Brent Faiyaz & Toxicity In Music (Article)
What up one & all. Sky Bento back once again on the check in wishing you and yours a happy Summer. Hope you drinking your water, knowing the vibes & protecting your mental health. But I also hope you’re enjoying yourself in a real way. The last few seasons of America have been such a lawless wasteland I considered canceling my subscription. Oh this a country, not a horror/reality show? My bad, couldn’t tell. In any case, I think we’ve all earned ourselves the right to get loose just by surviving the last couple years. City boys and girls alike are certainly making this a Summer to remember (or so I’ve heard). And to top it all off, Brent Faiyaz is back with a new album to soundtrack almost every emotion of it. With all the fingers being pointed at the media we consume potentially corrupting society, should we be listening to “healthier” music? Are toxic artists poisoning our people? Find out next time on Dragon Ball Z. Or, you know, underneath the disclaimer. Let’s get into it.
Before we begin, let me clarify as always that these are my opinions and do not reflect the views of TDN as a staff, record label or as a m************ crew. Feel free to crucify me on Twitter @plzsaythebento when you are finished reading.
So about this Brent album man… It slaps. I personally liked his previous project, 2020’s F*** The World, more but after a handful of front-to-back listens and shuffles Wasteland is one of my favorite releases of the year for sure. But he says it himself right away at the start of the album: TOXIC. “That’s the internet word that people like to attach to s***” he says dismissively. “I don’t think that’s an internet word, I think it’s a real word that really means something,” the beautiful Jorja Smith replies. They both right. But with Wasteland, Brent appears to at least be actively trying to break out of that box (especially with that horrific final skit). And it shows through the music too. You can tell he’s trying new sounds and you never know exactly what the next song will sound like. This is used to show the complexity of the man himself and all of his greatness and flaws, similar to Kendrick Lamar on his last album Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers or even Kanye West’s The Life Of Pablo minus all of the features. But Wasteland is much more cohesive with its reliance on strings to give the beats grandiosity and a decision to strip drums completely from most of the tracklist that makes the record feel much more intimate. This paints Brent’s flexes on his moments of “temporary euphoria” as much more tragic in retrospect when you get to the end of the album and start to see the whole story. But the story remains.
Brent is singing (and rapping melodies, which is different than singing raps) about reveling in his own selfishness. It’s typical for hip-hop, these are flexes. In rap they bolster up an MC’s confidence to make them appear larger than life. It’s shown up more and more in R&B over recent years, especially in the aftermath of Drake’s cultural dominance. But as R&B tends to be more sensitive (at least sonically) and more considerate of the women in the audience (again, at least sonically) these flexes of selfishness come off as a man admitting his flaws. It’s what makes Future such a compelling artist at his best. It’s artists digging into themselves to give a glimpse at what really makes them tick. Butn the age of “cancel culture” where everybody is trying to stop supporting people and things they don’t align with, should we be cautious if these artists turn out to be bad people or talk about doing bad things? Is it actually having a negative affect? Should we be more cautious and listen more to positive messages? Is it crumbling the minds of our youth? Should we ban all secular music?!
“THese are people that like the sound of their own voice. of course they’re psychos.”
Look, I know a lot of celebrities (especially the Black & legendary ones) have been caught up doing some wild s*** lately. But let’s be honest about nature of recording artists for a second. These are people that like the sound of their own voice. Of course, they’re psychos. Of course they might not be the best people in real life. But they are still people, nonetheless. They are at where they’re at in their journey and they’re aware enough of it to present it creatively. In fact they probably listen back to their music and learn more about themselves, catching patterns and details they may not have noticed in the creative process. When artists speak about their flaws, or even appearing proud of things you may not think they should be proud of, they’re being honest not just with you but with themselves. To be confident enough in that honesty to put it out into the world is commendable. Hip-hop is the world of second chances where murderers, drug dealers & scammers alike can all feed their families legally and even make positive changes in their communities. But even outside of hip-hop artists have sung about cheating and murder forever. Some are clear cautionary tales, and others are stories of “temporary euphoria” as Brent puts it.
One of Brent’s best collaborators has a storied past with toxic music - Tyler the Creator. For those of you who weren’t outside in 2011, Tyler the Creator (and his Odd Future clique) rapped about literally whatever they wanted with little regard for anybody finding what they have to say offensive. And I don’t mean just swears and disses, I mean jokes about today’s trigger warning topics. While he did face backlash at the time, he’s now a critical favorite and one of the most celebrated musicians in modern music. But on his last album he rapped about trying to steal his friend’s girlfriend. He’s still a toxic scumbag, we’ve gotta save the kids! Right? But seriously, the deeper message behind Tyler’s music (and career really) is one of freedom. The freedom to be yourself, like what you like, step out of your comfort zone and see what its like. The freedom to grow. Kendrick on Mr. Morale spoke of looking inward instead of pointing fingers at others for not living up to the standards of a patron saint. The album was about fixing the problems within oneself by putting those problems on display and not being ashamed of them. He even used a certain homophobic slur in a song intended to support the LGBTQ. Nobody is perfect.
We are all learning from this existence of ours. If you’re wise enough to realize you’re listening to toxic music, then you’re wise enough to learn from it. If you’re not there yet, then chances are you were going to make some toxic deicisons of your own anyway. That’s just all part of growing. Not growing up or growing old, but growing as a person. It’s very easy to pick out the flaws in someone else, but identifying your own is another thing entirely. And changing them takes a lot of work that you may or may not be willing to do, but that decision doesn’t make you less of a person. It doesn’t make you any less worthy of compassion. Nobody has it all figured out. On “Role Model”, Brent says “I’ll be your role model, don’t leave the house tomorrow” in reference to the fact that our leaders literally just told us to stay inside to be safe.
Nobody has everything all figured out, you gotta go through life and figure it out for yourself.