ZUU is Denzel Curry’s fourth studio album, following up from his critically acclaimed album TABOO (or TA1300) studio album from last year (2018). TABOO received lots of praise from the hip hop world through listeners and reviewers, so the bar was already set for ZUU. Could ZUU build on from TABOO? Let’s talk about it.

Let’s first look at the track list and size. The album is 12 songs long, however 3 of the ‘songs’ are skits or interludes, which leaves 9 actual tracks. This is a fair size for an album, however it is a shorter album than TABOO, which consisted of 13 actual tracks. So this time around there is a bit less Denzel Curry to consume.

One of the first things I noticed this time around with ZUU, is that there was a reoccurring theme of mentioning God, Jesus, or at least a ‘higher presence’ per se. There’s lots of mentions or references to it during the whole album, some include:

“And fear no man but the man above your head”

“Pray before you go to bed,” every day my mama said” – on RICKY

“Eye of Jehovah

Come take a look at my city and its culture” – on BIRDZ

“Jesus, please deliver us from evil

Please pray over all my people” – on SPEEDBOAT

This is one thing that I noticed about how ZUU was different to TABOO, or at least something that stood out to me that felt like it differed from TABOO.

Some highlights of ZUU I think are the leading single ZUU, RICKY, WISH, SPEEDBOAT and CAROLMART. The first half of the album is very solid, and at this time I do think the first half of the album is better than the second half. Maybe this could change after only a week of listening but at this moment the first half has a big lead on the second half.

I’m unsure of how I feel about the song SHAKE 88 as it seems it doesn’t really fit the running theme of ZUU. Therefore, SHAKE 88 personally felt a bit out of place and personally didn’t fit with this album for me.

After listening to this album throughout this week, I’ve decided to give it a rating of 8/10. I really do think there is a nice selection of songs that build on the discography of Denzel Curry from his previous album TABOO. I feel like a stronger second half to the album could have brought ZUU up to a 9 or a 10. To be fair to the second half though, it does contain the two interludes/skits which cuts the second half down to 4 actual songs instead of the 6 actual songs in the first half. Please give Denzel Curry’s ZUU a listen, check it out below. Till next time!

-Adin