Already a Grammy-nominated rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer, Sir Robert Bryson Hall II, better known by his stage name, Logic, or pen name, Bobby Hall, can now add ‘author’ to his list of achievements, as he dropped his debut novel, “Supermarket,” on Tuesday. Alongside it, Logic surprised fans by releasing an accompanying soundtrack of the same name.
“Supermarket” is a fiction thriller about a grocery store employee whose life changes as he finds himself in the middle of a crime scene. Within 24 hours of its release, the novel reached number one on Amazon’s Best-Selling Books list. The book itself is a thrilling page-turner as a new revelation about the supermarket employee’s life is exposed on each page. The fresh plot will intrigue both new readers and the most dedicated bookworms with unexpected humor. On top of that, avid fans of Logic will be pleased to imagine his voice narrating every sentence in their heads.
In an interview with “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” on Tuesday night, Logic said that he wrote the book because his manager told him he couldn’t, taking it as a direct challenge. The process of writing the book, though, helped him work with his own anxiety.
“Being able to write about my angst and what I was going through in my life through the perspective of this character allowed me to heal,” he said in the interview.
In the 13-track accompanying soundtrack, Logic explores a wide variety of genres as he strays away from his usual hip-hop sound. The opening track, “Bohemian Trapsody,” starts off as an indie-rock song with a computerized beat that transitions into a trap-inspired beat and rap at the end.
Other songs in the album, such as “Pretty Young Girl” and “I Love You Forever,” are calming acoustics about love and the anxieties of asking someone out. Meanwhile, “Lemon Drop” sounds like a song the Red Hot Chili Peppers would have sung in the 1990s with its funk-rock beat. “Best Friend” samples the comedy rap song “Just A Friend” by Biz Markie, but takes a serious twist as the protagonist confronts his love interest.
The tempo and intensity of each song correlate with the part of the book it goes with, such as “Pretty Young Girl” accompanying the moment the protagonist meets a customer at the grocery store and “Supermarket” describing his longing to talk to her. Logic also collaborated with Canadian indie-rock artist Mac DeMarco, who produced the songs “I’m Probably Gonna Rock Your World” and “Vacation From Myself” for the album. Both songs use R&B-styled lyrics and guitar riffs.
The soundtrack is a refreshing and surprising change of style for Logic, who is already known for switching up his sound for albums and mixtapes. His 2017 studio album, “Everybody,” was criticized by fans about his mixtapes being too fixated on topics like mental health, which at the time were not discussed much in hip-hop music. This time, Logic experimented with new changes.
“I wanted to use my novel as an opportunity to challenge myself musically, diving into a completely new genre,” Logic said in a press-release statement on Tuesday.
This gives us hope as we anticipate Logic’s next album, “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.” The title song was released on March 21 and sounds like his usual trap and hip-hop sound, but it is possible that we’ll see more of a change from his traditional style when the album comes out.