For an artist as restlessly creative as Jelly Roll, 2019 turned out to be a relatively quiet year for the blue-collar rapper from Nashville: He dropped just two albums, one of which, Whiskey Sessions II, had been recorded five years earlier. But what Jelly Roll lacked in quantity he more than made up for in quality with the aptly titled Crosses and Crossroads. This introspective, even spiritual effort finds Jelly Roll tempering the rollicking, country-fried hip-hop anthems that made him an underground hero with ballads shaped by his father’s battle with leukemia—which claimed his life mere weeks before the album’s release. Penning the bulk of Crosses and Crossroads in the lobby of the hospital where his father spent the final months of his life, Jelly Roll delivers confessional lines that pierce the soul. On the record’s biggest hit, “Same A*****e,” he stares down mortality and family strife: “My father got leukemia, he just left critical care/Not to mention mama’s got dementia, man she’s always feeling sick.” Meanwhile, “Love the Heartless” feels like nothing less than a cry for salvation: “The storm that’s inside of me rages so violently/God shine your light on me, here I am.” On the latter, Jelly Roll swaps rapping for singing and experiments with the acoustic textures that will come to anchor his style on later releases, namely 2020’s Self Medicated and 2021’s Ballads Of The Broken. But it isn’t just grief with which Jelly Roll grapples; it’s growth, too. Crosses and Crossroads is a document of transition, one that captures Jelly Roll—not just the artist, but the man and father as well—questioning old ways while simultaneously seeking out new ground upon which to stand tall. This is especially true of the country-rap ballad “Sunshine After the Rain.” Toggling between tensely delivered rhymes and a mournfully sung chorus, Jelly Roll can sense that life is indeed changing fast. “’Bout time I started thinking ’bout tomorrow/I’m growing up,” he admits. “Man, my family’s actually proud/I hear the thunder but I think I see a crack in the clouds.” Make no mistake, Jelly Roll has ventured deep into a dark night of the soul; and he’ll remain there for the rest of 2019 and well into 2020. But as these lines lay out, the rapper can sense the first rays of a new dawn.