The Tennessee-raised artist evokes Southern greats of the past on his unflinchingly real new album At the center of Isaiah Rashad ’s third album, It’s Been Awful , is “Act Normal,” which addresses a viral 2022 incident when tapes of the Chattanooga, Tennessee-raised artist making out with men leaked on the internet. He tells us that he grew up in a house full of secrets, says “the whole family was sex addicts,” and remembers his mother being in love with her best friend. Now, as a 34-year-old rapper whose last album, 2021’s The House Is Burning , debuted at Number Seven on the Billboard 200, he declares himself “a porn star” and shrugs, “Some girls come with a dick/Some with the child support.” (In an interview with Joe Budden, Rashad said that he’s “sexually fluid” and in a monogamous relationship with a woman “who has a similar understanding of themselves.”) “War is living yet at war with yourself/I don’t trust a boy or a girl,” Rashad raps.…