Sir Robert Bryson Hall II note , better known by his stage name Logic (born January 22, 1990), is an American rapper, singer-songwriter, producer and author from Gaithersburg, Maryland.
Born to an African-American father and Caucasian mother, and one of seven siblings and half-siblings, Logic's childhood was far from ideal. His father struggled heavily with cocaine addiction, and his mother was not only addicted to alcohol but racially prejudiced despite being part of several interracial relationships. Due to inheriting most of his genes from her, he was also ostracized by his black peers for "appearing white", both of which led Logic to become conflicted about his identity.
In the midst of his environment, Logic became interested in rap at the age of 13 through the films of Quentin Tarantino (as RZA produced the soundtrack to Kill Bill), and first gained recognition with the promo mixtape Psychological: Logic - The Mixtape in 2009note , which allowed him to be the opener at Maryland shows for rappers including Pitbull, Ludacris, Method Man and Redman.
His first official release was the mixtape Young, Broke, & Infamous in 2010, which got him signed to the Visionary Music Group label and saw the birth of his musical alter ego Young Sinatra, inspired by Mac Miller and named after Frank Sinatra, his favorite singer. The subsequent trilogy of mixtapes named after this alter ego (Young Sinatra, Undeniable, Welcome to Forever) not only raised his stature in the rap scene, growing a passionate fanbase dubbed the "RattPack" (an homage to Sinatra's Rat Pack, with its slight modification being an acronym for "Real All the Time"), but the response to Welcome to Forever in particular helped get him signed to Def Jam, where his career continued.
Logic is well-known for his array of styles, working in different variants of hip-hop from boom bap to trap alongside R&B and indie music, and his distinctly strong work ethic. Since his first mixtape in 2010, he released at least one new project every single year up until 2020. To date, he has released eight mixtapes, six studio albums, and an album that functions as a soundtrack to his first novel Supermarket (also the album's namesake).
He announced the launch of his own record label in summer 2017, made to host a number of artists that he has close affiliations with. While the label was initially named Elysium Records, it was relaunched as BobbyBoy Records in partnership with Def Jam around two years later.
In July 2020, Logic announced his sixth album, No Pressure, alongside the news that he would be retiring from his professional career to focus on his family and on an exclusive streaming deal with Twitch (his account can be found here
), where his streams also showed his music output to be continuing in a more informal sense through fan-oriented projects.
As many suspected, Logic couldn't stay away from hip-hop for long, and he began putting out music again in 2021. At the start of the year, he released his seventh mixtape Planetary Destruction, made under the alias Doctor Destruction (an homage to MF DOOM), and followed up by posting a number of beats and singles to his YouTube channel. He officially returned on June 18, 2021 with a single simply titled "Intro", issuing an additional handful of singles before announcing his first project back: Bobby Tarantino III, released on July 30.
Logic's first post-return album, Vinyl Days, was released on June 17, 2022, with the album also being his last with Def Jam. Later that year, he released a self-produced instrumental hip-hop album under the alias Peanuts; he has currently released six albums under this name, with the latest being in December 2023. College Park, his next album and first to be released independently, was released on February 24, 2023.
His second book, an autobiography titled This Bright Future, was released on September 7, 2021.
Discography:
Mixtapes:- Young, Broke, & Infamous (2010)
- Young Sinatra (2011)
- Young Sinatra: Undeniable (2012)
- Young Sinatra: Welcome to Forever (2013)
- Bobby Tarantino (2016)
- Bobby Tarantino II (2018)
- Planetary Destruction (2021) (as Doctor Destruction)
- Bobby Tarantino III (2021)
Studio Albums:
- Under Pressure (2014)
- The Incredible True Story (2015)
- Everybody (2017)
- YSIV (2018)
- Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2019)
- No Pressure (2020)
- Vinyl Days (2022)
- College Park (2023)
Soundtrack Albums:
- Supermarket (2019)
Instrumental Albums:
- Peanuts (2022)
- Loopin the 1st (2022)
- Fantastic Beats and Where to Find Them (2022)
- Picnic (2023)
- Loopin the 2nd (2023)
- Super Microphonus (2023)
The Incredible Trope Story:
- 555: Averted in “1-800-273-8255”, which at the time of the song was the actual phone number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline in the US. The number is still active for this purpose, but it was superseded by the three-digit code 9-8-8 in 2022.
- Abusive Parents: Has gone on record saying that his mother was racist towards him and treated him abusively as he was growing up. In the song "Dear God", he raps about the time she almost choked him to death when he was only 9 years of age, with his voice breaking the further along he goes.
- Album Title Drop: It'd be easier to list the times he doesn't do this.
- Alter-Ego Acting: Logic has introduced three additional musical personas:
- Young Sinatra - for his more lyrically-focused, boom-bap sounding material, named after Frank Sinatra
- Bobby Tarantino - for his more "turnt", party-oriented, trap-influenced songs, named after a fusion of his real first name and the surname of Quentin Tarantino
- Doctor Destruction - a MF DOOM-esque supervillain character with which he lowers the pitch of his voice
- Author Appeal: Logic sure does love him some samples from Alan Watts speeches about the deeper meanings of life beyond money and possessions, as is shown throughout TITS and No Pressure.
- Author Vocabulary Calendar: There are a few words/rhyme schemes he seems to use a lot, particularly "automatic", "goddamn/I'm the man", "beretta", "escalated/hated", and "seems/dreams".
- Break-Up Song: Invoked; while "Nikki" is truly about Logic's smoking addiction, he stated that he wrote it so it could work as a breakup song about a girl as well as a drug.
- Call-Back: On The Incredible True Story, Logic opens the first verse of "Upgrade" by rapping, "I've upgraded while they waited; will they love it, will they hate it?", reflecting his creative growth alongside his concern about what other people will think of him. In the second verse of "DadBod", from his then-final album No Pressure, he raps the lines again but then adds "Who gives a fuck, though?", reflecting a new mindset of moving past worrying about others' opinions.
- Celebrity Is Overrated: Aside from his fatherhood, his disillusionment with the celebrity rap game was one of the factors that led to his retirement. Much of the song "DadBod" off No Pressure is Logic venting about how the artistic process became increasingly hazardous and disingenuous to him while under the spotlight, and how much he'd trade it away for a "normal" life as a father.I used to be about the B-Rabbits and Mekhi Phifers
Hit the stage, grip the mic and murder you like a pro-lifer
But I'm done now, I got a son now
Fuck the rap game, I'm done now - Concept Album:
- Under Pressure revolves around Logic's life story beginning with his rough Maryland childhood, with him calling it a subversion of a violence-glorifying "gangster record" by describing the effects the activities that had surrounded him as a child had on him, while showing that he ultimately chose a different life.
- TITS revolves around the characters Quentin Thomas, William Kai and their Artificial Intelligence assistant Thalia, who are actively listening to the album In-Universe while traveling to a new planet known as Paradise after Earth has been ravaged in a notably complex backstory with some four decades of establishing information. Logic explains said backstory here.
- Influenced overtly by Andy Weir's short story "The Egg" (with Weir giving him permission), Everybody centers around a protagonist named Atom, who after being hit by a car and killed comes into contact with God, who gives him the mission of reincarnating through and living as every human that has ever existed in order to move on to the afterlife.
- Country Matters: Logic uses the word in "DadBod" while talking about people who complain that since he became successful, he no longer raps about down-to-earth, "everyday" things.They say that that boy done changed
He don't rap about his everyday life, he ain't the same
Goddamn, already had a hard life once
Am I supposed to recreate it every album for you cunts? - Downer Ending: A variant; while several serious songs of his (ex: "1-800", etc.) usually end on positive, affirming notes to motivate the listener, "Dark Place" was noted by Logic to be his first-ever song to begin and end in the same, well, dark place, effectively letting him get some of his insecurities off his chest but not enough to take away his sadness.
- Foreshadowing: A skit on Bobby Tarantino contained a snippet from his next project being played in a studio, after which Logic gets fussy about his producer 6ix playing "the album shit". Come the release of his next album, Everybody, this snippet was later revealed to be a part of "AfricAryaN".
- Fun with Acronyms: Many have had a lot of fun with The Incredible True Story making for the abbreviation of TITS, including Logic himself.
- Grand Finale: No Pressure was built as a sendoff to at least the main tenure of Logic's rap career.
- Hidden Track: Everybody ends with a secret verse from J. Cole called "Acceptance".
- Left the Background Music On:
- In the concept of The Incredible True Story, the album is being played In-Universe by the concept's protagonists, Quentin Thomas and William Kai, as they travel to the new planet Paradise. The first track, "Contact", ends with Thomas announcing that he's starting the album, and the album's skits are segued into and/or out of by the previous and/or next song playing in the background of the skit.
- Logic further confirmed in a Genius annotation that Under Pressure is also being actively played In-Universe by Thomas as he travels through space to pick up Kai (which he alludes to briefly in "Contact"), which explains Thalia's factoids throughout the album despite her being from the future beyond the events of the album.
- Lighter and Softer: Compared to several rappers of his era. While he does use profanity, his music is generally lighthearted and positive. His uplifting, goofy personality has become somewhat of a signature trait of his, even outside of his music.
- Motor Mouth: While he doesn't flaunt it in every song, he has gained a reputation for his rapping speed and technicality, which he refers to as his "syllability" (syllable ability). He's shown it off on a couple songs ("Gang Related," "Stainless," "Flexicution," etc.), but the supreme example is the famous live freestyle "Jack the Ripper," which was eventually released in a studio version on YSIV under the fitting title "100 Miles and Running," where he exceeds 10 syllables per second (faster than the fast section of "Rap God") at his fastest. Furthermore, while the fast section of "Gang Related" levels out at 8.4 syllables a second, videos of him bringing fans onstage to rap it with him show that he can mow through it just as fast as "Jack the Ripper" if he wants to.
- Non-Appearing Title: “1-800-273-8255”. It was the number for the National Suicide Prevention hotline at the time of release.note .
- N-Word Privileges: Downplayed. Being half-black, he does use the N-word but only on very rare occasion, likely due to his more Caucasian features being likely to rub people the wrong way if he says it.
- Ode to Intoxication: "Indica Badu" and "The Adventures of Stoney Bob" are this for weed.
- Officially Shortened Title: The full name of Logic's second album is The Incredible True Story and Transformation of the Man Who Saved the World, but it was officially advertised as The Incredible True Story.
- Older Than He Looks: Looked like a teenager up until well into his late 20s. It wasn't until the YSIV era when he started to look his age, thanks to shaving his head and bulking up considerably. He's approaching his mid-30s as of 2023 and still looks much younger at times. He seemingly references this in the song "Break It Down" when he says, "Look young, but I been a man."
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Inverted, as he sometimes refers to himself as "Bobby", to the point that his official YouTube channel is called Bobby's World. However, he's only referred to himself as "Sir", which is his first name by birth, on very rare occasions.
- Out-of-Genre Experience: Supermarket sees him working in the genres of R&B and indie rock.
- Platonic Life-Partners: With Big Lenbo, a fellow rapper and one of his closest friends since his late teens who allowed him to stay with him for a year to get his rap career off the ground.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: Talks about his own experiences frequently in his music.
- Seinfeldian Conversation: The final verse in "DadBod" has him rap his way through a mundane day in his life as a rebuttal to people who criticize his lack of down-to-earth, "everyday" lyrics.I mean, why rap about everyday shit
When I could murder punchlines and sound dope like this? - Self-Deprecation: He definitely isn't afraid to make fun of himself. Notably, someone made a video compilation of every time he says the word "goddamn", and
Logic reposted it to his Instagram because he found it funny. - Sequel Song: No Pressure, Logic's (for a time) final album, is in many ways a direct thematic continuation of Under Pressure, his commercial debut. While Under Pressure is largely about his humble beginnings as a nobody with aspirations of becoming big in the hip-hop world, No Pressure centers around the twilight of his successful career, reflecting on his accomplishments as he decides to move onto the next chapter in his life. It also includes "Soul Food II", a direct sequel to the original album's "Soul Food", notably with the fully-cleared sample that had to be recreated on the original song.
- Series Fauxnale:
- 2020's No Pressure was originally marketed as Logic's final album, and it was definitely constructed like one, rounding out the themes and aesthetic from his debut with lyrical themes of finality and moving on to the next step in life from being a superstar. However, like many rappers before him, he wound up coming out of retirement with his Bobby Tarantino III mixtape the following year, and Vinyl Days as a studio release after that.
- Vinyl Days is also moderately framed as this, being advertised as Logic's final album to be released through Def Jam Recordings. The closing track, "Sayonara", is an extended goodbye to the label, going over his career journey with them and thanking them for his support for the previous decade of his life.
- Shout-Out: Considering his being an outspoken hip-hop-head and nerd alike, there are plenty of name-drops to find across his music.
- The recurring character of Thalia is based on the Midnight Marauders tour guide; on Under Pressure and No Pressure, she provides the same role as the tour guide (sharing facts and ideas surrounding the album at the end of songs), and has identical pauses built into her voice.
- "Lemon Drop" is a pastiche of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, complete with Logic doing an Anthony Kiedis impression.
- Take That, Critics!: A recurring theme of his verses has been him calling out his naysayers, considering a lot of his work following his transition to albums detailed his struggle coming to terms with the hip-hop community's opinions of him. He infamously indulged in a more particular, zigzagging case of this in "LaDonda", which features lyrics about his former beef with Anthony Fantano of The Needle Drop. In the song, he admits that Fantano's negative reviews of his past albums affected him so much that he'd fantasize about murdering him. However, he leads this into realizing how out of line he was, how he and Fantano eventually met on good terms and became friends, and how he's learned to make peace with the harsh opinions of critics. In case you're wondering, Fantano was understandably unnerved upon hearing the lyrics for the first time but ended up accepting the song as ultimately coming from a place of respect, and he would give Vinyl Days a positive 7/10 review anyway.
- Talking Down the Suicidal: “1-800-273-8255”, which recounts a suicidal person transitioning from wanting to die to regaining their will to live.
- Textless Album Cover: The Incredible True Story, Everybody, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and No Pressure.
- This Is the Part Where...: Near the end of "Dark Place", a vulnerable song about Logic's insecurities and struggles with mental health, he closes his verse by actively acknowledging how he usually follows dark subject matter in his lyrics with an optimistic change in tone — but not this time.I'd love to end this on some positive shit
Hit you with punchlines instead of some derogative shit
But it's okay to be sad sometimes and tired of shit...
...I guess. - Verbal Tic: "You" is a common ad-lib interspersed throughout his beats.
- Wham Line:
- After a long time of hyping up a mysterious person named "Nikki", the namesake track on Under Pressure reveals who she is when, after a verse of hints and clues, Logic finally says:But lately, I been feeling like a slave for the nicotine.
- Before the Hidden Track that closes Everybody, there's a skit between Thomas and Kai that ends with an unexpected bombshell...that was then undone on YSIV, which opens with Thomas clarifying that he meant Logic's final Young Sinatra project.Kai: Shit, at least we got good walking music or is that it?
Thomas: Oh no, man. I’m cueing up the fourth album now...his final one.
- After a long time of hyping up a mysterious person named "Nikki", the namesake track on Under Pressure reveals who she is when, after a verse of hints and clues, Logic finally says:
- Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: He's not knighted (nor is he British) — Sir really is his first name.
