“Life is just crazy, especially with this year, I’ve started to appreciate life so much more.”Įasy, the slow R&B fight-for-this-love song was Aminé’s third-time-lucky attempt at a Summer Walker collaboration. “Hearing my parents talk about their lives almost brings me to tears because I don’t know how long they’re going to be around,” his voice breaks slightly. And there’s that consuming feeling of dread that 20-something’s feel when they grapple with the looming mortality of their parents. But moving out and entering that relationship changed and separation from his parents breeded an appreciation. You know that feeling we all have when we’re kids?” – he puts on a whining child’s voice – “ fuck this shit!”. I would always cry in my bedroom and want to run away or some bullshit. “They wouldn’t let me do no type of sleepovers, nothing like that growing up. Growing up with immigrant parents from Ethiopia, he never fully understood why they were so strict. “ Twenty-plus years at the Post Office /You was workin’ graveyard shifts for the both of us /You deserve a long vacation, a standing ovation,” he raps over a gentle, piano-led beat. “You only get one shot at doing that as an artist, so you gotta’ make sure it’s genius,” he tells me. On Mama, Aminé finally honours the rap tradition of penning a heartfelt ode to his mother. I felt a piece of my childhood go with that n****.” On Kobe Interlude, Aminé’s friend Jak Knight, who narrates the album, says that “ a lot of my innocence being a young person died with Kobe. Aminé remembers the NBA star as being “ like a dad” on the track Woodlawn. While writing and recording Limbo, Aminé’s sense of maturity and responsibility had been brewing, and it was solidified by the passing of Kobe Bryant, who died in a helicopter crash in January this year. It’s hilarious to watch, but it also sneaks an uncomfortable issue into the viewers’ consciousness. The video for his 2017 track Red Mercedes’, for example, sees Aminé and friends dressed up in white face in an alternative reverse racist universe, where white people are racially profiled at car dealerships. “It’s a British film, that’s why I’m telling you!”īeneath the colour palettes and the perky energy of his songs, there is often a darker theme. “My favourite film is Submarine,” he smiles. “Personally, I’ve always been a fan of the Pharells and Yes’ of the world. “The music is not the only thing you need to be good at, it’s the whole, that’s what makes an artist and artist,” Aminé – a huge film buff – tells me. “I had to literally use student loan money to pay the crew and directed myself because I knew what I wanted to accomplish, and I’m picky.” “I was broke as shit, broke as a dog man, I had no money to my name,” Aminé says of making the Caroline video. The self-directed visuals established Aminé’s happy-go-lucky, goofball charisma that pushes the Black, quirky skater culture popularised by Tyler, The Creator.
Inspired by a birthday trip with 10 of his friends, the summer-toned, tennis-themed video is in a long line of distinctive videos which have boosted Aminé’s popularity and built his surreal aesthetic world.Īminé first broke through in 2016 with the high-energy and very yellow video for Caroline (now sitting on 299 million views) for which he ate bananas and did Busta Rhymes-inspired fishbowl camera close ups in the back of a car. Our chat takes place two days before the release of Limbo (which was pushed back three times, allowing Aminé to tweak it to perfection) and just after he’s dropped the video for the Young Thug collaboration Compensating. And so we have Limbo, the LA-via-Portland rapper’s second studio album, in which he grapples with the subjects of morality, systemic racism and the prospect of bringing children into a messed up world, all while still retaining that playful quirk and those moments of carefree Black boy energy which have always made him stand out. “I never came into this album like ‘Hey guys! I’m in a midlife crisis, I’m going to make a midlife crisis album’ but I just really felt lost in my decisions,” Aminé tells me with a laugh over Zoom. You’re still young enough to mess up, but old enough to know better, and life starts to feel a lot more real.
Some friends are having kids, planning weddings and hoping to buy houses, while others are still getting into trouble, swiping infinitely on dating apps and clubbing until unholy hours. Limbo is a soundtrack for that mid-twenties period when your social circles are changing. Aminé is only 26-years-old, but he jokes that his new album was inspired by what feels like a “midlife crisis”.
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