“I'm at a point in my life where I just let things happen when they're supposed to happen,” Big Sean tells Apple Music about the decision to drop Better Me Than You. “So I just felt like it was time.” Originally thwarted by an online leak, the hitmaking rapper waited a few beats before moving forward with his first album in four years. Yet where 2020’s Detroit 2 made for a love letter to his hometown, its follow-up surges beyond the sentimental to embody something altogether more meaningful regarding the man behind the mic. “I was inspired to have fun, first and foremost,” he says, “but I was also inspired by just the events that were going on in my life.” The terminally online will no doubt scour its contents for details and disses after his departure from G.O.O.D. Music, where he proved one of its most commercially successful and visible acts for over a decade. But even if one wanted to read deeply into the unrelenting and accusatory “Apologize,” his album is so much more than mere hip-hop gossip fodder. There’s a clear sense throughout the album that the accomplished punchline craftsman has grown since the days of Finally Famous, personally as well as artistically. In addition to the interlude monologue “Clarity,” he expresses the impact of first-time fatherhood on cuts like “On Up,” his maturity made increasingly evident. “It’s not that I'm trying to prove myself,” he says. “I'm really trying to improve myself.” To this end, Sean Don ensures that his guests, like Larry June and Charlie Wilson, enhance his own performances rather than pull focus. Formerly of The Internet, Syd maintains an ethereal vocal presence throughout the teachable moments of “Something,” while Thundercat and Eryn Allen Kane add a certain musicality to the cathartic “Black Void.” Still, he hasn’t lost his edge in the process, letting loose with sexy-drill mastermind Cash Cobain on the reckless “Get You Back” and defensively dismissing haters with Gunna on “It Is What It Is.” By the time the Three 6 Mafia-reminiscent “Precision” rolls around, his victory feels nothing short of palpable. “What is really important to me is the progression of myself and passing that on to my family and to my audience or to whoever I can,” he says.