Psalm One is an emcee originally from Chicago, but who’s been living in Minneapolis for a few years now. She’s been releasing music since the mid-2000s, and she delivered some of the best albums of both the 2010s and 2020s, including last year’s Bigg Perrm, which she made in collaboration with Chicago producer Custom Made. It turns out they weren’t quite done though, as we now get a new EP, The Returrn of Bigg Perrm.

You know yo’re dealing with a talented artist like Psalm One when you look at a release like this, which on paper looks like an EP that’s maybe full of outtakes or scrapped songs from her last album session. With most artists, this would be a release that’s just fine, but maybe only for the hardcore fans who are completists who want to fill in their record collections. With an artist like Psalm One, however, it just takes a little bit into the opening track, “Dearly Departed,” to realize that these aren’t just scraps that we’re getting – we’re getting a tasty meal that will fill up your mind and soul. Custom Made continues to throw down these warm, modern R&B flavored beats that just fill up your speakers, just enveloping you from all sides. This clearly fits Psalm One, who already danced circles around just about everyone last year on his beats, and she clearly has plenty more to say throughout these five tracks. And this is where you really get to see that Psalm One is working on a level that few of her peers are on. In just this short space, Psalm One is giving you hooks that will stay with you, switching up multiple flows and keeping you on your toes as a listener, and then effortlessly moving between these deeply personal narratives and then weaving her experiences into bigger picture issues without ever calling too much attention to what she’s doing. As a result, there is a ton of this EP that will hit you on a delay, just because there’s so much to process. You’ll be done listening to the EP, then a few minutes later you’ll realize the depth and nuance of everything she was saying. On top of all this, we also get a few excellent guest spots from SolarFive, IAMGAWD, and Angelenah, who all understand the assignment and come in with just the right contributions to switch things up and give you even more beautiful music to digest.

The Returrn of Bigg Perrm is not the release you think it is, unless you’ve been following Psalm One this whole time, in which it is yet another excellent release that meets her extremely high standards. Don’t sleep on this one because you think it’s filler. Psalm One clearly doesn’t do filler – this is all substance.