Ashville emcee C.Shreve the Professor is part of the collective known as Free the Optimus, but he’s been focusing a lot on his solo material recently. Just last December, we got the second of two solo releases he put out last year we he dropped Daddy Love to Rap. Now he’s come back once again with a new album called Lost Love Found.

Lost Love Found is a pretty easy album to get to know. While this particular project isn’t full of the crowd rockers that he put out last year, it’s still a very relatable and entertaining album. Featuring production from Grove$ide, FLUE, B Squared, Pat Junior, and Kid Ocean, this album is full of midtempo, soulful beats that allow Shreve the space to get introspective and reflect on his own personal experiences with love and loss. Sure, this isn’t anything that hasn’t been done before, but these are universal themes that we all deal with over the course of our lives, and when handled with care, they can turn into very moving and relatable listening experiences. That’s exactly what happens on this album. Shreve is a veteran performer who’s played many a live show, so even on an introspective album like this he is able to use his savvy to grab your attention with some solid hooks and lyrical acrobatics, and then draws you in further as he opens up and walks you through some tales of love, loss, and life. As a lyricist, he manages to pull off the difficult task of presenting some really personal moments with enough detail and passion to paint a vivid picture, while still remaining objective enough to not just give one side of the story where he’s always the hero. Life and love have a lot of ups and downs, and it’s the sign of a mature emcee who’s able to not just see always see it through their own eyes, but to see other perspectives as well. The result is an album that takes you through moments of joy and pain and everything in between, all while delivering some pop-friendly compositions. It’s a little bit of a different take from Shreve, but he’s a mature and seasoned emcee who was willing to take the time to do this right.

How do you follow up a crowd-pleaser like Daddy Love to Rap? You show everyone a different side of the artist, one that’s vulnerable and thoughtful, who can welcome you in and walk you through some personal rhymes that we can all relate to. Lost Love Found is a welcome addition to C.Shreve the Professor’s growing catalogue.