Rook Monroe returns with “SLIM.,” an EP where there are no rules, no genres, and no straight lines. What you do find is an artist willing to dive fully into the chaos of human existence and turn it into music.
Eight songs where punk crosses with psychedelia, pop with rap, and funk with electronic music. All of it, held together by the voice of someone who understands that to communicate a message, you don’t need to follow a formula.
The EP’s journey is a sonic, emotional, and aesthetic roller coaster. From “i don’t wanna be you.,” which feels like a battle for one’s own identity, to the calm brought by the already familiar “Fever,” Rook moves naturally between the chaotic and the personal.
In “Mugshot,” he goes for a dream-pop approach that blends bright keys and galactic beats while reflecting on public exposure and the cost of maintaining a perfect image. It’s a soft track in musical terms but sharp in its central idea, the fact that authenticity is a constant sacrifice.
Even though each song works as a different chapter, “SLIM.” feels cohesive thanks to the way Rook uses his voice as the guiding and narrative thread. He can be a crooner, a rapper, a poet, or a provocateur within the same verse.
After building a career as a songwriter for Rihanna, The Chainsmokers, and Aminé, he found his own voice, one that no longer responds to any trend. “SLIM.” confirms that leap. It is a bold, unapologetic album that tells personal truths without softening them, reflecting chaos, humor, anger, beauty, and contradiction.
The final track, “kaleidoscope,” leaves the line that best defines Rook’s unfiltered vision, “Life is messy, I got this kaleidoscope I see it through.” It reads less like an ending and more like the thesis running through the entire EP. Rook Monroe looks at life through all its fractures and colors, without trying to organize it. With “SLIM.,” what he delivers is a piece of art that sits between rebellion and revelation, reaffirming that his path is not to follow genres but to expand them until they disappear.
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