The Wanderer

This week’s songs on my mind is a little different. Instead of just picking one song I’ve been binging all week, I’m reviewing the beautiful, dark, twisted album WASTELAND by the toxic kind Brent Faiyaz. I’ve been listening to brent for years, he’s a top tier RnB artist in my opinion, making melodic smooth beats to accompany his silky smooth voice. The thing I love about Brent’s is the sheer confidence that comes over me when I listen to his music. Which brings us to Wasteland.

Wasteland, Faiyaz’s 2nd studio album, tells the story of a toxic relationship between Brent and his pregnant lover. Brent struggles with his new found fame coming off of his latest album while he tries to maintain his relationship as well as the sanity of his lover. Walking through the album we start with villain’s theme, an into song setting the scene with dark undertones, a common theme throughout the album. Villain’s theme holds a conversation between brent and a girl where they talk about “temporary euphoria” either through drugs or sex, the meaning of life, the definition of toxicity in the new age, and how his music relates to these topics. Brent feels like his fame is “like euphoria times 10,” which is something he struggles with, the feeling of giving in too much to his vices. He ends the song with the open ended question “What purpose do your vices serve in your life?”

This question is the essence of the album. Are these vices, from drugs to women to anything that takes your mind off the mundane, really helping or are they just masking your real life? The songs coming try to answer this question, using deep base, guitars, euphoric pianos, and his voice to bring you into his world. The whole album feels like it takes place at night, or in a dark club, the music bumping, the drugs flowing, the women coming straight to you. He finds a way to make you feel like him, all the vices and temptation served on a silver platter. My favorite song on this album All Mine, is a good representation of this feeling. Lines like “We both still young, so what’s the rush / the night is young and we’re not drunk enough / you come around if I don’t do too much / We had our downs but we had way more ups” show the mentality of artists jumping into this new life of partying, the world at their fingertips. The pre-chorus is my favorite part, the part I’ve been singing in my head all week. Brent, talking to presumably to his girl, sings “I know that I’ve been the worst / but I’ll love you better / If you let me / Let’s catch a flight change the weather / And I promise forever.” Brent does this a lot, he acknowledges his wrongdoings, saying he’ll be better, that the fame has got to him but he’s a changed man, which we all know isn’t true. That’s the essence of toxicity for me, saying you’re one thing when you know you’re not. And this album encompasses that perfectly.

One thing I liked a lot about this album was the Skits, something I’m usually not too fond of in other albums (Kanye comes to mind). Skit: Egomaniac introduces Brent’s lover, the woman carrying his child. She talks for the whole skit, saying she’s stressed out and needs support, all while brent sits there not saying a word. He gets a text on his phone and she says “You respond very fast to every bitch except the person carrying your child” to which brent responds “That’s crazy that’s my manager texting me its cool though” blowing her off and heading out for the next song. The skit ends with us sitting with Brent’s lover as she says “Goodbye Chris.” I guess Chris is brent in this case.

The next skit is brent with another girl having a conversation in his car. They’re on their way to his hotel room when brent get’s a text from his girl. The girl, called side chick on the lyrics (nice touch), starts saying it’s fine, “It’s not a big deal anyway. It ain’t like y’all got a baby or nothing.” Brent doesn’t care about this girl, or even his girl, they’re just vices. The scene ends as they reach the hotel.

The last skit is right before the last song, called Wake Up Call. This skit opens up with Brent answering a call from his girlfriend. She’s crying somewhere outside, screaming that she hates him and that she can’t take this anymore. She says he doesn’t deserve her or this child, that she’ll be a terrible mother, that “You will never see this baby / I will never see this baby.” Brent realizes what she’s about to do and gets into his car, going fast through traffic with his lover on the phone crying, about to do something that might end her life. He tries calling 911 but in the heat of it all he crashes his car, explosions ringing through my headset. The skit ends with the sounds of sirens and wreckage. Life had finally caught up to him.

The album ends with Angel, a beautiful song played mostly with an acoustic guitar, which relays brent’s outlook on life, the mistakes he’s made, the regrets he wished he could rewind. It seems like the album ends with brent leaving this toxic cycle, that he finally realizes what he had and what he lost in the process.

The album is beautiful, dark, toxic, and reassuring. Listeners like me enter this album listening to the house beats and fun lyrics and leave the album with a sense of deeper understanding, that the vices we have can cause damage in ways we can’t comprehend until it’s too late.

I know this was a long one, and I appreciate y’all tuning into another songs on my mind. If you haven’t listened to this album, please do it’s amazing.