PartyNextDoor, PARTYMOBILE : The Best Song Is…
For someone who’s only 26, PartyNextDoor has seemed on the verge of breaking out for an awfully long time. In 2013, he became the first draft pick to Drake’s OVO sound label, and put out a promising debut LP under his current stage name (PARTYNEXTDOOR). With his deep toolkit (writer, producer, versatile vocalist), beyond-his-years talent, and one of pop music’s most powerful co-signs (the 6 God), fans rightly envisioned big things for him.
The ensuing years haven’t been a failure by any stretch—his subsequent releases have been well received—but if the sky was the limit, Party’s jumped but not flown. Rather than forge his own star-making path—the way popular R&B contemporaries like The Weeknd and Frank Ocean have—his greatest successes have instead helped established stars shine brighter. He’s been an accent to Kanye West (his vocals are on Ye cuts “Ghost Town” and “Wouldn’t Leave”), a hitmaker for Rihanna (crafting “Work,” “Sex With Me,” and DJ Khaled’s Rihanna-featuring “Wild Thoughts”), and a constant muse for Drake.
That last role comes with tradeoffs. Drake often elevates collaborators’ profiles, but he also has been critiqued for occasionally swallowing them whole. The shadow he casts is as long as the one from the CN Tower—and it’s especially hard to break free of it by working in his image, which Party has (for better or worse) often done. Party’s voice—particularly its round Caribbean inflection—is distinct from Drake’s, which is crisper and more nasal. But on past albums, Party has bent his voice in the ways Drake made popular, such that you can practically see a big “6™” stamped next to Party’s attempts at sing-rap fusion. The influence, though, has been particularly pronounced because of Party’s 40-esque productions: where Drake pops against a desaturated backdrop, Party has sometimes blended in.
PARTYMOBILE isn’t completely new territory for Party. 40’s hands are all over the album—his presence especially identifiable on the sound of the album’s early tracks (“The News” is essentially Drake Pastiche). And Drake himself showed up on the album’s first big single, “LOYAL” (and its Bad Bunny-featuring remix). But the album’s great accomplishment is that Party’s own voice comes through more clearly. He’s doing far more singing than rapping; and with each subsequent release it seems you can hear more of his familial roots (he’s Canadian, but his mother is Jamaican and his father Trinidadian).
Most of PARTYMOBILE finds Party crooning about familiar fixations: he’s a sensitive lover who has some regrets (“Trauma”), wants to do better (“SHOWING YOU”), and who has himself been hurt (“NEVER AGAIN”). The vibe and texture doesn’t fluctuate much from one track to the next—though latter tracks do err more tropical. But without sacrificing his identity or credibility, Party seems less reticent—or perhaps just better equipped—to make hits for himself. “LOYAL” and its remix are undeniable smashes. And “EYE ON IT”—about desiring a woman but not wanting to lose his current beau—sneaks up on you midway through the album, with its addictive, head bob-inducing steel drums.
But the track that follows “EYE ON IT” is the one that you’re going to be hearing a lot the next few months—whether we remain isolated or not. I’m talking about “BELIEVE IT,” a duet with Rihanna, in which each artist plays a lover asking the other to believe they’ll remain faithful. Rihanna has, of course, been musically MIA for long enough that it’s a delight merely to hear her again—doubly so, because she’s in top form. The song is moody enough to be a bedroom anthem, but its chorus is rich enough to get play at parties. But “BELIEVE IT” only works because Party holds his own alongside the pop heavyweight. Their voices bleed into each other so sumptuously that you find yourself rooting for them not to deceive each other—if for no other reason than so that there will be sequels. Here are two stars, and Drake is nowhere to be found.
From love ballads to Carole Baskin diss tracks, Joe Exotic has done it all.
Originally Appeared on GQ
