Surf’s up. There’s no better way to begin summer than with Donnie Trumpet and the Social Experiment’s highly anticipated “Surf.” Chance the Rapper and company have been hyping it for almost a year now. It’s finally here, for free, on iTunes.

Listener beware — this isn’t a Chance the Rapper project. His fans have been fiending since he dropped “Acid Rap” two years ago. But this is a Donnie Trumpet and the Social Experiment album. Donnie’s the director, while Chance only appears as the occasional protagonist.

The Social Experiment comes from Chicago. Chance is the band’s main vocalist. Donnie Trumpet, Peter Cottontale and Nate Fox form the rest of the band.

This project screws with expectations from the beginning. The name “Surf” evokes summery imagery — beaches, waves and sunshine. But the black-ink artwork goes for a more subdued statement: a message in a bottle resting in a pile of sand.

“Miracle” opens the album with minutes of gentle singing that culminates in Chance’s verse. He rides atop a flow that’s somewhere between rhythmic and spoken word, and you get the feeling that this is going to be one of those soulful joints.

“Surf” thrives within its fusion of pop, hip-hop and jazz. The musical origins of the project sound like the characters from “Arthur” decided to drop a mixtape. Take “Familiar” for example. When those piano notes hit during the intro, I swear I was ready to hear Buster spit some fire. (Coincidentally, The Social Experiment has also covered Arthur’s theme song in the past). The album sounds like a shout out to the childhood of American millennials. The song “Windows” sounds like it was heavily influenced by “Circle of Life” from The Lion King. And it’s smooth.

The album cruises from point to point. Each song takes its own journey of hooks, raps and/or instrumentation from its first note to the last. “Slip Slide,” “Wanna Be Cool” and “Go” are points in the album where all the audio elements come together for moments that soar. They all also have more interlude-like tracks before and after them.

Not all of it sticks. Though I appreciate the imagery that the instrumentals “Nothing Came to Me” and “Something Came to Me” inspire, I doubt I’ll ever listen to them out of context from the album. The same can be said for other songs, like when a soulful J. Cole verse is lost to the otherwise boring “Warm Enough.” They made a choice to experiment with unconventional sounds, and most of it works.

Another experiment they made was to let the feature verses be surprises on the first listen by removing them from the tracklist. This was a great idea, which reached its pinnacle on the effortless summer jam “Familiar,” when you hear an autotuned “ooooh,” slide onto the beat. “Who’s this?” I remember thinking. Then I heard—“MIGO! QUAVO!” and my jaw hit the floor.

The rest of the features are on point. They all match the tone and subject matter, which doesn’t happen often.

“Surf” is all about ebb and flow. The subject matter of the album addresses highs and lows, questions and answers: issues of the soul that all wash away like the tide. “Good things come, then they go,” says the outro of “Just Wait,” the halfway point of the album.

The lyrics suggest that the answers lie in positivity. “Wanna Be Cool,” affirms to the listener that it’s being yourself that makes one cool, not social media or expensive clothes. It’s refreshing to hear optimism in rap. “Sunday Candy” is another one of those feel-good songs. The album contrasts it well. Like in “SmthnthtIwnt” where trumpets and rapid-fire snare drums explode into an anxious storm, or the soul-searching vibes presented in “Windows.”

The album closes with “Pass the Vibes,” which I see as its thesis statement. “Surf” aims to be more than the sum of its parts. It’s a collection of positive vibes slowly floating your way.

Favorite songs: “Familiar,” “Questions,” “Go”

Published on June 3, 2015 at 4:36 pm