Emcee/producer Black Milk has emerged over the past decade to become one of the most prominent voices in Detroit hip hop, dropping some notable releases along the way, such as Album of the Year, No Poison, No Paradise, and If There’s a Hell Below. His most recent album, Fever, came out a little over a year ago. Now he’s come back with a new EP, DiVE.

Over the years, Black Milk has made his mark by combining some really thoughtful and honest lyricism with some truly inventive production that sought to balance old school and new school techniques. It sounds simple enough on paper, but in practice it’s much harder than it looks, and that’s why this decade has been a period of steady growth for Black Milk. On DiVE, we get something of a sidestep from Black Milk. For one, he’s calling this an EP, even though there are twelve tracks and it comes in at over thirty minutes in length. By not calling this a full-length album, he seems to be trying to avoid the expectations that come along with that, maybe worrying about where this falls in the arch of his discography. I can’t say any of this for certain, but it does seem odd to call a project this long an EP. Regardless of any of that, this is still a solid project, albeit a more lowkey one than you might expect stacked up against some of his previous output. The production leans towards a minimal R&B sound, which pair up with Black Milk’s performance on the mic, which is similarly intimate, personal, and straight to the point. This project is about reflection, and the emotional connection to music, family, and community, and to that extent it’s as good as anything he’s put out in the past. It’s not going to blow you away with progressive production techniques, and there’s no showstoppers on here, but there is a lot of emotionally honest hip hop here that you can develop a deep relationship with as you listen to it over and over.

DiVE isn’t the Black Milk release to put on at a party or at a bar, but it is a really solid album to listen to on headphones, to work through your thoughts and feelings, and to develop a deeper connection to Black Milk. To that extent, this is a really successful project from the Detroit artist, even if it is just a little different than what you might be expecting.