This series covers the dopest songs and projects that have dropped recently and the amazing artists behind them!

By Ben Leshan

Songs

“Gravity” by Brent Faiyaz, DJ Dahi feat. Tyler, The Creator

Now this is what we call a fantastic song. To any RnB fan in 2021, Brent Faiyaz is one of the biggest names you can bring up. From his phenomenal vocal performance on GoldLink’s Grammy-nominated song “Crew”, to his highly successful 2020 project “F*ck the World”, to his monster 2020 hit “Dead Man Walking”, Brent has been on quite a run. He has one of the most unique and magical voices in the general, and he uses it with so much precision and skill on every track. “Gravity” is a funky and soulful effort that immediately catches your ear. It has immense replay value and features an excellent verse by cult-favorite and mainstream star Tyler, The Creator. Tyler is less experimental and aggressive than he is on most tracks here, but he finds his pocket and delivers a verse that perfectly rounds out the song. The two feel like a dynamic duo who could easily produce a successful EP together.

“Gravity” takes the appeal of 90s RnB love songs and packages it in a much sleeker and elevated sonic landscape. Essentially Brent has taken the fun of an RnB song you can sing along to, and made it the least corny and most suave thing you could possibly blast in your car. It is a soulful call out to the girl who held Brent down, but who he just can’t be with anymore. Brent’s attitude on the track is rather heartless, as his attitude usually is, but the beauty in his voice, the precision of his wordplay, and the danceability of DJ Dahi’s production make it a fun song. Whether you choose to truly listen to what he is saying, or just vibe, this song is an enjoyable listen. For anyone who likes hip hop but doesn’t always foray into RnB, this is a perfect song to add to your collection. You have the slick wordplay, the Tyler verse, all of the sauce of a Brent track, and it stays away from traditional RnB. That doesn’t mean this isn’t excellent song for a pure RnB fan either. In any case, Brent Faiyaz has become one of the biggest names from the DMV and carved out a great space in the music industry, and “Gravity” is an excellent showcase of his talents.

“Night Like This” by Daydream Masi

Daydream Masi is an artist we very well could have covered in our artists to watch for 2021, and this song makes us wish we did. Masi’s voice is clear and full, floating cleanly over anthemic production. He taps into the emotional depth of love and the angst of youth over the backdrop of a party experience. This track is cinematic, and it oozes potential.

Masi, an artist in his early 20s hailing from Akron, OH, is a genre-bending sensation capable of creating versatile, emotional, and experimental music. He is funky and psychadelic to a certain extent, but he has a voice that could make it big in pop music. He, like many young artist, is clearly not constrained by the rules, and likes to play around with a lot of new and interesting sounds. His first big rise into the mainstream came when his song “Favorite Drug” was feautred on Netflix’s 13 Reasons’s Why in 2019. It is an energetic and summery track that showcases a lot of potential, but he has grown since then. At over 6 million plays, it is his biggest song on spotify, but “Night Like This” has amassed hundreds of thousands of plays since it’s release on January 22nd, and definitely has the chance to become his biggest song.

The track starts out with a strumming guitar and clean and clear vocals from Masi. As it builds, we get a secondary melody in the production, and the percussion comes in. The chorus hits hard with heavy snares after a drum fill. With layered vocals Masi creates an anthemic chant of chorus, one that should translate very well to live performance once that is possible again. He creates an emotional moment that is an ode to embracing imperfections and living in the moment with another person. Masi seems like an artist to jump on now before everyone is talking anout him and “Nights Like This” seems to be the perfect song to use when putting your friends onto his music.

“GNF (OK OK OK)” by Polo G

Polo G is clearly one of the very top young rappers in hip hop. He has two phenomenal projects under his belt in 2019’s Die a Legend and 2020’s The Goat, and his versatility is top tier. On this track, Polo comes with straight up, in your face, Chicago Drill music. For fans of his recent work, this may be a bit of a surprise (as he’s gone viral for more mellow tracks like “Martin & Gina”), but Polo’s roots are in drill. When he was just a teenager fresh off of jail time, he went viral for drill songs like “Neva Cared” before he truly broke into the mainstream with the emotional “Finer Things”. He has found his voice with melodic tracks about his pain and love, but there is still a big market for drill Polo.

“GNF” came with a Cole Bennett video that quickly rose to the top of the Youtube trending charts. The Chicago video director is still one of the most influential hip hop tastemakers of his generation, and Polo has firmly earned Cole and Lyrical Lemonade’s cosign. The video, like anything Cole Bennett makes, is incredibly intricate and full of special effects. It is a great way to be introduced to the song if you have never heard it before.

Polo does not come lightly on this song, dropping bars like “If all of them die, I’m ok with that” and “Walk up and make sure that his brains splat” over hard hitting piano chords and 808s. It is a pure drill song, and that was clearly his intention. After the success of “Go Stupid” last year, an aggressive single with violent lyrics that went viral on tiktok, Polo seems to have used that formula again, releasing a less-emotional and more aggressive song as one of his singles. Polo grew up in the Marshall Field Garden housing projects of Chicago’s Northside, and he has been surrounded by drill music since the rise of Chief Keef and his crew in the early 2010s. It only makes sense for him to embrace his roots, and it gives him a very unique skillset as one of rap’s brightest young stars. He is truly just as good at screaming out heartless and aggressive bars as he is at subtly crooning for a lover or crafting thoughtful metaphors about social justice, and that makes Polo special. At just 22, Polo G has seen immense commercial success, and “GNF (OK OK OK)” seems to be the next hit to be added to a long list of his musical successes.

Project Spotlight

Brent ii by Chelsea Cutler and Jeremy Zucker

Cutler and Zucker are already both big names in the pop music world, and they are continuing to ascend. They have been rumored to be dating, but they say they are just really good friends. Either way, the emotional and musical connection they share is evident in the songs they have created together. Both make soft and emotional music about love, loss, and growth. They have sweet voices and are careful with their lyrics. Together, they make beautiful music on Brent ii, a 5 song EP, and a sequel to their highly successful 2019 effort Brent (which features mega hit “You Were Good to Me”). Dropped at beginning of February, Brent ii is already seeing significant commercial success, especially with its lead single, “This is How You Fall in Love”. One of the biggest themes in the project is nostalgia; the emotional nuances of a past completely lost but a present that must be grasped. Their voices float quietly over production that evokes rainy days and fading memories. Zucker and Cutler’s vocals are steady, but their voices break subtly at just the right moments to break your heart as you listen along.

There are three songs that feature both artists, and one solo song for each of them. Of the five, there are certainly no skips, and each brings its unique value to the EP. The first is “This is how you fall in love” a soft and deeply sweet ode to the person you love. The song references slow dancing in the chorus, and it seems to be the perfect track for young lovers to dance to alone to in an empty parking lot or under the dim lights of a small apartment. The slow dancing metaphors tie it all together and the acoustic production featuring guitars, strings, kicks, and cymbals builds to a beautiful moment at the end. The next track, “Parent Song” should hit home for any older teen or young 20 something navigating the changes in a parent-child relationship that come with independence and adulthood. On “Emily” they explore the heart-wrenching pain of falling out of love. The production fills in at the chorus only to dropout for the last line, as Zucker sings “In Paris you asked me if I was afraid that we’d fall out of love. Would that be ok, Emily?”. It is a striking emotional moment, and likely the reason why this track is the significant commercial favorite of the non-singles.

Each of their individual songs is quite powerful as well. On “Brooklyn Boy”, Zucker creates a soft love song that builds to an edgy electronic climax. Cutler’s “The Stars” is our sleeper favorite of the project, a soft and pretty love song about being fated to be together. The lines of the song hit home for any young person looking to be loved (“I like the way I look in your sweatshirt. And being told I am enough”). Cutler’s unique tone, a feature of her music that consistently takes it to a new level, cuts beautifully over the soft muted horns of the chorus. Everything from the lyrics to the production creates a gentle and relatable atmosphere that is bound to draw people in. Overall Brent ii is a very well crafted cohesive project. It is just a snapshot of what these two artists are capable of, but it certainly makes us excited for their coming solo work and any songs they may make together in the future.

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