Brent Faiyaz has been a busy man as of late. After his 2020 single “Dead Man Walking” became a TikTok sleeper hit, he landed features left and right, lending his buttery vocals to rapper Baby Keem’s Melodic Blue and afrobeat artist Tems’s If Orange Was a Place. He subsequently broke through the Billboard 200 top five last year with his star-studded smash album Wasteland and further cemented his spot in the R&B sphere earlier this year with the formation of a multi-million dollar music label under UnitedMasters.
To appease hungry fans, he dropped Larger Than Life, a short and sweet batch of tracks, some of which dip below two minutes in length and none that cross the four-minute mark. As an indication of his prospective longevity in the world of R&B, he replicates the hallmark vibes of late ’90s hitmakers like Usher, Dru Hill and 112. The stiffly orchestrated string arrangements and pristine attention to detail of Wasteland are swapped for liquid guitars, glittery synths, shuffling knocks and skittering hi-hats which coalesce into cyclical swirls of sultriness. Larger Than Life may not put forth the most original sounds, especially since Faiyaz’s ideas don’t expand much beyond the R&B blueprints he is clearly pulling from, but the mixtape successfully cultivates a languid, risque vibe. Tracks like “Forever Yours” and “Best Time” are fleeting frissons, perfect for soundtracking one night stands as they barely creep past a minute and are entirely toxic and forgettable. Yes, toxicity can be louche, but pairing it with flagrant machismo is a total turn-off, and unfortunately on Larger Than Life, Faiyaz lets his ego get the best of him.
On Larger Than Life, Faiyaz plays the cocky asshole. He uses sex as a form of manipulation and control, made all the more blatant by his intolerably mundane lyrics. On “Wherever I Go,” his toxicity reaches new levels as he cleverly rhymes “things” with “things” before crooning, “I’d take care of you / You could’ve skipped the line.” Similarly bitter is “Last One Left,” the mixtape’s worst track, in which Faiyaz gives his girlfriend (or one of the women in his line of available girlfriends) an ultimatum: She must choose between him or her friends, whom she shouldn’t trust because all of their boyfriends left them and she’s “the only one left, got someone to call (her) home.” Though he fails to justify himself as the better choice, he does make a pretty good argument for why he’s a misogynistic prick who loves to watch women turn against each other over him. What’s worse is the dismal guitar loop that barely stays afloat in the mix, putting the listener to sleep.
Redeeming moments on the mixtape are few and far between. “Moment of Your Life” is convincingly sexy, as featured singer Coco Jones’s coy pleas match Faiyaz’s bravado. The song isn’t anything special, but Jones gives the vocal performance of her life and saves the track from becoming another perpetual slurry of dumbed-down throwback aesthetics. “Outside All Night” is another highlight, not for the A$AP Rocky feature or the glistening string loop, but for the willful, amusing ignorance that Faiyaz projects. He’s “been outside all night long,” claims to be “looking for some signs in the stars,” pining for “insight to (a girl’s) heart,” though even his love interest knows he’s full of B.S. In layman’s terms, he’s outside all night long for all the wrong reasons. Intentional or not, Faiyaz using his confused spirituality as an excuse for his debauchery is funny enough to earn this track a pass.
Whether or not his pillowy-soft vocal delivery and leisurely swagger outshine his overinflated ego and undercooked songcraft is up to his loyal audience. As for everyone else, the only place this womanizer’s mixtape belongs is the garbage pile.
Daily Arts Writer Zachary Taglia can be reached at ztaglia@umich.edu.