Have a nice life

"Every track here punches with a purpose, beginning with the opening title track, which marks the rapper's move to Tech N9ne's imprint with "Strange Music is the label" and then hits upon all the benefits with the on-point "so now your boy is able." Able to draw myriad slick productions that go indie ("Skatin' in the City" finds Mayday's Plex Luthor adding some Best Coast-ish guitar), underground ("PTSD" with E-40 is the kind of dark at home on Strange), or offworld (the great "Okey Dog" is a funky redo of the Kraftwerk sound), but not so odd that the crowd-aimed album goes off course".

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"Once the brash young reformist, Murs approaches Nice Life with gray-haired wisdom. He's not trying to prove anything, instead sounding comfortable simply talking to his children and addressing societal issues. "No More Control" feels especially relevant amid the recent killings of unarmed black men by police. Yeah, he says, it's fucked up what the cops are doing, but "we got to start to take a look in the mirror... if we don't respect ourselves, then they always gon' fear us" ... The composer specializes in hulking, pop-infused tracks, which don't quite mesh with the rapper's cohesive tales. At times, some of the stories grow stale without strong lyricism. We learn more about Murs, but he's still searching for that complete statement".

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