Review: NUBS — Abled
NUBS’ debut album is largely mediocre, but not without strong moments.
Abled is the debut record from NUBS (aka Colin White), a hip-hop artist focused on spreading positivity through his music. NUBS is an acronym for Normally Underestimated By Sight, a term the artist used to describes himself due to a condition he was born with which left him without arms or legs. The album’s notes explain that NUBS turned to music as distraction from some of the issues faced, either because of his disability itself or because of the ways people reacted to them, and Abled is the product of that escapism.
On that level, it’s a beautifully intentioned record. This is the one absolute truth behind Abled — there is a purity in its ideas and its expression of them that is genuinely affecting and inspiring, even if its ideas tend to be oversimplified or undercooked. The themes of the album are made clear from its beginning, as the first track ‘Disabled’ sees NUBS explain how he was ‘way down, not knowing what to do’ but how he found confidence in continuing to work and find passions, in having goals.
Throughout the album, NUBS’ vocals are pleasant enough, but they are frequently tainted through the use of mild autotune and other effects added after recording, which tend to distract from his voice rather than complement it. The over-reliance on ad-libs at times can also contribute to this problem with vocals, however, at certain points ad-libs are used to great effect — on ‘I Surrender’, the final verse uses an echo effect as ad-lib to great emotional effect thanks to the vocals. In fact, ‘I Surrender’ is the high point of the album overall — it is beautiful, stripped back pop-rap with great use of choirs, piano and clapping in place of drumming during the hook. The bass in the back is a little overbearing, but the use of features give the album a variety of stories to tell for a moment, making ‘I Surrender’ stand out.
The features across the album (from Krizz Kaliko, King Dayo and Odd Squad Family among others) are good, providing vocal variation and giving the album some different stories to focus on. Blind Fury in particular makes his presence felt on track nine, ‘Born Like This’, bringing a passionate flow and decent lyrics. The album is weak when it tries to lean into hip-hop cliches too much — some of the production and the lyrics sound as though they belong more to mid-2000s pop rap (see ‘Rainbow’, for instance, which would sound like a late 2000s rock song were it not for the overbearing 808s) and, because of that, sound dated instantly. In a genre so focused on futurism and progress, its an odd pull. Not necessarily a negative, but certainly a distraction.
Landing somewhere between the styles of Linkin Park and Juice WRLD, the album is one that is hard to sit with. The influences are clear, from late 2000s rock to Eminem and Juice WRLD, so fans of those will likely find more to enjoy in this album than I did. ‘Disconnected’, another of the album’s better tracks sonically, is very reminiscent at times of Juice WRLD’s most known track ‘Lucid Dreams’, other than during Enkay47’s good feature which does go into alcoholism in more detail. Its themes are uplifting, but its almost aggressive focus on the self is off-putting at times, and feels dishonest given that other tracks talk about a reliance on help from family and friends and the gratitude that stems from that. The instrumentals are basic for the most part, with exceptions like ‘I Surrender’ which has good progression, and the lyrics follow suit — sometimes interesting, at other times too simplistic. If the issues presented were explored more deeply (as seen in Enkay47’s feature on ‘Disconnected’), this album could have been great, but it tends to prioritise a smoothness in its sound above probing those issues any further than merely mentioning them.
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