FEATURE: Spotlight: Kevin Abstract — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

Kevin Abstract

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ALONGSIDE new and rising artists…

there are those are more established that I like to highlight for Spotlight. In the case of Kevin Abstract, there may be those who do not know about his work. Born Clifford Ian Simpson, the Texan rapper, singer, and songwriter is a founding member of Brockhampton. His debut album, MTV1987, arrived in 2014. Kevin Abstract’s second album, American Boyfriend: A Suburban Love Story, was released in November 2016. His third, Arizona Baby, was released in April 2019. Now, with Blanket fresh out, we have this impressive body of work from an amazing artist. I still think there are people not aware of Kevin Abstract. Rather than spotlight him as an artist coming through, it is a chance to make people aware of the brilliance of Kevin Abstract. Before coming to some recent interviews and reviews, I want to take things back further. Office Magazine spoke with him in 2016. After the release of his second studio album, it was a busy and eventful time for Abstract:

“OFFICE — So American Boyfriend’s just come out, what’s this past week been like for you?

KEVIN ABSTRACT — It’s pretty calm. I guess things happen here and there that I get stoked off of, but it’s pretty calm. Yeah, it’s just been figuring out what I’m gonna do next— not figuring it out, but just trying to do it.

O — Well that’s nice that it hasn’t been hectic. Have you been doing a lot of press?

KA — Yeah, a lot of the press I did, I did right before the album came out, so I get to finally see those things come out. I’ve been planning a video for the next single, that’s been taking up a lot of my time. It’s for a song called Runner, it’s one of my favorites. I’m also planning this prom, like to have my own prom basically for kids that never got to go to theirs. People like me, and most of my fan base. That’s gonna be fun.

O — And you’re performing?

KA — I’m gonna do the whole album, I’m gonna have Jaden Smith come out, and the Neighbourhood.

O — So you moved here to LA about six months ago, right?

KA — Yeah, I moved here from Texas, and I lived in Georgia for a little bit, the last two years of high school. In Texas I lived in Corpus Christi, and I lived in The Woodlands, which is like a suburb north of Houston. Arcade Fire, some of them are from there.

O — What made you choose LA, as opposed to, say, New York, as your destination?

KA — New York’s too cluttered for the way I think about things, and sometimes I just have to be somewhere where I can go outside and breathe a little more, if that makes sense. See more of what’s actually around me, and be a little more in control. I like having control of certain things in my environment, when I’m in New York I don’t feel like I have that—maybe just not now because I’m, uh...I’m not rich. If I had more money, then maybe. But California feels like its own world, it’s crazy. Coming from Texas at least. I love it here.

O — Tell me about Texas.

KA —Well Corpus is kind of like a beach town almost, there’s the ocean, and the palm trees. That’s one of the reasons I like LA so much, because it reminds me of it. Except Corpus is not as beautiful as LA, but it’s beautiful in its own way. Selena’s from there. Pretty cool. The type of hip-hop scene there is like Baby Bash, Paula Deanda, just weird pop things. I was just always on the internet growing up, so I found Kid Cudi through Kanye West’s UniverseCity blog, that sparked a lot for me. Tyler, the Creator, Odd Future, all that stuff was like a really big turning point for me as an artist, and as a person. The Woodlands was just a boring suburb with a bunch of white people, not many black people or people of color, not too much culture I could resonate with. But what I found that I liked the most about the suburbs was the fact that there’s a lot of pain behind the beautiful homes and shit. I ended up bringing that to my music, and that’s what my entire album is.

O — What is that pain, where does it come from? I guess I’m not really surprised to hear that it exists.

KA — It’s not really surprising. I think it just comes from broken families, and lies. People should just be way more real with each other, and there’s a lack of that, in the suburbs that I grew up in.

O — Do you think there’s something about the suburbs that’s inherently less honest?

KA — People just want to keep up with other people’s lifestyles and money, they all have to look a certain way and they don’t want to be real with each other. This guard is up, no one ever wants to let their guard down”.

I will bring things more up to date. Some might not know about Kevin Abstract. There is a lot to explore and dive into when it comes to Blanket. It is an album that I realty love. One that everyone needs to hear. Vulture recently spoke with Abstract about his new album:

“Kevin Abstract is mellowing out, singing in a low whisper, and trying to abstain from antics that incite indignant threads in fan forums. Blanket, his third solo album, is a dark, tender rock opus that centers sounds he has dabbled in before — in the psych-rap jams “Tattoo” and “Yellow” from 2016’s American Boyfriend and the indie-trap deep cut “Cash” off Saturation, the 2017 release from his boy band Brockhampton — and he doesn’t want to distract from the music. “For the first time, I feel myself growing older,” Abstract sings in the shimmering, devastating “Voyager.” Maturity means making more focused art and seeking less attention. This will excite Brockhampton fans who were incensed last year when the group announced an indefinite hiatus and a final album called The Family, which turned out to be a captivating one-man postmortem on the collective’s career starring Abstract, before following up the next day with the real swan song, TM. Collective exhaustion and an itch to be done with a record deal inspired the feint last year, the 27-year-old rapper, singer-songwriter, producer, and director explained during a call last week. I wanted to confirm my guesses about which Pacific Northwest rock bands from the ’90s influenced the new songs and to trace the polymath plays that landed him a consulting job on HBO’s Euphoria.

There were guitars in the mix on your first two solo records, but Blanket is a full-fledged rock album. What brought that about?

It happened naturally. For years, I’ve been trying to make something that I genuinely would want to listen back to and stand next to on the road as a solo act. I finally did something that I’m beyond proud of. At times, I just haven’t allowed myself to fully go all the way there, but this … instinctually, it just felt right. I kept saying early on that I wanted to make my punk version of folklore. It’s a little joke we were throwing around, but it became a vision I ended up chasing throughout the whole album-making process. I was writing about exactly where I was and also dreaming of old memories from my childhood, not living in that nostalgia, but just looking back.

What have you been listening to lately?

A lot of current rap, some classical music. A lot of stuff I listened to growing up: Sunny Day Real Estate, Modest Mouse.

I like hearing that you were listening to some of the specific indie rock your new stuff made me think about. There’s a sense of intimacy because Modest Mouse at one point was just three guys trying to fill space in a song.

There’s also something supermodern about that. In a lot of rap, there’s so much space. You hear one line over and over, and it’s hypnotizing and kind of psychedelic. I thought it’d be cool to do that with these sonics and this whispering vocal style. Everyone was like, “Oh, it sounds like Alex G.” I Love Alex G so much. God Save the Animals was on repeat in my crib and in the studio all year. But the thing is, those chords are very similar to Modest Mouse chords, and growing up in high school, every boy I had a crush on was playing Modest Mouse. So it’s just in my soul and in my DNA to naturally like those kinds of chords. I think that’s why I like Alex’s music so much. I’ve been a fan since living in Texas, before we put out any of the Saturation stuff.

The timing of Blanket is very, “All right, there’s gonna be some changes around here.”

The last Brockhampton album was me straight up rapping every song. On this one, I didn’t really want to do that. But I still view it at its core as a rap album, maybe because I’m a rapper and I love rap music.

Let’s talk about those last two Brockhampton albums. When I saw the back-to-back release dates of The Family and TM and realized everyone would get 24 hours to think the final Brockhampton album had cut the rest of the group out, I knew people would be fried. How did that go for you?

People hated me. But I think it will be appreciated later down the line. I cringe a little bit saying that, but I love the fact that the group allowed me to do that.

What were the conversations about making The Family like?

They were easy because everyone was pretty much over it. Like, “All right, cool. Run it.” I think they felt betrayed by it, but we were just fully off it at that point. No one wanted to do another album, basically. Everything I say on The Family sums up how everyone felt about our decision to do that. It wasn’t just mine. It was me and a few other members.

Did you really make that album to wrap up a deal?

A thousand percent.

Before that, you became a consultant on Euphoria. What does that job entail?

Really just Sam Levinson showing me vibes and having me come to set to be like, “Yo, what do you think of that? Does that look cool?” I’m like, “Yeah, it’s cool.” It was lit. It was sick. You’re killing it. All the actors are great. I’m around all these new Hollywood people. It’s crazy energy to be around. Inspiring. One of my favorite videos I ever directed, the “Sugar” video by Brockhampton, opens with an alien in a sex scene. I sent it to Sam, and he liked it and asked me to be a consultant. I saw a bunch of cool stuff I never experienced before because of that opportunity. Truthfully, all I want to do is make movies, TV shows, and commercials. I try to take advantage of the chance whenever I’m rolling out my own music. World building — making an experience for people — is my favorite. It’s equally as important as the music. The music is just a piece of that for me.

I heard you met Drake.

I met Drake through Euphoria. I mean, I didn’t really meet him. Right before lockdown, I was at a table read, and there was a lot of food. I had a cheeseburger, and I saw him and I was like, “Bro, thank you for the food.” He said, “Of course, man.” That was great.

How has your creative process evolved since Saturation?

Back then, I was so broke and so desperate for attention. It was like, “How can I get everyone in Los Angeles and in New York and on the internet to look at me? How can I carve out my own lane where I can make albums and remind an audience that they can only come to me to get this specific sound?” I’m very patient with it right now. I’m not desperate for the attention. I’m not in a hurry to get there.

How was writing lyrics without a group to bounce ideas off of?

It was hard. It was lonely. It was challenging. But once I broke through, it was incredible. I need to be pushing myself more. It showed me how I was slacking in the past, relying on others too much”.

I am going to jump to reviews. CLASH were among those keen to praise a stunning album. Blanket ranks alongside Kevin Abstract’s very best. The more I listen to it, the more I seem to get. It is clear that this artist needs to be on everyone’s radar:

“Blanket’ is the moody new record by Kevin Abstract, a sometimes-minimalist project bathed in vulnerability and boasting a defined essence of melancholia and reflection. Coming nearly one year after the final BROCKHAMPTON album, ‘TM’, this new record from Abstract marks his first solo venture since the end of the band. ‘Blanket’ will clearly attract the lion’s share of BROCKHAMPTON fans, but where this record shines is in its absence of hip-hop, and in its embrace of genres Abstract has yet to toy with this heavily. It casts fuzzy guitars and pitched vocals in leading roles, providing a raw live concert feel – though Abstract ensures the tracks retain the hard-hitting nature of his hip-hop background.

What makes ‘Blanket’ thrive and pulse is its completely commitment to unrelenting honesty and vulnerability from Abstract. He runs through the record naked, speaking odes on his identity, atop of some gloriously fuzzy riffs, synthesisers and drums. The Texan polymath cultivates a visceral world on ‘Blanket’, the track list a diverse conglomeration of grunge, bittersweet ballads, pop and hip-hop. The record is at its best when noisy and scrappy, nineties West Coast undertones the thread throughout – the dynamic ‘The Greys’ sparse but still thrashing and heavy, ‘Today I Gave Up’ downtempo but oozing that Pacific Northwest emo tonality.

Though between the rock sensibilities, Abstract’s knack for the subtle shines brightly on penultimate cut ‘Heights, Spiders and The Dark’, a brooding, country-tinted moment with a healthy dose of expansive sub-basses. Though the tracks on ‘Blanket’ may not see the virality of previous material like the Dominic Fike-bolstered ‘Peach’, Abstract’s writing across this new record is some of his most assured and confident to date, with the phenomenal Romil Hemnani (also of BROCKHAMPTON fame) and multi-instrumentalist Jonah Abraham lending their skills to the creation of ‘Blanket’.

Remaining true to form, Abstract retains his genre-less but directed appeal, this new LP an incredible effort and easily his greatest opus to date. While the bulk of his hip-hop flair has been thrown to the side on this project, his voyage into guitar-based territory was clearly a fantastic move, Abstract sounding as comfortable and infallible as ever. As his first solo outing since the denouement of BROCKHAMPTON, Kevin Abstract’s newest studio album continues to assert him as one of the greatest talents of this generation, an individual who eliminates conformity and remains earnest and candid, regardless of the sonic environment he visits. 8/10”.

I am going to end with a review from The Standard. More alternative and broader than his previous work, some critics have not been sold and won by that. Regardless, there are plenty who have shown affection for Blanket. I think that it is one of the strongest albums from this year. Go and listen to it if you have not heard it already:

“A former boyband member making a solo rock album is not a surprising concept. From Charlie Simpson of Busted going indie with Fightstar, to Harry Styles channelling David Bowie on his first single, a guitar is a common shortcut to credibility for those suffering from a shortage of the stuff.

But as with everything involving Kevin Abstract and his former group Brockhampton, it’s a bit more complicated than that. The diverse LA rap collective, who notoriously formed on a Kanye West fan forum and included a web designer and a photographer among their members, always seemed to be using the “boyband” term to subvert it rather than because their music had much in common with production line pop, and tired of it well before the media did.

Meanwhile Abstract, real name Ian Simpson, was operating as a solo act even before his group really got going. This is his fourth album since 2014, while Brockhampton managed a remarkable eight between 2017 and their official split this time last year.

Nor is this the first time he has put guitars on a record. On his 2016 album American Boyfriend: A Suburban Love Story, songs such as Seventeen, Tattoo and Papercut (the latter famous as the moment he came out as gay on record) all feature casually strummed guitars and a lo-fi, indie feel. But he was still mostly rapping back then. On Blanket he sings throughout in a semi-whispered, intimate voice.

Abstract has described the album as follows: “I wanted to make, like, a Sunny Day Real Estate, Nirvana, Modest Mouse type of record. But I wanted it to hit like a rap album.”

The song Heights, Spiders, and the Dark does have the kind of grim-faced acoustic chords and cello that recall Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged album. Earlier in the album, Running Out is a melodic highlight with pretty, energetic chords that might remind listeners of the Smashing Pumpkins favourite 1979.

The idea of Blanket hitting like a rap album is a tougher sell. The distorted electronic buzz and chopped-up screams of the song Mr Edwards has more dynamism, but it’s over in less than a minute. The track he calls Madonna has the brightest chorus, but he refrains from making the musical backing as forceful as it could be.

More commonly, as on Scream and Today I Gave Up, he sounds sad and sleepy, the style coming closer to the laidback indie feel of Mac DeMarco or Alex G. It’s not the kind of album that will launch him to solo superstardom, but it doesn’t sound like that would appeal to him anyway”.

Even though he is quite an established solo artist, maybe there are not as many people in the U.K. as know his work when you compare that to his U.S. fanbase. Kevin Abstract is a remarkable artist who you know is going to keep putting out these wonderful albums. If you have not tuned into his music, then make sure that…