“DIAMONDS & FREAKS”, an Album by BLK ODYSSY
8.4 / 10
You know it ain’t good unless you play with it.
Originally published June 22nd, 2023
Juwan Elcock’s time as BLK ODYSSY has been full of brutal honesty fueled by his personal experiences as a black man in America. His debut album, BLK VINTAGE, stood as a declaration of presence for Black Americans, detailing their individual experiences with love, pride, fear, etc. Having witnessed the harsh realities of what it means to be black in this country up close, Elcock showed no need to hold back in his prose on his first album, and while the content of his sophomore project is a bit lustier, his honesty holds true.
On the surface, DIAMONDS & FREAKS is an album about sex. At its core, it’s every conflicting emotion that comes with the act. In a letter published to his website before the full album was released, BLK ODYSSY wrote about his experiences with lust and love and how the two have shaped his life as it is today. DIAMONDS & FREAKS is both a product of this influence and a comparison of the two. It’s a challenge in which the listeners must decipher whether or not one song has the RnB crooner in lust with his subject or craving a deeper emotional relationship. Happiness, despair, fear, and funk all make appearances as he works his way through his addiction to lust while also trying to comprehend what love is even meant to look like.
The album is narrated by Keisha Plum and legendary bassist and funk musician, Bootsy Collins, and is separated into four sections: “Dopamine & Hennessy”, “Coochie & Big Booty”, “The Divine Stank”, and the titular “Diamonds & Freaks”. Ethereal production from mainly BLK ODYSSY himself is the underlying connection from track to track. Slow beats and airy layered vocals create an environment of heavenly seduction, with flute, saxophone, and bass (courtesy of Bootsy) sprinkled in when a track needs a bit of extra spice. While the project sticks to these main tones of temptation, culminating in a ramped up emotional frenzy of a jazz track in “Ephesians”, the sound strays briefly into a more uptempo funk in the third section, “The Divine Stank”.
Juwan begins his story at a point deep in his addiction. As the first track, “Dopamine & Hennessy”, flows on, the music seduces the listener while the singer is seduced by his vice: lust. It’s the period where he sees nothing wrong with reaching for a warm body over a heart, as his vision is clouded with the high that comes from being inside someone else. Despite this, the intro pointedly ends with the question, “what is love?” It’s this question that haunts the album as a whole, begging you to answer “is this it?” after each of the fourteen tracks that follow.
Through the rest of the first section, sex is an itch that must be scratched. He compares the feeling of sleeping with a woman to that of blasphemy or a cavity, implying that while he craves the feeling, it’s punishing him all the same. ODYSSY recognizes that what he’s doing is detrimental to his health yet he keeps going back for more. The section closes out with the fourth track, “Adam & Eve”. Here he discusses the prior intention of sex handed down to man by God and how it’s evolved into this thing that has utterly taken over his mind. He brings the listener on a trip through his life, giving jittery, detailed accounts of where it all started and how he let lust take such solid control.
“Honeysuckle Neckbone” starts off the section delicately named “Coochie & Big Booty”. While the primary topic of this section is still sex, the subject of his cravings becomes more specific. The first signs of jealousy ring through these songs, though whether he’s upset over seeing the girl with “that loser” because he likes her or because he craves her sexual ability is anyone’s guess. Even separate relationships on both parties’ ends can’t keep them from being selfish with one another. However, when she’s no longer an option, ODYSSY leans into a life of braggadocio, making his wealth and status known while simultaneously using it to lower the woman to the worth of something easily replaced. The girls in “Odee” all view this man as a god due to his position, further detaching him from what could have been real feelings before.
It can also be noted that all of the vocal features on this album are women participating in suggestive repartee. Five women total with only Rapsody appearing twice, yet her character is never viewed by ODYSSY through a lens of love. It’s possible that Rapsody’s double feature is a subtle indication of how easy it is to return to something void of any substantial feeling, whereas the appearance of love causes fear to take route, inevitably pushing the object of affection away.
The third section, “The Divine Stank”, begins to turn the tables on Juwan through smooth funk melodies and witty banter. The Alchemist produces the first track in the lineup, a mysterious yet punchy beat that plays underneath the wise words of Keisha Plum. It’s here in “Judas & The Holy Mother of Stank” that love and lust are officially pitted against one another and love makes a grab for the reins. “Pink Marmalade” sees ODYSSY entranced by yet another girl at the club, but this time it’s different; he asks her if she’s free Sunday, implying a lack of sexual innuendo; he asks for her middle name, simple, but he wants to know more about her; he talks about the possibility of meeting her father. Sex is still implied, but it’s much less explicit than before. This is the first moment in which the main narrator acknowledges his need for something more than lust, as even his minor feelings before came from the heat of passion. Then the final track in the section, the grooviest of the entire album, finally speaks against his actions in the past. While Rapsody asks women to love themselves before they go looking for the attention of a man who won’t love them back, ODYSSY encourages men that mindless sex isn’t worth going broke over, directly contradictory to track seven’s cockiness.
A three minute jazz instrumental introduces the final section of DIAMONDS & FREAKS, with competing sounds coming to a high before fading slowly away in orgasmic fashion. Love and the consequences of such a feeling are officially in the air. Betrayed by his lover in “Let Me Go”, ODYSSY begs her to stop trying to explain herself and either fuck or get out. Having opened up his heart to someone only to find out she did him wrong, he finds himself right back in the arms of unnamed women in order to “sex the pain away”. His vice will always be there for him, it’s hard to know if love will.
The final three tracks are full of every conflicting emotion that could pursue one in the process of falling in love. Through the hurt and heartache, “Orange Wine” sees the man trying to mend himself. Intoxicated by this woman yet hesitant, he begs her to “make [his] hazy life so clear”. His confusion is overrun with alcohol and lust until everything once again feels right. Until it’s not.
To close out the album Juwan Elcock splays his life for the world. In the same letter to his fans in which he discussed his relationship with lust, he explained the events of his most personal relationship with love. A relationship ended, his vices were indulged, a pregnancy was voted on. “Let It Grow” is melancholic, as Juwan tells the partner he’s in love with that he’d happily bring life into the world with her. Though after their relationship has fallen to the wayside, they contemplate on the very real possibility. Is their love strong enough? Could it have been? The song fades in a wave of regret and questioning as he wonders what life might have been like had he fully committed himself to love and let it grow.
In the end, the album culminates into the regrets of choosing lust over love once the line between them starts to blur. When you’ve gone through so much life pushing aside one for the other, it’s hard to tell when the one is actually happening as you’ve never truly allowed yourself to experience it. And when experiencing it means taking the bad with the good, why wouldn’t you pick the alternative that keeps you from taking any bad at all? If being in lust means never having to spend time in the lows, but being in love means knowing the highest highs, which would you choose? Lust or love?
DIAMONDS & FREAKS makes it clear once more that BLK ODYSSY isn’t afraid of opening up to the world for the sake of his art, and that honesty pays off. Though the message and production can become a bit repetitive through a few of the tracks, the sequencing shows an impressive control over story and flow. Sonically, the vocal layering in this album adds an angelic touch to sometimes overtly crude lyrics, while the mix of orchestral instrumentation with lusty main vocals laces the battle between love and lust with uncertainty. After hearing a struggle so well explained and personal, it’s impossible not to look inside to see which one you yourself would side with.