According To… is the kind of record that reminds you why you started caring about underground Hip Hop in the first place. It is also the kind of record that could only exist now, made by two artists who have already lived through the hype cycle, industry promises, and algorithm era, and walked out the other side with their craft intact.
RJD2 and Supastition are both 20‑plus years deep, both highly respected, and both underrated in ways that almost feel deliberate. This first full-length collaboration arrives without fanfare, on their own imprints, while the rest of rap chases playlist real estate. That context matters because the album sounds like it: focused, grown, unconcerned with trend-chasing, and very concerned with getting the writing and the feel right.
We have followed Supastition since 7 Years of Bad Luck (2002), and According To… is up there with his best work. RJD2’s 2002 debut Deadringer is an instrumental classic in our book, and his work here hits the same standard, just in a very different phase of his career.
Most late-career underground albums spend a lot of time re-litigating status: what the artist “should” have gotten, how the game slept, where they rank in imaginary lists. Supastition does touch that lane, but he quickly moves past it. The core of According To… is not industry grievance; it is everyday pressure.
“Machines Like Us” lays that out clearly. Supa raps about being a middle‑aged Black man in a corporate job, reduced to metrics and productivity charts, where the salary is what they pay you to forget your own dreams. He talks about six figures “feeling like ditch digging,” about the way blood pressure climbs while your creative life shrinks. It is the kind of detail you only get from someone who actually clocked in, not someone imagining “the nine-to-five” as an abstract idea.
“Wins and Losses,” with J‑Live, extends the theme from the office to the kitchen table. Supa wants to turn W’s into a W‑2. He remembers cousins who took different routes—hustling, prison, then entrepreneurship—while he tries to make legitimate checks stretch. One of the album’s most piercing lines is a casual admission: maybe God doesn’t want him to be a millionaire. He says he could live with that, then immediately undercuts himself by observing how much his kids eat. Suddenly, “comfortable” stops being enough. That tension sits there, unresolved, and the song is stronger for it.
“Reset (Better Friends)” looks at his circle with the same blunt honesty. He runs through a list of long-time friends whose energy now drags him down: the chronic pessimist, the conspiracy theorist, the pyramid-scheme salesman, the guy who only talks about IG models. Supa doesn’t treat them as villains, but he clearly reached the age where nostalgia is not enough to justify draining relationships. Marriage, work, and age changed his bandwidth. The song is less “I outgrew you” and more “I finally admitted I did.”
One of the album’s most memorable moments is “Bittersweet,” where an ex gets engaged, and Supastition decides to lean all the way into petty. This is not a dignified breakup song, and that is what makes it work. He fantasizes about the world ending on her wedding day, the pastor getting stuck in traffic, the bank denying their mortgage, and the DJ playing nothing but boom bap at the reception. He admits she was right about some of his flaws, and still cannot accept that she moved on without him. The level of detail is almost comical, but it lands because most people have had those bitter, childish thoughts—they just won’t rap them on record. Supa does, and then undercuts himself with “that’s super petty, right?” It is funny, but it is also emotionally accurate.
At the opposite end of the spectrum is “The Mourning After,” which is one of the heaviest songs Supastition has ever recorded. Over a subdued RJD2 backdrop, he talks through years of accumulated loss and unprocessed trauma. Depression leaves, anxiety arrives. He describes a stretch where every month brings another death, numbness competing with panic. Then he turns to his biological father—the man who never raised him, resurfaced two weeks before dying from a stroke, and never regained the ability to speak. Supa stares at the face of a stranger on his deathbed and feels nothing, then later learns that this man had been telling a daughter (a sister he never knew) that he and Supa were in touch all along. The abandonment is doubled by the lie.
He forgives his father in one line, hopes he repented, then immediately admits he now has to “add another chapter to a closed book.” Most artists would bury that kind of confession as a one-verse aside. Here it gets an entire song, and the writing refuses any tidy resolution.
Supastition’s relationship to the culture runs through the record too, but again, it is grounded rather than obsessive. On “One Last Time” he shrugs at the idea of being anyone’s “Top 3,” pointing out that his kids call him father of the year and that is a better flex than rap rankings anyway. “Expiration Date,” again with J‑Live, digs into a different kind of frustration: producers who called him a waste of beats, critics who treated him and J the way you treat stray cats—tolerated, never embraced. J‑Live answers with a verse about aging into a more useful kind of honesty, saying things now he literally did not know as a younger man.
“Carte Blanche” offers a counterweight: Supa meets one of his favorite rappers, gives him his flowers, and hears “you a legend yourself” in return. That little moment—someone you idolize quietly validating your work—seems to recalibrate how he moves. You can feel that shift in the way he carries himself across the album: less hungry for approval, more invested in documenting his life clearly.
RJD2’s production across According To… is consistently strong without ever pulling focus away from the writing. If Deadringer was his widescreen instrumental calling card, this album is him acting as an experienced cinematographer: building scenes, supporting mood, never trying to steal them.
The beats are rooted in boom-bap but avoid museum-piece stiffness. Drums crack; basslines move; samples tilt from soulful to ominous depending on the subject matter. “Machines Like Us” feels tense and clock-driven, matching the monotony and dread of office life. “Bittersweet” leans more playful, leaving room for Supa’s petty imagination. “The Mourning After” pulls back almost completely, trusting Supa’s voice to carry the emotional load.
“Beasts Per Minute” gives him a more traditional underground banger to flex on, and you can hear RJD2’s DJ instincts in the way the track feels like it could open a live set—tempo, swing, and loop selection all set for head-nod and breath control.
What stands out is the restraint. In an era where a lot of “veteran” production leans either too clean or too self-consciously dusty, RJD2 finds a pocket that sounds classic without feeling frozen in time. It is top-tier work from an artist who already proved his range long ago but still cares about getting the small things right.
The features fit the mood rather than providing star-power spikes. J‑Live is the perfect pairing, bringing his own long resume of thoughtful, technically sharp writing to “Wins and Losses” and “Expiration Date.” STS slides into “Rent Money” with confessions about blowing cash on sneakers and coping with bad days via retail therapy, mirroring Supa’s own lines about Jordans versus groceries. E. Smitty’s appearance on closer “A Beautiful Ending” helps frame what is essentially a letter to loved ones—children, fallen friends, even future listeners—about legacy and time.
At 12 tracks and around 43 minutes, the album is tightly edited. There is no skit padding, no algorithm-bait filler. The sequencing makes sense: “Back Talk” as a mission statement, “Machines Like Us” and “Wins and Losses” establishing the life context, deeper emotional cuts arriving once that ground is laid, then a reflective landing with “A Beautiful Ending.”
According To… is top-tier grown-man rap. It is also top-tier RJD2 production. Supastition brings the same technical sharpness he has had since the early 2000s, but the subject matter now carries the weight of decades of living, working, parenting, losing, and recalibrating. RJD2 delivers production that is fully in service of that voice while still bearing his unmistakable touch.
For listeners who value bar-heavy, adult Hip Hop that actually deals with adult problems—not just “I’m older now” slogans—this is one of the standout projects of 2026 so far. It may not trend, and it clearly does not care to, but it rewards close listening the way the best records from both artists always have.
8.5/10
Also read: The Best Hip Hop Albums Of 2026