Limbo comes full circle for Aminé in several ways. "It meant a lot to me, so I gave every song the time and care that it deserved."
"I couldn't have made the same album if I'd only had six months to make it," the 26-year-old rapper told just a few days after he released Limbo. In between, he took his time to carefully craft Limbo. After generating a promising buzz, starting with his 2016 summer smash, " Caroline," Aminé released a placeholder mixtape, OnePointFive, in 2018. Over two years in the making, the LP marks his official follow-up to his 2017 debut, Good For You. Sign up for the 10 to Hear newsletter here.As fans hungrily devour Limbo, his newly released sophomore album, Aminé can finally breathe a sigh of relief. They feel like proof that the fun-loving kid who went viral in 2016 hasn’t yet been entirely overwhelmed by the burdens of reputation.Ĭatch up every Saturday with 10 of our best-reviewed albums of the week. These songs aren’t just high-spirited, slightly goofy, and unassumingly clever they have a lightness that is invigorating. In the first verse alone, he references an Arthur meme, Steve Harvey’s Miss Universe gaffe, Fergie peeing her pants on stage, Winona Ryder shoplifting, and the Malice at the Palace, relishing the absurdity of each one. He embellishes his punches on “Pressure in My Palms” with slowthai and Vince Staples sharing a verse and matching his energy. On “Compensating,” he pals around with Young Thug and comes up with his snappiest melodies. It seems apparent that Aminé is thinking with that career trajectory in mind.Īminé is more conscious of the big picture on Limbo, but there are still a few glimpses of the nonchalant scamp he used to be, and some of the most enjoyable songs on Limbo are least invested in assessing his standing. He acquires moody beats from Drake producers Boi-1da, T-Minus, and Vinylz, and “Can’t Decide” and “Riri” are exactly the kind of rap-sung hybrids that the Toronto rapper built his empire on. He has always been a child of Drake, as a tune-happy flirt from an unlikely rap market, but on Limbo he leans into the comparison. Armed with those lessons, his work on Limbo feels like a progression, and additional production from Injury Reserve architect Parker Corey makes this Aminé’s best-produced album. OnePointFive was mired by lackluster rapping, but the studio time wasn’t wasted by Aminé’s producer Pasque, who took the opportunity to experiment with off-center trap beats. On “Shimmy,” which puts a reanimating spin on an ODB classic, he’s on the comeback trail, getting his groove back “like Fela, not Stella” and shaming fake flexers. “To my future daughter or son/The streams from this album gon’ pay for your college funds,” he raps on “Fetus.” He’s also eager to reposition himself. Limbo isn’t exactly The Big Day, but he places more importance on being responsible and dependable, pondering what it means to be a better son and a potential father. On the opener, he raps, “Beat so cold it made Aminé want to open up,” and the album is reflective of that accessibility he sounds uninhibited. It would be an overstatement to call the album mature, but it does seem to exist in a transitional state between carefree youth (as embodied by Good For You songs like “Sundays” and “Yellow”) and real adulthood. He mixes subtle bouts of introspection with kooky references to Jim Carrey’s The Mask, Allen Iverson’s infamous “practice” speech, and the guy in the AllState commercials. The verses on Limbo are much more relaxed, the hooks are catchier, and his outsized personality radiates. The shock seems to have loosened something in him. To Aminé, the tragedy represented an unofficial start to his real manhood. (“That was like seeing Superman die,” he said.) On “Kobe,” Aminé’s friend, comedian Jak Knight, speaks of Bryant as a benchmark, his death a symbolic end of innocence. Aminé’s shift was inspired at least in part, by the death of NBA icon Kobe Bryant.
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