If the grim hallucinations of billy woods and E L U C I D’s second album with The Alchemist ever feel like too much, just remember the reality that inspired them, from the streets where the ambulance never comes (“Laraaji”) to the resegregated swimming pools where “bleach burn good like menthol” (“Scandinavia”). Is daily life really that relentless for Black America? That’s probably too much to answer in rap, not to mention too much to ask of rappers, which is why they take the time to remind you that despite their air of myth and mystery (not to mention the thickness of the smoke around The Alchemist’s beats), they remain ordinary guys. Unread novels on the nightstand, bacon grease by the stove, and bedtime routines for their kids—you know, the trivialities that make life so defiantly worth living (“Dogeared”).