthems “Airbender,” “I’m On,” and “Days Like This” might as well be NBA League Pass background noise—but his exuberant personality shines through even his harshest whiffs, coating them with enough molten cheese to warrant an “Aw, shucks!” He knows when to mug for the camera and when to hang tight in the pocket, and his showmanship carries him through the few instances where he doesn’t. While Cordae’s love for rap history is apparent and he can ride a beat, he has yet to fully build those performance muscles to the point where he can sell low humor (“You trapped in the closet like Robert,” “Got the same lawyers as Puff, but I beat the case”) or genuine clunkers like “Got so much soul, must be my soulmate” or the preposterous “Spanish bitch, put my dick in her empanada.”
A handful of tag-team showings display their errant potential. Over the handsome trot of a J. Cole beat, opening track “58th Floor” plays out as a phone call between Cordae, who’s at home playing dollhouse with his daughter, and .Paak, who’s being walked down by the Samoan baby father of his latest situationship. Here, their Craig and Dae Dae dynamic works its magic in a rare moment where Cordae meets .Paak’s bravado and writing. They’re also evenly matched on Crown’s handful of sobering story-driven cuts. On “Helpless,” both men examine their roles in disintegrating relationships: Cordae as the young father condemning his daughter with tennis star Naomi Osaka to a life of being chauffeured between her estranged parents’ houses, .Paak as the neglectful father and husband showing up drunk to his son’s birthday before getting in touch with a therapist. “Days Go By” turns childhood car trips into vehicles for the duo to recall memories long since passed on the road to success. These tracks suit Cordae better—his flows and wordplay are more focused and impactful and, ironically, he sounds more at ease.
Melancholic scene-setting is important, but it doesn’t make the best party music. Heavy Is the Crown resembles a mainstream rap sampler of sorts, and its default settings are the kickback and the car stereo. As a shit-talker and lovable Svengali type, .Paak wipes the floor with Cordae without ever leaving first gear, the Buddy Love to his partner’s Sherman Klump. If you’re into the idea of two affable yet frequently chauvinistic MCs riffing over serviceable beats from traditionalists like J. Cole, Conductor Williams, and Swizz Beatz, there are worse ways to spend 30 minutes. But go into Heavy Is the Crown understanding whose head it’s ultimately sitting on.