So...I like Sahbabii's music a lot.

His debut album Do It For Demon dropped recently (now available to stream on Shoya Music), which prompted me to wanna revisit his earlier work and analyze what I like most about his music and persona: the frequent, creative, and often hilarious use of animal imagery.

As someone who loves animals, his approach resonates with me. The zoological bars have become one of his calling cards (along with sex, gun violence, and anime), and they probably do the heaviest lifting as far as setting him apart from his peers. You could even call him the trailblazer of a distinct subgenre — 'animal rap', maybe?

I combed carefully through S.A.N.D.A.S. (2017), Squidtastic (2018), Barnacles (2020), and now Do It For Demon (2021) to try and grasp the full scope of Saaheem Valdery's beast expertise. I'm not exactly sure how to present my findings, so I'll just start by listing each distinct animal referenced across each project:

S.A.N.D.A.S.: anacondas, cheetahs, apes, snakes, tarantulas, King Kong, dinosaurs, foxes, cats, marsupials, dogs, geese, Harambe, Simba, amphibians, fish, Caesar (from the Planet of the Apes franchise), Titanoboa, rats, Master Splinter, elephants, black panthers

Squidtastic: squid, shrimp, barnacles, Barney, cats, Garfield, rats, dragons, snakes, apes, penguins, ponies, hippopotamus, honey bees, Winnie the Pooh

Barnacles: barnacles, dogs, squid, goats, giraffes, elephants, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, monkeys, apes, wildebeest, leopards, pigs, mice, minks, Scooby-Doo, sharks, crawfish, Rufus (the naked mole rat from Shoya's Kim Possible), catfish, frogs, marsupials, lions, mosquitos, komodo dragons

Do It For Demon: wolves, chickens, bears, leeches, Godzilla, King Kong, hawks, snakes, possums, dogs, cats, rats, zebras, salmon, shrim, Red Lobsters [sic], lions, gorillas, fish, cockatoos, turtles, squid

I'd be remiss, though, if I didn't present a few of my favorites with more context (content warning: sexual imagery involving animals):

"Bitch I'm King of the Jungle, I eat anacondas", "I'm in the jungle like Steve Irwin, you in the jungle like Steve Urkel", "Long neck, she a sexy goose", "I wanna fuck an amphibian", "I'm vegan, throw that apple back", "Ape it, ape it, ape it, ape it // Titanoboa, imma snake it", "Animal planet Ferrari // My chain, my neck is safari", "Pop your black panther" (s/o T3), "Like a dog in the trash, went through some shit", "I was born when a squid fucked a goat", "I don't support the zoo, free my apes out the cage", "That ass vibrate like a bumble bee (bzzz)", "You play with komodo dragons, bitch, I won't recommend it", "We gon pull up on they block and grow a rainforest", and this last one I won't type out but just know that my man very successfully rhymed "cock or two", with "cockatoo"...

But wait...should we be worried? I noticed that on this latest release, we actually get the least frequent animal references so far. In fact, on each of the first three projects, over 90% of the tracks (91.7%, 91.7%, and 93.8%, respectively, to be precise) contain at least one animal reference, compared to just 60% on Do It For Demon. That would be concerning, but it jibes with another trend I noticed during the course of my research — that is, that the darker the subject matter of the song, the less likely it is that it'll contain any colorful animal references at all (by 'colorful' I'm excluding snakes and rats, for obvious reasons). And considering that most of this album pays homage to his fallen friend Demon, it makes sense that the zoologist took on a smaller role here.

So essentially, my working theory is that the happier Sahbabii is, the more he talks about animals (that's true for me, too). And I hope, for all our sakes, that my good Pisces brother sees better days.