Artist Highlight: Aminé

Hey jammers,

This artist highlight is focused on Aminé! You might know him from his 2017 hit Caroline, and if you haven't seen the music video for that song you need to, seriously. I specifically remember listening to this song in the weight room during basketball season, and it was automatically a bop.

The reason I'm highlighting Aminé today is because of his new album Limbo. This is his third full record, and you'll notice that he's not an artist to release singles or EPs, he only has the three LPs. Keeping everything together! Now, "Caroline's" record Good for You was a hit. My boyfriend and I could play it on shuffle and wouldn't skip a single song. He has slow melodic rap with songs like "Hero" or "Heebiejeebies" featuring Kehlani. He also has deeper rap influence in songs like "STFU." My favorite song in the album is "Yellow" featuring Nelly, because the true colors of Aminé are flaunted! I see a lot of Aminé in the artist bbno$ with their goofy and catchy lyrics. He starts this track by saying "stuntin' with my dogs like my first name Cuerella WOOF." The entire album has lyrics like these along with upbeat production behind it which makes him stand out from other mainstream rappers.

Then, in 2018 he released ONEPOINTFIVE, and I'm not gonna lie I hated it. The most popular track is called REEL IT IN which actually became pretty popular, but I was not impressed with the rest. It felt a bit forced, like Aminé was trying too hard to make an album even better than his first. Don't get me wrong I still listened and tried to like it, but nothing about this record had me coming back. That being said, when I saw he released another album this year, I was a bit nervous. He gave himself more time with this one, so I was optimistic about its quality.

His new album Limbo is great. I have seen many negative reviews about it saying Aminé sounds stuck, but I am going to pose why I love the album. For one, I absolutely love the messages he is telling through his lyrics. This record focuses on his life right now, navigating love and life as a young black man in Portland. He reflects on growing up black in Portland, which is an interesting topic considering the current connotation that the city has. In "Fetus," he focuses on parenthood saying "They givin' guns with every mothaf"ckin' Happy Meal" and other songs suggesting he would never want to bring a child into this society. Rather than giving answers to the current state of the world, he's posing questions to his listeners and forcing them to think about their stance on issues and what they're going to do about it.

On a lighter note, my favorite song is "Easy" featuring Summer Walker. For one thing, Summer Walker is amazing and sounds like Beyoncé to me. I fell in love with her voice after hearing this track. This song is the most upbeat and lighthearted song in the album, as he sings about the times when love does win and makes you happy. Although it's not always easy for someone like him, he knows that it does exist. This is juxtaposed with his lyrics from "Becky" where he says "Mama said don't ever bring a white girl home to me." We can see his struggles with what he feels and how society says he needs to feel.

I am still exploring this new album, and will probably have more thoughts about this later on. It came out Thursday night and I wanted to make you all aware of it so you can so listen!!!

Rock on.