Mykki Blanco delves into their intimate moments to create Broken Hearts & Beauty Sleep

In a sound cocktail always as unclassifiable, the latest album from one of the "Queer Rap" pioneers distinguishes itself first of all by a stylistic reinvention, allying experimentations and retro sounds. Featuring a strong team including the producer FaltyDL, Blanco focuses their efforts on an almost absolute diversity at the expense of an identified spine. This allows this new short opus of 27 minutes to have enough space to express itself with efficiency and urgency while avoiding weak moments.

Broken Hearts & Beauty Sleep wants to be a concentrate of multiple emotions, wishing to retranscribe significant and intimate parts of its author's life. Childhood memories, nostalgia, a love relationship, personal accomplishment and optimism for the future are the strong axes that illustrate the state of mind and the music of Mykki Blanco. For this reason, the author willingly allows themselves to propose a more immediate content, less cerebral and experimental than at the beginning, in order to favor their concept to the utmost. As a counterpart to a less creative technical content, Mykki Blanco optimizes the intensity and the sense of detail, which gives the impression of being in a thrill ride.

Mykki Blanco also counts on precious collaborations such as Hudson Mohawke, Blood Orange, Jamila Woods, Big Freedia as well as choirs to multiply the flavors and creative richness. There is nothing like interactions to illustrate the emotions of a lifetime, via secondary but so crucial characters.

If the Broken Hearts & Beauty Sleep experience is pleasant, some moments stand out more clearly than others. First of all the infectious and melodic “Free Ride”, a fantastic fusion of hip-hop, disco, gospel that sounds like an offering. “Summer Fling” is a kind of unstable chemical reaction between different species, but yet the power of this song is amazing. Finally, in an alliance as explosive as logical, “That's Folks” concludes ideally this album with a southern hip-hop anthem piercing by its charisma and by what it represents. A return in form for a beautiful promise of future.