"[3] He signed with Def Jam five months after the release of his Young Sinatra mixtape in 2011; a deal kept secret until 2013 because he "didn't want the fans to be like, 'Oh, he's going to change!

[5] Visionary Music Group, an independent label,[6] managed and funded his audio mixing, mastering, touring, and commissioning of album art.

[9] Rather than go "the radio route" with Under Pressure, Logic wanted to create a classic hip hop album in the style of Nas, Wu-Tang Clan, A Tribe Called Quest, Big Daddy Kane, Kanye West and Big L. To help new listeners understand that his roots lie in this music, Logic tried to make Under Pressure more consistent and more quintessentially hip hop than his mixtapes, which he found incohesive.

served as executive producer and exercised high-level oversight of the album, utilizing a loose management style that Logic compared to that of Quincy Jones.

"[6] During the album's development, Logic regularly watched Quentin Tarantino films and listened to A Tribe Called Quest, Outkast and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

[15] Other influences on the album include Kanye West's Late Registration and Graduation, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony and Kendrick Lamar's song "Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst".

After returning to the studio to work on the song in Pro Tools, an error caused a sample of Eazy-E's "Eazy-Duz-It" to play over aggressive drums, which Logic decided to use as an opening half to "Under Pressure".

The two-halves of the track came to represent "the duality of man", as Logic rapped from the perspectives of both his hip hop persona and his everyday identity as well as those of his sister and his father.

[9] Opening track "Intro" was initially based on a sample from the song "Aeroplane (Reprise)" by Wee, which Logic and 6ix had heard in Kanye West's "Bound 2".

Work on track two, "Soul Food", began when Logic found the song's instrumental hosted on SoundCloud by rapper and producer Alkebulan.

"Intro" and "Soul Food" were placed together at the beginning of the album to create a jolting transition from a "beautiful and musical and melodic" song to "six minutes of raw lyricism".

[9] For "Buried Alive", Logic selected one of 20 instrumentals given to him by Dun Deal, adding backing vocals recorded by Big Lenbo as well as additional drums.

"Metropolis", a Rob Knox and Logic co-production, features an interpolation of Bill Withers' "Use Me" designed to add "thump" to the original song's drumming.

After completing the first verse, he was blocked on the lyrics for ten days, until he thought to rap from the perspective of his brother who had dealt drugs in Logic's youth.

"Never Enough" was written as an "ignorant" track with a hidden meaning: it discusses the pleasures of "money, bitches, drugs [and] partying" but declares them insufficient for living a fulfilling life.

[24] Sheldon Pearce of HipHopDX found a lot of depth in the album's storytelling saying "There are a great many moments that make Under Pressure feel like a feature film about Logic's life, and when at its best, it is creating that sort of imagery.

"[27] AllMusic praised the production and Logic's storytelling throughout the album saying, "Under Pressure is an autobiographical and odds-beating debut that arrives more fully formed than expected.

"[26] Clara Wang of RapReviews said, "When nostalgic old-timers lament the golden age of hip-hop, for those championing our current era, Under Pressure is the album to point to.

"[31] Christopher R. Weingarten of Rolling Stone said, "This album is all surface-level, free of sharp punch lines ("I been Hungary like Budapest") or metaphors that connect.

He did, however, continue by saying, "Outside of these disgusting faults, Logic's album isn't a bad effort at all, with few truly dull moments and good production and rapping from front to back.