Ty Dolla $ign is the rapping, singing, gun-for-hire whose numerous features have included everything from cheeky metaphors on Fifth Harmony’s Work from Home, to scintillating emptiness on Vince Staples’ Rain Come Down. But his second album is a narrow, unimaginative collection. The tender minor keys of standouts Lil Favourite and Don’t Judge Me give them some pretty melancholy, but the hazy interludes and acoustic moments approximate Frank Ocean with none of the poetic vision. Lyrically it’s pretty obnoxious – on Ex, Ty texts his main chick that he won’t be home tonight, to brightly celebratory funk, but then on Don’t $leep he tells her not to cheat on him, or at least not to tell him about it when she does, and this dismal sexual economy permeates the whole record (Future demands in a guest verse, “let me have a threesome if you love me”). Droptop in the Rain, meanwhile, skirts R&B parody, by comparing sex to driving a convertible with the roof off during a downpour.
