Though lyrically endowed has always been an understatement for the hard-hitting punchliner, ONEPOINTFIVE was a project that highlighted that truth with more intent and traditionalist vivacity than its predecessor or than its follow-up. With Shimmy, his listeners were reminded more of 2018 album, project, or middle ground – whichever it was given such a title – ONEPOINTFIVE than anything else. And he successfully keeps pace with a nonchalant, straightforward limerick to one of the greats.
And if the hip-hop world needed a deeper dive into his self-image, an ode to Ol’ Dirty Bastard – one of the more inventive, left-of-center hip-hop artists of all time – speaks widely and accurately to Aminé’s acute role in modern music. Shimmy opened the gates as a brash statement of volatile penmanship, keen to a no longer understated braggadocio, if ever Aminé was understated in the first place. There was a sense that something was a little different when he started his campaign towards the album’s release. His new album just happens to be his most refined take yet on a sound he’s always had. It’s that balance between spaces, that suspension in Limbo that provides him a sound unlike any other. And, he can merge it all with a painfully underrated knack for vocalism – on fervent display with his new album – and an affinity for experimental production. But, he can also spit, rapping at a pace, with individuality and lyrical intent that few in modern hip-hop can match. He can seamlessly stitch together bouncy hits that find themselves attracting a wider ranging audience than perhaps they should given his crass sense of lyricism.
The rapper has long approached rap from both sides of a double-edged sword. Tethered by the polarizing nature of his first project, Good For You, and his second, ONEPOINTFIVE by their attached standout anthems: the aforementioned Caroline and the hard-hitting REEL IT IN Limbo is the only organic space from which he could deliver his multi-tiered, wide-ranging thesis of self.Īminé calls home to Portland, Oregon – not necessarily known for their hip-hop scene, but certainly known for being, if nothing else, different. As it stands, Aminé is at least in the conversation for most creatively influential hip-hop artist alive if by no other measure than the word unique and what it means to a modern musical scene in constant search for the next groundbreaking, experimental sound. From a rapper who was at first typecast by the hilarity and fun-loving nature of his debut hit from a rapper who subsequently went on a lyrical tear, reaffirming his place as more than a hip-pop one-hit wonder from a rapper who has since 2016 been on the tip of hip-hop’s tongue at large, comes the amalgamation of it all.
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