The Maryland crooner’s dreamy R&B portrays a world where sex is a game and there are no consequences for anything.
There’s a lot of slow-groove R&B right now, most of which is destined to rack up streams on sleep-inducing playlists with names like “Vibes.” Brent Faiyaz is often lumped into this scene, but he doesn’t deserve to be. The 24-year-old won’t be found crawling on his knees begging for his ex back, or making sugary love songs for lifestyle-advertising mood boards or direct-to-Netflix rom-coms. If you listen to the dreamy soul of his new album Fuck the World long enough, it starts to sound like a horror story. In his world, sex is a game and there are no consequences for anything.
Faiyaz is at his best when he’s cold-hearted, like Future minus the bleak outlook. “Rehab (Winter in Paris)” is unsympathetic from the opening line: “I got too many hoes/But they ain’t you,” he sings warmly over neo-soul ready strings and finger snaps—so warmly, in fact, that you forget that he’s actually telling the girl he’s supposed to be in love with that he’s sleeping around. The stripped-down, self-produced “Fuck the World (Summer in London)” is similar, with countless bars that make him sound like a demon (“Your nigga caught us texting/You said ‘Baby don’t be mad you know how Brent is’”) or stand out for the wrong reasons (on the hook he calls himself a “walkin’ erection”). Both songs are minimal in their approach, but layered, with small tweaks—like his slowed vocals on “Fuck the World (Summer in London)”—that elevate it all.
It’s worth noting that Brent Faiyaz is a savant at caption-worthy one-liners—“I’d probably be dead if I was basic,” “If you ain’t nasty don’t at me.” But there’s more to Fuck the World than Faiyaz’s ability to provide content for fit pics. He’s remarkably consistent as a songwriter; the weakest point over 10 songs is “Soon Az I Get Home (Interlude),” mostly because of its brevity. On “Let Me Know” he shows off his sweet (and under-used) falsetto, adding a coating of earnest gloom: “Who can I love when they tell me I can’t love myself?/How in the hell, could I possibly love someone else?” he croons.
True to Fuck the World’s title, Faiyaz spends most of his time shrugging, and his looseness separates him from his more self-serious R&B peers. The ethereal “Clouded” is an exception. For a moment, he wonders about his legacy: “Is anybody gon’ remember me?/If I go tonight I doubt the world would change.” Then, the moment passes, and he instantly returns to his comfort zone: too much sex, destroying relationships that aren’t his, and breaking hearts without remorse.