“I heard he don’t make no mistakes, I heard he don’t make none,” Maxo chants on “Nuri”, a highlight from his forthcoming album EGHASOH (Even God Has a Sense of Humor). The record, a tribute to the mercurial nature of life, finds the rapper born Maximillian Allen earnest, full-hearted, and lyrically agile. His delivery punches as he poetically unpacks the trials and blessings that have marked the last three years since Lil Big Man, his stirring and meditative Def Jam debut album. “Life is always gonna be life-ing,” Maxo says, speaking to the spiritual lessons that inspired this new project and an album process that has revealed to him the many ways in which he’s divinely protected.

Maxo’s writing process has always been rooted in imagery, observation, and capturing moments. Growing up in Southern California, Maxo spent a lot of time combing through old family photo albums, some of whose contents have become the artwork for prior releases. His artistry is intentional and deeply sensitive: “If I’m not feeling it, I’m not gonna record.” While his past records openly grappled with emotional turbulence, anger and depression, EGHASOH is Maxo’s acceptance stage: “Move with grace still regardless of hate that will come; Half living off my word ‘fore I trailed in dust, it really just is what it was,” he spits on “Nuri”. “I can't really judge nothing. I can't sit up and be mad at shit because everything is, everything is kind of coexisting,” he says.