Offset contemplates fatherhood — and jail time

A- Offset Father of 4

Quality Control/Motown/ Capitol

As one-third of Migos, Atlanta’s flashiest mumble-rap trio, Offset has been an active participant in the ups and downs of sex, drugs, love and hip-hop. So much so that it made him an absentee dad and very nearly single when his new wife — fellow superstar Cardi B — dumped him for infidelity. Now that they are reunited — along with their 7-month-old daughter, Kulture — Offset has grown wearily ruminative and focused on the man he could have been to his other kids, Jordan, Kody and Kalea. Father of 4, his debut solo album, moves away from his pricey product-placement raps and looks back on his life facing time for crimes against the law and the heart.

When Offset raps, “Have you ever done time/Lookin’ at my kids through the blinds/Confinement mind/How you feelin’ when you face a dime?” he’s never sounded as hard or sincere. Same goes for the woozily timed “How Did I Get Here.” Atop a haunting ambient whirr, Offset mixes vivid pictures of a playful childhood with jail time and the past of an enslaved black America. On that track and others, like “After Dark,” Offset uses the line “That’s just how it go” to signal a numbness to the insistent proliferation of violence, incarceration, and death around him, and the hard-won lifestyle he has made for himself with Migos. But there has to be more. So in the fashion of 4:44 — Jay Z’s recent confessional opus — Offset looks to love and the promise of loyalty as the answer on “Don’t Lose Me.” The true power of Father is the hope that he and his friends — Cardi, J Cole, and more perform guest features — share regarding fidelity and the future.

Hot tracks: “Don’t Lose Me,” “How Did I Get Here,” “After Dark” — A.D. AMOROSI The Philadelphia Inquirer

B+ Over the Rhine Love & Revelation

Great Speckled Dog

Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler share a marriage and the stage as the duo Over the Rhine, but often write separately, and so far that approach seems to work. For their latest album, Detweiler composed “Let You Down” — a pledge of commitment — and the Ohio couple sing it together, their partnership still harmonious after 30 years.

Love & Revelation is a subdued but lovely celebration of the milestone. It won’t surprise longtime fans that the topics are often sad and the tempos mostly slow, all the better to showcase Bergquist’s warm, wise, honest alto. She sounds better than ever, with a depth and richness that makes her voice resonate like a prayer.

The songs are strong, whether

he wrote them or she wrote them. They address heartache, hope and the push and pull of the road and relationships. Bergquist and Detweiler co-produced, and a crack supporting cast includes Greg Leisz and Bradley Meinerding, who shine on electric guitar, and drummer Jay Bellerose, who makes sure the leisurely beat doesn’t stall.

In the liner notes Bergquist and Detweiler cite poetry as inspiration, but tunes are at the foundation of the couple’s collaboration. The closing “An American in Belfast” is a wordless benediction written by Detweiler, with humming by Bergquist. Good? Uh-huh.

Hot tracks: “An American in Belfast,” “Let You Down” — STEVEN WINE The Associated Press

SINGLES

■ Justin Moore, “Jesus and Jack Daniels”

In his decade-long country music career, Justin Moore has been rabble-rousing and retrograde, a stern guy and a goof. Finally, he has found a

song that captures both sides of his duality. “Jesus and Jack Daniels” is delivered with a smear of Randy Travis stoicism — Mom parents via the good book, and Dad via the bottle: “When we messed up she’d fill us up/with the scripture and a Baptist hymn/ and she’d pray we’d be a little more like her and a whole lot less like him.” — JON CARAMANICA

The New York Times ■ The Black Keys, “Lo/Hi”

The fuzztone is cranked way up on “Lo/Hi,” the first Black Keys song since 2014. It’s the kind of garage-boogie stomp that the band never left behind. Singing about desperate loneliness and 180-degree mood swings, the Black Keys reach back to a late-1960s combination of primordial three-chord simplicity (hinting at Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky”) and overdubs galore. Between the group hand claps, a gang of guitars and the whooping, wailing backup vocals, it’s a far cry from the early Black Keys’ two-man-band austerity — but with the old wallop intact. — JON PARELES The New York Times