Pink Siifu and producer Ahwlee named their group B. Cool Aid after brown Kool-Aid, a potion made by mixing so many flavors of the powdered beverage that the colors smear. “I was like, ‘Oh shit, that’s us,’” Siifu reflected in a Fader interview. “We mix everything together, and it’s Black too.” Brown Kool-Aid has no set recipe, but it is inevitably sweet and smooth, a standard he and Ahwlee aspire to in their fluid collages of neo-soul, rap, and jazz.
The pair are disciples of the Los Angeles beat scene, where they rubbed shoulders at Low End Theory shows and befriended each other at a Mndsgn party. They’ve remained in close orbit: Ahwlee has contributed to most of Siifu’s albums, and they run in the same underground rap circles. Inspired by hood movies, swap meets, and the Soulquarians, B. Cool Aid channel their artistic influences and overlapping networks into an homage to urbane Black cool. Their third album, Leather Blvd., is a light concept record about an imaginary thoroughfare where Black people live and shop in peace. “Leather Blvd. is the place where you can get it, even when you can’t afford it,” Awhlee told Okayplayer. “It is what America is supposed to be.”
As a mood board, the album works great. B. Cool Aid favor plush, leisurely arrangements that wind and billow like hookah smoke. Siifu does more crooning than rapping here, and his smeared melodies squiggle into odd pockets; even when he evokes Black pain, like on “Cnt Fk Around,” the vibe is decidedly relaxed, giving the record a dreamy and escapist bent. The crisp drums, vapory keys, and yawning vocal sample on “Streets Got Pages” bring out the swing in his hushed vocals. On “Cnt Go Back ( Tell Me ),” his raspy croak melts into the thick boom-bap bassline, singers Liv.e, Jimetta Rose, and V.C.R backing him as he delivers keep-your-chin-up reassurances.
B. Cool Aid reference a hearty swath of Black music—Coltrane, D’Angelo—and recruit an eclectic range of guests, including butter-smooth rhymer Ladybug Mecca of Digable Planets, genre-agnostic singer Fousheé, and acerbic backpacker Denmark Vessey. But the Black utopia theme wears thin as the album progresses. Many songs stretch past the 5-minute mark, and they often lack an identifiable concept, or even a verse or image that yokes all the voices together. ““Craxy”’!” erupts into a racing rap verse about Siifu’s sexual coming-of-age—“First time I seen porn outta nowhere thoughts coulda sworn I had porn dick”—and then fizzles into staid funk. “So Soft Salon” plays like three separate interludes: feathery vocal harmonies over background chatter, a woman’s monologue over spare piano, Siifu chanting “wassup with you.” He occasionally injects some urgency and personality into these meandering tracks, but he’s mostly content to coast along with the lethargic flow.
Pink Siifu is normally a skillful conduit of sounds and ideas. His albums ensley, Negro, and GUMBO’!, which are just as winding and feature-heavy as Leather Blvd., justify their sprawl through hairpin turns and artful contrasts. Leather Blvd. lacks the same sense of vision and proportion. It feels telling that the standout is “Brandy, Aaliyah,” one of the only songs where every performer has a clear prompt. After opening with a slowed-down flip of Brandy’s “Sittin’ Up in My Room,” the song glides through verses that channel the sample’s nostalgia: Siifu floats through memories of family and lovers, MoRuf relishes the physiques of past paramours, and Vessey rattles off wry punchlines about Brandy’s long-standing tiff with Monica. The rush of personalities recall conversations at house parties and diner booths, friends united in jabber. For a moment, the boulevard feels real.