GENRE; Rap
LABEL; Saba Pivot LLC
REVIEWED; 12 November, 2025
RATING; 6.7
Saba’s C0FFEE! arrives like the title suggests: jittery, small-batch and immediately drinkable. Clocking in at roughly 19 minutes across nine concise pieces, this isn’t a traditional album so much as a pocket-sized creative session — equal parts sketchbook and short story that finds the Chicago rapper loosening the reins and letting ideas percolate.
What makes C0FFEE! interesting is its context as much as its content. Reportedly written and recorded inside Saba’s black Ford Bronco Wildtrak, the EP carries an intimate, road-trip energy: intimate observations, conversational cadences, and the audio texture of songs that were caught while still warm. That spontaneous genesis explains why some tracks feel like finished vignettes and others like charming fragments.
The production is deliberately eclectic — Dilla-leaning drum loops rub shoulders with loose guitar motifs and small ambient flourishes. On opener “How Many X?” (featuring Ogi), Saba rides a sloping pocket that allows him to flex persistence and swagger in short bursts; it’s a compact statement of purpose. Then “don’t be long” shifts the mood entirely: a spoken-word cadence and laconic instrumentation make the track feel like a private confession. Those tonal leaps are the EP’s defining characteristic — sometimes they land with melodic clarity, other times they feel like the bleeding-through of ideas before they’ve been fully refined.
Lyrically, Saba remains at his strongest when he pares down. Without the expansiveness of a full-length record, he leans on small details and conversational images — team messages, relationship tugs, family moments — that add emotional weight without preaching. “Today Years Old” is a highlight precisely because it balances melody, tenderness, and a sense of completion that a few other tracks intentionally avoid; it’s the EP’s most fully formed moment.
There are two ways to listen to C0FFEE! and they both feel valid. Taken as a snack — a creative palate cleanser following Saba’s denser releases earlier in 2025 — it’s rewarding: short, varied, and revealing of the artist’s curiosity. Taken as a standalone statement, its sketch-like qualities can read as inconsistent; some ideas feel undercooked, and the sequencing prioritizes mood-swerving over narrative arc. Pitchfork’s assessment captures this tension well: the EP is a welcome loosening but also the first time Saba’s ideas “scrape up against each other in untidy ways.”
Collaborators (Ogi, Senite, Maxx Moor, Felix! and producers from Saba’s recent circles) add flavor without overwhelming, they support a record that’s intentionally diaristic rather than bombastic. For longtime listeners who came for the emotional depth of CARE FOR ME or the compositional polish of Few Good Things, C0FFEE! will feel like a deliberate palate reset: less about proving anything and more about noodling in the margins.
