To What End Explained

To What End
Type:Studio album
Artist:Oddisee
Cover:Oddisee To What End cover.jpg
Genre:Hip hop
Label:Outer Note Label
Producer:Oddisee
Prev Title:The Iceberg
Prev Year:2017

To What End is a studio album by American rapper and record producer Oddisee. It was released on January 20, 2023 through Outer Note Label. Production was handled by Oddisee himself, except for the song "Bartenders", which was co-produced by Dunc. It features guest appearances from BeMyFiasco, Bilal, C.S. Armstrong, Freeway, Haile Supreme, Kay Young, Noochie, Olivier St. Louis, Phonte, Saint Ezekiel and Toine Jameson, with contributions from Ralph Real, Dennis Turner, Jon Laine, Fredeka, Felix Herbst, Johan Lenox and Don Carn.

Critical reception

To What End was met with generally favorable reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 75, based on four reviews.

Grant Jones of RapReviews found the album "that grows on the listener", adding: "it does have a few tracks that sound like they could have been from older albums and the shorter track lengths I can't ignore, but there are great tracks here to appease any self-respecting hip-hop fan seeking something more genuine and soulful in their 2023 playlists". Thomas Stremfel of Spectrum Culture wrote: "To What End, while an overwhelmingly positive record, explores one of his core principles from multiple angles, and for every angle he approaches from, he finds either a clever, inspiring or fun way to turn it into a song". Dylan Green of Pitchfork wrote: "a handful of the beats skew generic—closing tracks "The Way", with its sleepy Wreckx-n-Effect sample, and "Race", in particular, play like car-commercial music—but To What End avoids defaulting to a rapper spitting with a backing band". AllMusic's Paul Simpson stated: "Oddisee is a pro at boiling a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions down to concise, relatable songs, and To What End contains some of his most deeply personal work to date". Quentin B Huff of PopMatters resumed: "Oddisee more than holds his own while weaving his nimble lyricism across his diverse soundscape".

Personnel