STRUGGLER

A concept album about a cockroach running from God, eventually starting questioning why he's running in the first place. Similarly to Kafka, who's a clear influence, Owusu gets introspective on us while throwing us on a sonic journey through a plethora of his musical influences, from dance, punk, soul, hip hop, and funk, not giving us a chance to get our palates comfortable and make us engaged and waiting for the next curveball to come.

Even though it freely roams wherever Owusu wants it to go instrumentally, STRUGGLER is tied up perfectly with a central theme of confusion, facing up to things that make you uncomfortable and standing up for yourself, while still being an album whose themes are presented in a way that doesn't make it a hard and undigestable beast.

The thing I also like about it is that at its core, STRUGGLER is a concept album, but it's a flexible one, giving us the chance to play the album how we want, and not confining us to playing the album from beginning to end, as is with most concept albums. Plus, it doesn't overstay, clocking at an OK 38 minutes.