Berkeley’s Rexx Life Raj Provides Medicine for the Soul on 'California Poppy 3'

It’s always a bright moment in the Bay Area whenever Rexx Life Raj — Berkeley’s ascendant, bluesy rapper — drops a new album.

Over the past decade, Raj has been on a dynastic run of spiritual music-making. With each release, he’s built a trademark sound as an introspective, emotionally charged lyricist who can shift seamlessly from bragging about owning Teslas to deeply mourning the loss of his parents.

Now, he returns with California Poppy 3, the third installment in an ongoing series. The California Poppy triumvirate spans more than six years of Raj’s life, and maintains a unifying sound and theme that feel like one endlessly expansive album, with each installment arriving a few years apart. With messages about self-love and coping through trauma, his music has become a sort of audio medicine for fans.

Featuring local rap stars with epic statures of their own like Kamaiyah, Damian Lillard and LaRussell, California Poppy 3 is as soulful and summery as Raj’s previous explorations on joyful West Coast living.

Singles like “Dandelion Root” exemplify the rapper’s sense of intentional living and aphoristic wisdom. Over an acoustic-washed instrumental, he scorns his generation’s addiction to lustful attention-seeking: “Slow motion better than no motion, gradual ascension… I can’t trust no [man] that free his morals to grab attention / After you done hoeing yourself out, what you gon’ tell your children?”

Across the album, Raj — a former football player — is like a sage village elder rhapsodizing about his mistakes, his accomplishments, and his aspirations for a brighter outcome. With a subdued style in contrast to the typical frequency of aggressively cocky rap, he’s carved out a clear and necessary lane in an overcrowded genre. Rather than overpowering the listener with empty production or unchecked egoism, his toned-down vocals are refreshing, uplifting and soul-repairing.

But the thing about Raj is that he knows how to flex, too. In the saucy video for “Backslide,” he rides around Barcelona in foreign machinery while wearing a handwoven tie-dye hat and Makaveli T-shirt, displaying a hard-earned, lavish lifestyle. For a kid from Telegraph Avenue who just a few years ago rapped “Look, I ain’t never had shit / I always wanted more, though,” he’s certainly made it.

Just a few days ago, Rexx posted that “i’ve always had an idealized version of myself in my mind. life is the never ending journey to reach him.” In California Poppy 3, he’s one step closer.

Rexx Life Raj’s release party for ‘California Poppy 3’ is on Sunday, Oct. 29, at Victory Hall (360 Ritch St., San Francisco) from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Details and RSVP here.