Lil Wayne said rappers claim to love their work but after they make money they spend more time in the club than they do in the studio. An artist doesn’t make a tape this cohesive without feeling what they do as an extension of themself.
$avvy’s debut album, Boys Wear Pearls, is a statement that as an artist, not just a rapper, $avvy stays in his bag and loves what he does. The project as a whole both fits within and steps beyond what’s going on in hip hop right now.
If you’re a fan of hip hop, you’ll recognize how well Boys Wear Pearls stands among the sonic canon of breakout albums. In the same way that To Pimp A Butterfly creates an atmosphere of seamless transitions and thought provoking content, $avvy incorporates pop bops, lounge jazz, and summertime hits all while keeping the tape together stylistically.
When asked where he looks for inspiration in order to put a project like this together, $avvy answered, “So I was forsure listening to a lot of Solange. That was one of the main people I was listening to. I listened to a lot of Frank, a lot of KAYTRANADA, Matt Martians, Tyler… Smino…. Drake, of course.”
These artists show throughout the album. A big statement artistically is what $avvy does differently than his peers. He’ll make a KAYTRANADA dance hit then follow it up with a lyrically driven story on the next song.
The whole project is mixed in house and the sound team is a close knit collective of friends.
For Boys Wear Pearls, $avvy took leadership and creative direction. However, it’s clear the album was a joint mission for the whole team.
“October was when we officially started working on it but I think the idea just kinda came around the end of July, going into August. It only took like six months for completion.”
The album is 8 tracks, 22 minutes and features Chuck Indigo, A.G. Sully, and Brian Brown, but we could’ve gotten a lot more.
“Originally it was like I wanted to make 20 songs. 20 really good songs. Out of 20 songs I picked the best 8. So that was the method we went about handcrafting those 20 songs. The only problem we wanted to create for ourselves was for it to be difficult to choose.”
If you live in Nashville and have been to Flamingo on Wednesday night for their freestyle jazz night, Take Our Time is practically the Flamingo band riffing in a studio together. It’s Passionfruit by Drake mixed with Kendrick Lamar’s EP cut, “i.”
Working in tandem with the organic swing, the live performance feel gives the bounce that makes Take Our Time a dancehall-jazz bop.
Another highlight on the album is Spain. It’s another Drake inspired song. But less in the way of the sound and more in the way that if you send it to your girl she’ll feel a type of way but she’ll vibe to it at the same time.
$avvy knows he has the Drake sound. He embraces the artistry of it.
“Drake’s one these guys who could buy any car but that’s not what we hear in the music. We still hear the relationship shit. We still hear shit that people who have $200, $300 in their account [go through]… and it reminds us that Drake is just like me… that’s one of the elements that I wanted to take away and implement into my music.”
One of the more lyrical cuts on the album is Down to Earth. It’s a rendition of Lights Please by J. Cole but produced by Prince. It leaves you asking yourself if your girl is just “down to slide” or is she “down to earth?” After the record ends it’s clear $avvy’s in the game alone; he’s stressing over award shows and his girl’s stressing over her wardrobe.
However personal the music sounds, $avvy makes it a goal to remove himself from expectations.
“I feel like once you make something too personal it’s hard for someone else to connect to that, it’s hard for someone else to grasp or really get behind it because at that point in time they’re looking for something that relates to them but if it’s too personal to you then there’s no way it can relate to them unless they just so happen to have been through the exact same experience.”
From the opening track, Cannot Do, to the outro, Zack and Cody, $avvy knew what he wanted to do for his first album.
When asked where he goes from here $avvy said,
“I don’t know. I feel like this tape was placed in my hands by God. I feel like once I stopped thinking about it so much- and tried to envision what a tape would sound like- and just made the music everything else followed. So I feel like that’ll be the same thing with the next tape or the next anything that I do.”
