LA underground hip hop mainstay Blu’s latest album with Exile leaked last year, but the mastered version is finally here, and get this—mastering makes stuff sound significantly better. Who knew?

Blu & Exile – Give Me My Flowers While I Can Still Smell Them

If you’re not familiar with Blu, he’s an undeniably talented lyricist who has been dropping all sorts of albums, EPs, mixtapes and beat tapes; but the catch has, for me, at least, heretofore been the production quality. Blu has a habit of releasing or “leaking” his albums in unfinished forms, and it’s frustrating, because with this guy, a finished product would be a pretty rad thing. Well, here it is, and it turns out, it’s a pretty rad thing. The finished-sounding version really gives Blu’s thoughtful (and often quite funny) lyrics a chance to shine.

“The Only One”

“Don’t Be Jelly”