You Just Reminded Me...

If being a 20-something means you’re old enough to know better but young enough not to care, then being in your 30s is all about self-awareness. I cringe whenever I unconsciously utter the phrase “back in my day” (it isn’t that much, promise!), but it’s become harder to ignore how the brain contextualizes everything as you age, from the food you eat to details gleaned from people-watching on the train, from the dankest corners of memory. Don’t get it twisted—there’s still plenty of discovery and newness at my big age, especially in music. But the degrees of separation between eras, styles, and cadence are clearer than ever, and not just because of the hours I’ve logged as a participant in music culture. It’s not about feeling old or grappling with mortality, either—it’s about recognizing my place within the cultural ecosystem and how my life and perspective brought me to where I am today.

Several albums I’ve listened to over these past few weeks have dealt with the subject of memory in an interesting way. The reason Detroit rapper Boldy James and Montreal producer Nicholas Craven’s 2024 project Penalty of Leadership hits me as hard as it does is because it’s apparent how much Boldy’s outlook has changed since surviving a car crash in 2023. Lead single “Brand New Chanel Kicks” confronts this most explicitly—Boldy recorded his verse shortly after finishing physical therapy—but the album’s lingering on close calls and moments spent with his children are forever altered by that accident, his monotone voice quivering a bit more, each punchline delivered with gratefulness. Boldy is alive and well, but every song has the spectre of death hanging over it, ready to snatch it all away.

I also spent a lot of time with 26-year-old New York rapper-producer Mike’s latest album Showbiz! before I interviewed him for our Credit History series, and memory’s played a similarly huge role in his work. His mother, Anuoluwapo Sandra Akinboboye, has been his creative muse since his 2017 breakout May God Bless Your Hustle, doubly so since her death in 2019. Pictures of both her and Mike’s grandmother grace the cover of Showbiz!, rendered in hazy watercolor like a dream sequence, a visual that matches Mike’s distorted production style as DJ Blackpower. 

Much of the new album finds Mike grieving her loss while standing firm in his place as an indie rap star. “You’re The Only One Watching,” powered by a self-produced beat that’s warm and bubbly, balances the constant pressures of success with the power of a good spliff. By the end, his eyes are gazing up toward his mother: “When I pray, I pray to mama, know she miss Mike/She my angel, know I got her on the flipside/I gotta thank you while I’m talkin’ to the big sky.” Whether he’s confessional, funny, or celebrating the spoils, his mother’s memory and all-seeing eye guide him through, the melancholy coloring every aspect of the Mike experience. 

Memory can be the wind beneath your wings, but sometimes artists use memory—more specifically, nostalgia—to shield themselves from failure. That’s all I see when I look at Drake these days. He’s spent nearly a whole calendar year being raked across the coals by Kendrick Lamar and an apathetic music industry, taking lumps for sub-par diss tracks and becoming the first rapper to sue an opponent during a beef. Though $ome $exy $ongs 4 U, his recent collab with OVO signee PartyNextDoor, has allegedly been in the works for months, it’s difficult to read it as anything more than a retreat to simpler times—when his sing-song raps were all it took to shoot him to the top of the charts. Save for a few subliminals, the tough-guy posturing present on For All The Dogs and tracks like “Family Matters” is absent. Instead, he’s here to “get the party lit,” as he yells on “Gimme A Hug,” leaning fully into the sounds and emotions of earlier projects like Take Care in search of comfort. 

Sometimes, that’s literal—”Spider-Man Superman” itself samples Care’s “The Real Her”—but otherwise, it comes through in the lo-fi, electro-dance vibes of the beats and the constant shuffling between paramours in anonymous clubs. “Crying In Chanel” and “Brian Steele” are aiming for the lovelorn steaminess of “Shot For Me” and “Doing It Wrong,” and on “Nokia,” he’s the dancefloor god searching for love in a hopeless place. There’s no direct admission that he’s on the ropes, but trying to recapture the glow of your glory days, especially as a man who “made a career off reminiscing,” is acknowledgment enough.

Constantly trying to relive your salad days is a fool’s errand, but reminiscence can be a helpful tool instead of a prison when used properly. I’m 32 going on 33 (s/o to Pisces gang), but in many ways, I feel my life is just getting started.