Kodak Black - Dieuson Octave (2024) Hi-Res

Amid his successes and flexes, a reckoning with grief and his past. Since his emergence in the early 2010s, Kodak Black has been one of the most consistently successful figures in rap. Yet for all his celebratory flexes, he spends plenty of time haunted by his past, the things he’s seen, the lives that have been lost. On Dieuson Octave, which takes its title from his birth name, he attempts to reckon with the grief while living as a father and support system for so many.

On opener “Catch Fire,” he highlights the circular hell that the carceral system can be: “I made a lot of money, spent most of it making a bail/Doing whatever, feel ain't getting nowhere, like a pit bull tryna chase its tail.” Later, he seems to repent for the things that locked him up in the first place, adding, “I'll murder Satan when I go deliver my soul to Haiti,” referencing the country where his mom was born. Album closer “Inside I Suffer” is one of Kodak’s most personal songs to date, a gut-wrenching look at his hardened spirit and a peace that can’t be acquired, no matter how many records he sells. “This time around I’m guarding my heart so when I step out I leave my feelings on the shelf,” he laments.