![]() He scored his biggest hit as a writer on the 2014 Chris Brown track “Loyal,” which defined the sound of urban radio for much of a year: the lyrics cool and dismissive toward romantic interests, with an effortless low bounce and a featherlight synth topline. The son of a funk musician, Ty learned to play the bass guitar and keyboards as a child, and is an underrated songwriter. Collaboration is Ty’s default mode, and, perhaps out of habit, he brings too many voices onto the slightly too-long “Beach House 3.” His solo songs point to his ability to prosper alone. The new album has less of this density and darkness it is more concerned with melody and weightlessness. ![]() On many of his earlier projects, Ty sang through a haze of his own harmonies and a swirl of bass and minor-chord melodies-the sound of much mainstream hip-hop today. Of course, the only campaign he was running was the one to further his own career, but Ty had widened his purview beyond the realm of dead-eyed debauchery. His follow-up mixtape, “Campaign,” from 2016, intersperses political matters, mostly in the form of criticisms of Donald Trump, with club-focussed songs about his sexual escapades. He brings the concerns of the club to church on “Guard Down,” a light electro-gospel song in which he is both preacher and libertine, offering spiritual encouragement one moment and talking about 3 A. The Ty of early “Beach House” days is still there-assuring us that he’ll sleep with women but won’t date them-but the album also offers a glimpse into a well of emotion. His major-label début, “Free TC,” from 2015, functions in part as an ode to his incarcerated younger brother. And yet, since he first achieved success, he has moved gently away from smut, while releasing some of the most essential R. & B. This attitude put Ty at risk of becoming merely a punch line, but it was also resonant enough that it could have sustained his career. The phrases and the narratives he uses are so filthy that they seem to smugly float, a challenge to his listeners: Go ahead and try not to enjoy my vulgarity. “And I know they know about each other.” He presented himself as a hedonist, but one far too mellow to adopt the theatrical and manic depravity of artists like the Weeknd. “I see two of my bitches in the club,” he sings. On his breakout hit, “Paranoid,” he wonders if the women in his orbit are plotting a conspiracy against him. On one of Ty’s songs from those tapes, “My Cabana,” he sings about how many women-and how many varieties of them-he can fit in his beachside bungalow. Ty dispensed with the cloying chivalry of commercial R. & B., and zeroed in on the routine of seducing women and rejecting them with the swift coldness of a kicking horse. The mixtapes-particularly “Beach House 2”-have become modern classics, owing as much to the life style they advertise as to their lush, muted West Coast sound. Born Tyrone Griffin, Jr., in South Central Los Angeles, Ty broke into the mainstream by 2013, with his “Beach House” and “Beach House 2” mixtapes. If there is anyone who has successfully avoided these traps, it is Ty Dolla $ign, the prolific R. & B. The rule is: reinvent yourself as often and as drastically as possible, or flame out. Fans, accustomed to constant novelty, no longer have the patience for artists to take unhurried new shapes. The music business is fuelled by fresh blood and hard resets-breakdowns, high-drama apology tours, and drastic makeovers. ![]() This is true in terms of sound, certainly, but especially in the emotional realm. The rapid churn of musical appetites rarely affords artists the opportunity to evolve gradually. Photograph by Awol Erizku for The New Yorker Along with T-Pain, Ty helped create a movement for the hip-hop-minded singer.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |