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Jidenna
ME YOU & GOD
Wondaland
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“The days were simple. The time was slow. The streets were empty aside from the daily clash of rebels and police. Nowadays it feels like the Mandela Effect. Did the pandemic really happen?”
No, Jidenna’s Instagram post was not to pronounce him a COVID denier. Instead, it was announcing new music he’s been gestating since the 2020 quarantine. “We’ll never get those days back, but I captured a few moments in this time capsule. I miss those days before the world opened back up, when it was just me, you and God.”
ME YOU & GOD is the latest from rapper Jidenna, who splashed into stardom with The Eephus (2015), a compilation showcasing Janelle Monáe’s label collective Wondaland Arts Society. His ginger dandy aesthetic and come-out-swinging double-platinum single “Classic Man” secured him a GRAMMY nod for Best Melodic Rap Performance. Subsequent full-lengths The Chief (2017) and 85 to Africa (2019) sought to close the Africa-to-America sonic chasm, but now the Nigerian-American has relocated to Southern California. Accordingly, his hip-hop has adopted a beach-browned, faux-hemian domesticity.
This new vibe was co-crafted by Nana Kwabena, Christian Gregory, Sensei Bueno, Dom Sanders, and Miles C. James, but chief among them is “Classic Man” collaborator Roman GianArthur. For anyone who heard GianArthur blending Radiohead with D’Angelo on his mixtape OK Lady (2015), the hashed mix of genres on ME YOU & GOD will make sense. Along the journey, Jidenna’s trap homebase cross-pollinates with warped funk, chillwave, a heavy dose of ‘70s soul, and even psychedelic rock. Like the cohesive but idiosyncratic When I Get Home (2019) from Solange Knowles, ME YOU & GOD is an anthology of vignettes that works best as an uninterrupted listen.
Nonetheless, radio needed a focus point, so he gave them “Blush,” a springy, laid-back treatise on the way hypersexuality can take the fun out of love (“N***as don't blush no more / But they wanna f**k you raw / Baby, but for you I'd cry / I’ll take off my cool”). Keeping with his press towards masculine vulnerability, “Front End” turns the grade school anxiety of “do you like me—check yes or no” into a breezy posse cut with Gardens & Villa, GianArthur, and Sensei Bueno.
Between “Ripe” and the Bootsy Collins-guested “Safe,” the more analog middle section of ME YOU & GOD starts to feel like Silk Sonic replaced all its super-bright Vegas flash bulbs with moody sex lights. By the end of “Maybe Swankafornia,” the Marvin Gaye influence is palpable. This is a new landscape for Jidenna, but he makes himself very much at home in it.
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The grassy cushion of this overall sound allows Jidenna space to explore curious particulars of intimacy. The comically frightened “Pullout” turns a pregnancy scare into a miniature bop. After being a vocal proponent of ethical non-monogamy, “Sweetbitters” finds Jidenna musing about the downsides of progressive relationship agreements (“When you break up in polyamory / You ain’t just lose one lover / You lose a family”). Ironically, falling in love and becoming a one-woman-man is what birthed the curious title for this album. And according to a recent interview, it’s also why there’s less rap and more singing this time around.
Among his influences, everyone from Tyler the Creator and André 3000 to The Isley Brothers and The Beatles are cited. The nasty, chewy groove of “Miss Behave” has echoes of Larry Blackmon and George Clinton in its atypical delivery. In total though, Jidenna’s song-and-verse hybrid over rich and textured musical terrain calls to mind the work of Anderson .Paak. In passages, ME YOU & GOD is like a Ventura (2019) that takes itself less seriously or an Oxnard (2018) without the grit and requisite misogyny.
Maybe unlatching from the oversight of Epic Records to continue as a Wondaland indie artist was a shrewd move. This new art is compelling, intimate, and genuine. My hope is that some of the creatives responsible for it will also grace Monáe’s long-awaited and soon-coming disc The Age of Pleasure. Like ME YOU & GOD, it too will employ a compact format with both projects clocking in at an efficient 32 minutes spread across 13 or 14 tracks.
Perhaps this summer has a theme at Wondaland. Monáe is embracing her pleasure, and it looks like her protégé wants to live the soft life too.
Notable Tracks: “Blush” | “Front End” | “Safe” | “Sweetbitters”
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