Offset Struggles To Separate Himself From His Past On 'Set It Off'

The cover of Offset’s latest album SET IT OFF, only his second solo LP following 2019’s FATHER OF 4, depicts the former Migos member falling upside down out of a burning city. It’s a play on the sentiment that he’s aiming to set himself apart from the rest of the rap game, which he’s portraying as suffering from a lack of diversity and originality.

SET IT OFF welcomes you into Offset’s world – full of designer boasts delivered through harrowing triplet flows and free of petty drama. In the process, he dips into different subgenres and sounds without fully committing to any of them. Although the landing doesn’t stick completely, there are sparks throughout the album that showcase the glimpses of what Offset clearly wants to be: an ambitious artist whose musical diversity is capable of saving a burning industry.

In a pre-album interview with Apple Music 1, he stated that the goal of SET IT OFF was to flex more personality in his solo music and show who Offset really is creatively. If his goal was to use the album as an effort to expand his artistry, it’s effective in doing so on the surface level – but in the process, it flexes a bloated tracklist filled to the brim with the type of generic, care-free trap anthems that he’s become dependable for.

Considering his marriage to Cardi B and the time that he’s spent in headlines and rumors across the broader pop culture lexicon, it’s certainly commendable that he’s avoiding spending too much time addressing any of the drama across the album. But the flexes that appear in place of the reflective content aren’t unique or imaginative enough to hold Offset up across the album’s 21 songs.

Bars like, “you could be my engineer shorty, how you bounce it” and “diamonds on my neck, that shit pure water like a fountain” are sprinkled across tracks like the anti-everyone anthem “FAN.”“You supposed to hold me down, but it didn’t happen / Now I’m over it / Thank God I’m over it” comes up empty for a lack of expansion, while tracks like “NIGHT VISION” are home to pointless filler like its hook – “night vision, I can see the opps when they hidin’.”

The opening three-track run is a solid showcase of the artistic range that Offset is capable of delivering – but the pacing and the ordering of the tracklist that follows, dipping and diving into a range of sounds without sticking to one for more than a few tracks, hinders the album’s flow. 

On the intro “ON THE RIVER,” he gets off a laundry list of generic flexes like he’s checking boxes. He addresses the split between the Migos members for a brief moment – “I’m tellin’ the truth, I became the one when I got out the group.” It’s certainly a fair sentiment to feel as though you’re now creatively free once becoming a solo artist. However, Offset is at his best when he’s delivering droll nuances through rapid-fire flows, not recycling already-trending dialogue. As a solo artist with a still limited sample size, without the support, it’s easy for Offset to hide behind the music without stepping out of his comfort zone too far.

“WORTH IT” finds Offset entering the melodic, yearning-for-love world of Don Toliver, touching on the pain and complications that come with being in love over the spacey guitar chords via CHASETHEMONEY. When he raps about fighting to get his love reciprocated, it’s an interesting sentiment coming from Offset that alludes to his desired growth and commitment to the music and his career.

The repetitive hook of the sex-positive anthem “FREAKY” is given too much run-time to be anything other than bland. The other track with his wife Cardi B, “JEALOUSY” might be the one, but the fact that both of these opposing performances are present shows that Offset’s commitment to expanding could ultimately be his downfall. There’s too much filler content, but the bright moments reflect his bar work and nonchalant slighting: both can be true. 

There are also a number of instances where Offset enters the realm of other artists’ worlds – on “HOP OUT THE VAN”, he experiments with high-pitched cadence and auto-tune usage á la Playboi Carti, while “DOPE BOY” is a full-on Young Nudy song. The ominous instrumental of “I’M ON” makes it sound like a throwaway from Drake’s Dark Lane Demo Tapes, but the line “I been doin’ this shit for a minute, I won’t fall off” is a disappointing boast. It makes it feel like he’s not fully taking the expansion seriously enough because he believes it’s impossible for him to fall off at this point.

On the outro “UPSIDE DOWN,” Offset warns us not to judge him off of his songs – “I’m only human.” This is an interesting sentiment to share at the end of an hour-long album. Offset already has a legacy through his output as a member of the Migos, one of the most influential rap groups of modern-day Hip Hop.

Although SET IT OFF is a teaser in the right direction, there isn’t enough substance to distinguish him as a solo artist, aside from the good graces he received with the Migos.