Kevin Abstract, founding member of 'Boy Band' BROCKHAMPTON has finally released some sort of follow up to his 2016 solo album 'American Boyfriend: A Suburban Love Story' and after a rocky 2018 for both him and the rest of the BROCKHAMPTON team it was unclear where they were going when it came to music, especially because Kevin had been keeping extremely quiet on Twitter when he usually goes on sprees of tweeting one thing after another without any sign of stopping. Over the past few weeks we've been given teasers towards what turned out to be 'Arizona Baby' the first of three EPs he'll be dropping in the next 3 weeks that'll form one full album most likely titled 'Arizona Baby' or 'The 1-9-9-9' . As I did in my review for 'Assume Form' by James Blake I'll be starting with a track by track review and finish with an overall review.
Track 1; Big Wheels; Kevin goes pretty deep on this cut covering how people back home feel about him, that they're pretty judgemental of him and think he's a phony, he also covers how he hates how his rise to fame went down, that he got rich way too fast and that his mom is still working retail back home, that he left them and is hiding in Hollywood under this fake identity of being a spokesman for homosexuals in the rap game, and how it affects him. Its pretty touching. The instrumental in the first half leads into the second perfectly and ends even better with a heavy, emotional saxophone solo produced by Jack Antonoff.
Track 2; Joy Ride; The production on this song is amazing but I still can't decide if I love it or not but when I say that I'm mostly only talking about the horns, they're reminiscent of Outkast production which isn't too too surprising because both Kevin and BROCKHAMPTON producer Romil Hemnani are enormous fans of the southern hip-hop duo. Although the first section is great and all, the second section got to me. His flow goes over the instrumental so smoothly and sounds a lot like something off of his last project. But my favorite part of the song is the booming refrain 'I don't think I would ever want to fucking listen' which has also been often interpreted as 'I don't think I would ever want to fuck in the sun' and y'know what either way it's powerful, one meaning he'd never want to listen to the bullshit his execs are giving him and the other meaning he would never want to make public his personal life.
Track 3; Georgia; This track is the embodiment of teenage hood, missing a place you had a great time at, falling in love with someone for the first time, having to call your mom to tell her that everything is alright and leaving home with a dream of being famous, packing everything up and heading to Hollywood with nothing but a trunk of things and a couple bucks in your pocket. The production brings up a feeling of nostalgia that brings up memories I haven't even had, thats the magic of this song. A fantastic finisher to an EP of this kind
Overall, I think this album is a masterpiece it creates a wonderful aesthetic that Kevin seems to live in and that all this music plays in 24/7, it's odd, it's unexpected, its perfect. I have no big issues with this project and I cannot wait for the next part of Arizona Baby to be released and where Kevin takes it. A solid 8/10.