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another-music-page · 6 years

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Malibu by Anderson .Paak

https://open.spotify.com/album/4VFG1DOuTeDMBjBLZT7hCK

The Bird

The Bird sets the tone early for the rest of Malibu. The production is influenced by R&B, soul, and funk, which is recurrent throughout the album. The subject matter is that of .Paak’s early life, which allows us to start relating to him. This song introduces his high-pitched voice which is soft and soothing over equally reserved production. Finally, it introduces us to the Free Nationals, Anderson .Paak’s band, and shows us that they are more than capable of producing music that is both enjoyable and interesting to listen to. This song is meant to ease the listener into the album, and it does a great job.

Heart Don’t Stand a Chance

The first measures of Heart Don’t Stand a Chance are a polar opposite to the feel of the previous track. The song opens with cymbals and triplet drums, which are played by .Paak himself. This is followed by dissonant keyboard chords over the opening stanza until the clouds part and the song’s production becomes a more straightforward funk groove. In between each verse, the dissonant chords come back for the chorus, and after the second verse, the song gives way to a psychedelic bridge, which ties into the various drug references in the song, including the line, “You’re talking with the blunt in your hand/Won’t you pass that?”. The drug references will come back later in Malibu, most overtly in the song Come Down. Lyrically, this song sees .Paak flirting with a woman that shows up throughout the album (I’ll refer to her as The Girl), saying that her “heart don’t stand a chance” of ignoring his charm. However, the stereotypical pickup line of “Am I dreaming?” in the second verse takes on new meaning when we consider the drug references throughout the song and the album overall. Personally, this is one of my favorite songs on the album. The main production is extremely laid back and easy to nod your head to, but it’s contrasted with the choruses and bridge, which lend a new, interesting musical aspect to the song. While The Bird does a good job introducing Malibu, Heart Don’t Stand a Chance is how we know this album won’t be one to gloss over.

The Waters (feat. BJ The Chicago Kid)

The Waters again departs from the previous track. The first two tracks on Malibu highlight .Paak’s singing, whereas this song focuses on his rapping, sing-song as it may be. The track showcases some of the best lyricism on the album, especially during the second verse. The production on The Waters also stands out; it was done by the famed artist, Madlib, who is perhaps most famous for his work with MF DOOM under the duo name Madvillain (although Madlib has worked with many famous artists, including J Dilla, Talib Kweli, and Freddie Gibbs). The connection between .Paak and Madlib is that they were both born and raised in Oxnard, California. Finally, the chorus is sung by BJ the Chicago Kid, and it reads “Stepped in the waters,/The water was cold/Chilled in my body/But not in my soul”. This could be interpreted as a reference to baptism; the cold water chilled his physical self, but his soul was enriched. This interpretation is backed up by the starting line of the second verse, heard immediately after a chorus: “I bring you greetings from the first church of Boom Baptists”. This line also is an example of .Paak’s wordplay: “Boom Baptists” is a reference to “boom-bap” drums, characterized by the hard-hitting low end and high end drum sounds, which can be heard in the song, making this line self-referential. The overall tone of the album continues on The Waters, even if it is a bit of a musical departure.

The Season | Carry Me

This double feature starts with The Season, a one-verse song produced by 9th Wonder, mainly focusing on .Paak’s come-up. His journey from nobody to celebrity is illustrated in lines like “Went from playing community ball to balling with the majors” and “Don’t forget that dot, nigga you paid for it/I spent years being called out my name”. The “dot” referenced in the latter line is the dot in front of “.Paak”; he’s reminding us to remember every little detail about him, even the seemingly unimportant dot in front of his last name. Carry Me transforms the track from a braggadocious look at .Paak’s past to a more introspective one. This song highlights his love for his mother, even during her time behind bars, but it also reflects on the fragmentation of his family life, especially during the second verse. The line “When I look at my tree, I see leaves missing/Generations of harsh living and addiction” summarizes his home life pretty well. The “tree” represents his family tree, and the “missing leaves” are family members that .Paak has lost over time, including his father, who is just one of many of the “generations of harsh living and addiction”. Overall, The Season | Carry Me is a look at Anderson .Paak’s rise to prominence, and the dichotomy of two songs in one shows the two sides of this coin: braggadocio in The Season and introspection in Carry Me.

Put Me Thru

Put Me Thru is a welcome change from the previous song’s slower tempo. It starts with quarter note piano chords and then the bass and guitar come in, making for an extremely danceable funk-inspired beat. It is also the second song so far on Malibu that refers to and addresses The Girl, the other being Heart Don’t Stand a Chance (HDSAC). On HDSAC, .Paak’s encounter with The Girl is one of flirtation; he’s trying to convince her to enter a relationship with him. With Put Me Thru, however, he’s now in the thick of the relationship with her; the first line, “Why the hell would you run this game?”, makes it seem as if we’ve caught them in the middle of an argument. Throughout the first verse, the woman appears to be not what .Paak bargained for, but it’s then revealed in the chorus that he puts himself through this: “There I go, volunteering, punish me/Self-inflicted pain”. Another dimension of the relationship is shown, however, in the short interlude between the previous track and this one, in which a self-proclaimed masochist is interviewed, stating simply, “I like pain”. Masochism is the M in the sex practice of BDSM, and .Paak revealing that the pain is “self-inflicted” means that now Put Me Thru can be viewed through two different lenses: 1) that .Paak is fed up with what she puts him through and/or 2) that .Paak knows what he’s getting himself into, and even though it’s painful, he enjoys it.

Am I Wrong (feat. ScHoolboy Q)

Am I Wrong starts off similarly to Put Me Thru; both with heavy-hitting drums followed by ambient chords. The middle of the song also breaks into a more psychedelic bridge during ScHoolboy Q’s verse. (Most likely, the connection between .Paak and Q came through mutual friend and collaborator, Dr. Dre.) This song is about the importance of living in the moment. This is done through more superficial snap judgment and introspective thought, like with The Season | Carry Me. The 1st refrain is as follows: “Am I wrong to assume/If she can’t dance, then she can’t ooh?” This is the snap judgment; he looks at a girl, most likely in a club, sees that she can’t dance, and immediately concludes that she can’t “ooh”, which is, in this case, a euphemism for having sex. However, the next refrain reveals a little deeper meaning, “I never wanna waste your time, my life/So precious, is yours, is mine,/And look at the time, my God”. The reasoning for his snap judgment isn’t as superficial as it might have seemed originally; he knows that time is running out on life for all of us, so why not live in the moment and use our lives to the fullest of our abilities? The first line heard in the song is “Why lie?” and I think this line means “Why lie to ourselves that we have an unlimited amount of time?” Am I Wrong explores why we should live for the moment at all times, even if it sometimes seems judgmental or disrespectful.

Without You (feat. Rapsody)

This is the third song directly addressing The Girl from previous tracks Heart Don’t Stand a Chance and Put Me Thru. It appears as though .Paak and the woman have reached a stage of reconciliation as evidenced by the chorus: “With all the kissin’, the touchin’, the bitin’, the tuggin’/You know, you know I love what you do/And all the spittin’, the cursin’, the fightin’ the fussin’/You know I’m only fuckin with you”. .Paak then ends the chorus with the line “No bullshit, I’m nothing without you.” Through the flirtation on HDSAC, the argument on Put Me Thru, and, to a certain extent, the club scene on Am I Wrong, he knows that, at the end of the day, he’ll still be nothing without her. Without You also features Rapsody, who is continually becoming one of my favorite lyricists and rappers in current music, and her feature does not disappoint. As this song is directly referencing The Girl, she could be being portrayed by Rapsody here, but it’s truly up for debate. The song goes back to the more laid-back vibe of Carry Me and HDSAC, and the way that both artists flow over the sparser production of this song easily makes it one of the most enjoyable songs on Malibu.

Parking Lot

Sonically, Parking Lot is probably the most interesting track on Malibu. It starts off softly with a droned note that gradually gets louder, before giving away to a psychedelic rock beat. Then, .Paak’s soft, soothing vocals, reminiscent of those on The Bird, come in, and we start to hear the anecdotes about some of his favorite moments that have happened with friends and significant others. He stresses the importance of the moment, rather than the location: “I don’t remember the parking lot/I just remember the song we sang”. The various mentions of “my love” throughout the song suggest that this could be another reference to The Girl .Paak talks about throughout Malibu. The most intriguing part of this track, however, is the instrumental: the upbeat (ish) tempo of the drums contrasts with the ambience of the arpeggiated synth to create an overall track that never gets old. (Fun fact: Parking Lot really never did get old. It was written as long ago as 2013, whereas Malibu was released in 2016.)

Lite Weight (feat. The Free Nationals United Fellowship Choir)

Lite Weight has the most overt drug reference on the album so far, and it’s also the most lyrically straightforward track thus far. The song consists of a chorus and a bridge repeated throughout, so lyrically, there’s not a lot of substance to the song. This track is interesting in that all the factors of it (the dance-hall type beat, produced by critically-acclaimed electronic producer KAYTRANADA, and the voices which overlap and intertwine throughout the song) work in harmony with one another to create the overall atmosphere of a party. The party/drug reference during the lyrics is best illustrated in two places; the first being the last lines of the chorus: “There’s no reason to be afraid/No time to be lite weight”. meaning they have a low tolerance for substances, whether it be alcohol or drugs; .Paak is saying that the party they’re at yields no time for being light weight. The last reference is during the outro, in which two people are talking about getting a light and a toke. Lyrically, Lite Weight doesn’t bring anything breathtaking to the table, but the party atmosphere created by the factors of the track working together is definitely worth noticing.

Room in Here (feat. The Game, Sonyae Elise)

Room in Here has a much more lo-fi feel than the previous track. Hard-hitting, boom-bap drums combine with a piano loop reminiscent of a smooth jazz song to create a song with the same laid-back energy as Without You or The Bird. This song is also clearly addressing a woman, evidenced by lines like “Take a look at that moon, bout as bright as your eyes”, but it’s not addressing the woman that .Paak talks about throughout Malibu; rather, it seems to be more of a pickup song, like Heart Don’t Stand a Chance. The lyrics to this song represent .Paak’s own pickup style: assertive but not aggressive, concise and to the point, leaving no room for misinterpretation. Room in Here is not the typical pickup track, however. .Paak and The Game both talk about how the woman in question deserves more than the usual line, that she deserves someone who actually puts in the effort to pick her up, rather than someone who would just use a generic line and then move on to the next girl if that didn’t work. .Paak saying that there’s “room in here” could also be referring to the fact that there’s only enough room in his heart for him and her, no one else. Overall, this track is a laid-back, lo-fi groove with a message that women deserve more effort than the typical pickup line.

Water Fall (Interluuube)

This track, as the title (kind of) suggests, is an interlude. It’s initially unclear why the parenthetical part of the title is “interluuube” rather than “interlude”, but when the song starts, we very quickly find out why. This song is an overt reference to the female orgasm, which is proven implicitly and explicitly. Implicitly, .Paak is not the first person to use the phrase “waterfall” to refer to an orgasm; Beyonce did it on her song “Rocket”, found on her 2013 album “Beyonce”. Also, the chorus of Water Fall specifically says “As soon as I break down the wall/I’m riding the wave of your waterfall”, “wall” referencing the vagina, which was also done on Kendrick Lamar’s 2015 track “These Walls”. More explicitly, .Paak says just before the chorus “But I know that I’m the only one who makes you cum”, which is pretty self-explanatory. Water Fall is the most overtly sexual song on Malibu, and this isn’t only shown by the lyrics, but also by the corresponding instrumental.

Your Prime

Before now, whenever I looked through this album trying to remember which tracks to listen to by themselves rather than with the album as a whole, I almost always looked over Your Prime, and after listening to it again, I really shouldn’t have. This song takes a little while to, for lack of a better phrase, warm up, but after this minute-long period, this song has the most satisfying beat drop on Malibu. The beat to Your Prime is half-swung and syncopated, and this elaborate beat is overlaid by a simple quarter-note piano riff, making this beat both accessible and interesting. Lyrically, this track is another reference to The Girl, specifically talking about her age; college, meaning that the age gap between .Paak and The Girl is rather big. Lines that reference her college age include “She live on a beautiful campus” and “She told me everybody close to her age is full of mad shit/I said, “Baby girl, you ain’t even old enough to be jaded””. There are also more references to how compatible .Paak and the girl are, an idea that carries through from the previous track, Water Fall (Interluuube), specifically “Opposites attract, I swear we a magnet”. Overall, Your Prime speaks on the age of The Girl referenced throughout Malibu and her compatibility with .Paak, and does so in one of the grooviest ways on the album.

Come Down

First off, Come Down has one of the best basslines I’ve ever heard in my life, bar none. When I heard it for the first time after the declarative “Y’all niggas got me hot!”, I had to stop what I was doing. The bassline, and in turn, the overall track, is reminiscent of not only ‘70s funk, like Parliament or Funkadelic, but also of other more recent funk tributes, particularly Kendrick Lamar’s King Kunta, which also has a hard-hitting bassline and a chant-like chorus. This track is undoubtedly a party, but underlying the upbeat sound of Come Down, there’s a troubling scene unfolding: “You, drank up all my liquor, come on/What I’m supposed to do now?/And you talking all that shit, now come on/You gon’ have to back it up”. These lyrics, along with the rest of the chorus, suggest that .Paak is overwhelmed by this party and is trying to recover, or come down, but that the other partiers won’t let him. This interpretation is backed up by the music video: it shows Anderson .Paak performing this track at a party; in the background, however, there are fights going on, one person even shown being carried across the screen unconscious. It ends (ish) with .Paak himself collapsing. Come Down is one of the most enjoyable tracks on Malibu, and it gets even more replayable when you start to analyze the lyrics.

Silicon Valley

If Water Fall is the most overtly sexual song on the album, then Silicon Valley comes in a close second. It’s also one of the most comedic songs on the album, including clever wordplay (All of that ass you carrying/You gotta be shitting me), the fact that he says “tig-ol-bitties” five times in the song, and the funny conversation between him and The Girl toward the end of the track, ending with her saying “Can you fuck me already?” However, like Come Down before it, there is an underlying message beneath the cruder sexual language. The final lines of the chorus are “Open your heart/What’s behind them tig-ol-bitties?”, making this track an interesting look at the different aspects of a relationship; there can be a sexual attraction along with a desire to know the woman on a more personal level. The wordplay of this track doesn’t stop with the lyrics, though; the title, Silicon Valley, is a reference to the fact that The Girl has breast implants (made of silicone), and the “valley” is the space between them, her heart. This track is a typical R&B instrumental about, on the surface, how great The Girl’s breasts are. However, going past the explicit sexual language, Silicon Valley is a song about Anderson .Paak knowing The Girl on a more personal level.

Celebrate

The message of this song is beautifully simple: “Let’s celebrate while we still can”. Celebrate is a reminder to appreciate life as much as you can while you can, from the small things to the bigger things. .Paak celebrates seeing his son “in the likeness of a full-grown man”, which can’t be taken for granted in Oxnard, CA, which has a higher violent crime rate than the average in the US. .Paak growing up in this environment makes him appreciate his son still being with him (as shown in the music video for Bubblin, Anderson .Paak’s latest single). He also celebrates his come-up through the music industry, which he does on multiple tracks on Malibu. However, the first verse sees .Paak appreciating, and in turn, telling us to appreciate perhaps the most mundane thing of all: being alive. And while being alive can be taken for granted very easily, he reminds us that it’s important sometimes to sit back and admire what we have, and the simplicity of the instrumental helps to drive this point home. Celebrate is a straightforward track about appreciating what we have while we can, and the enjoyable, simplistic nature of the song only adds to the ease of understanding the message.

The Dreamer (feat. Talib Kweli, Timan Family Choir)

The Dreamer is a tribute to the rise through the hip-hop community that .Paak and many other artists like him went through, and the track features two major nods to overall hip-hop/R&B culture. The first nod is the Talib Kweli feature, Talib Kweli being one of the most recognized MCs in hip-hop history. He’s very well known for his solo work, but also for his collaboration with Mos Def on the album Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star. The inclusion of a hip-hop legend like Talib Kweli is a tribute to the “dreamers”, the kids who dream of being household names. The second, bigger nod to hip-hop/R&B culture is the feature used on the track. The track featured on The Dreamer is a song by The Mohawks called The Champ. This song has been sampled by a multitude of artists, including Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Big Daddy Kane, De La Soul, Mary J. Blige, Aaliyah, Mobb Deep, Eric B. & Rakim, Ariana Grande, PARTYNEXTDOOR, Logic, Migos, and Frank Ocean. Undoubtedly, all these artists were dreamers at some point or another, taking this track full circle; The Champ has been sampled by dozens of dreamers, Anderson .Paak being one of them, and now he’s writing a song to inspire other people like him to fulfill their dreams. The Dreamer is a nice way to end Malibu; it acknowledges and celebrates .Paak’s rise to fame, while also trying to encourage other people to hopefully do the same.

CONCLUSIONS

Malibu is an album that blurs the lines between hip-hop and R&B, taking inspiration from both genres. There’s a loose narrative of Anderson .Paak meeting The Girl and eventually entering a relationship with her, but it doesn’t take over or suffocate the album. Overall, Malibu takes influence from many styles of music: funk, R&B, soul, hip-hop, and even at times, psychedelic rock, but it never feels out of place. Many artists take an album in different directions, and yet, when Anderson .Paak does it, it produces an extremely cohesive project with ambition and nuance. There are playful songs and serious ones, laid-back songs and up-tempo ones, but overall, Malibu is a very well-put-together boundary-pushing R&B album that deserves more than one listen.

Favorite songs (in no order): Heart Don’t Stand a Chance, Come Down, Your Prime, Without You (feat. Rapsody), Celebrate, Parking Lot

OVERALL RATING: 8.1/10

#music #anderson paak #album #album review #music review #malibu

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hello-yue-here · 3 years

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Tell us about the original plan Liv!

YEE LEGGOOOO

before we begin some little tw for those who may need them: cancer mention; death mention; surgery mention nothing too bad or graphic! i wouldnt do that to u friends

okie dokie so

its 21 chapters right?

i had it set up in three ‘arcs’ and the arcs are stil staying

the first was the hahn arc (7 chaps)

up next was the jet arc (7 chaps)

followed by the finale arc (7 chaps)

the arcs are still staying and theyre still in that order

but the jet arc is the one that is drastically changing as is the finale arc

you see initially i was gonna have jet be somewhat of an antagonist mainly towards sokka. not in the same way as hahn but the whole point of this arc was for zuko to be like sokka ur my friend and so is jet so can u both like,,,, not try to put nair in eachothers shampoo?? like its petty they just dont get along they dont vibe

but then i wrote the jinjet date and all of that went out the window but i had NO CLUE what to replace it with.

but then i was hit with inspiration during a massage i had today (broskis it was so nice) and now im scrapping all of that and rewriting my entire outline

im gonna keep some things but other things are getting cut completely

heres whats getting cut:

-jet calling out sokka for having a fiance (because he didnt realize yue had passed)

-sokka calling jet out for being a scumbag who was using jin for fame (this initially was gonna be jets purpose)

-zuko siding w sokka after calling jet out and zuko trying to throw zuko under the bus by bringing up iroh again

-this doesnt rlly have amything to do with the whole jet just wanting to be famous plotline but the yue plotline. i havent revealed how yue passed away yet but thats gonna be a BIG thing so here are all of the rejected ideas:

-cancer

-break in gone wrong

-randomly in her sleep

-surgery gone wrong

-i also had a few plans for toph that i am now scrapping in favor of new plans for her such as:

-bringing lin to work during the hahn and sokka brawl because she was home when that happened (i mentioned in the fic that she has a kid already and i wanted her to apoear here but now youll just have to find out if baby lin is gonna appear or not hehe ((jk she def will at some point)))

-when i was first planning this fic out way before i even started writing it i initially wanted toph and jin to be endgame but i decided against that once i first started writing and instead chose to go with aro toph because i thought that was more fitting (and yes there will be more aro toph content other tham the convo she had with jin in i think chapter 4 or 5!)

-i was also wanting to include kiyi in this fic and then i realized nah then id have to include ursa and ikem and i was like you already have too many characters liv you dont need kiyi here even tho zuko interacting with a child would be freaking ADORABLE as hell

so yeah thats everything that WONT be happening in the fic now lmao. i rlly liked these ideas tho! but i decided that what i changed my mind to and what i thought of this morning are much much much better and make more sense for the fic andnim super excited and ots gonna be rlly good and im gonna start on the next chapter on sunday once i get home from vacay because yeah this is gonna be great!!!

also i love jet and i loved jet when i planned this even tho i had him as somewhat of an antagonist (not rlly. he only rlly wouldve antagonized sokka) so even if i did wanna go with that i wouldnt have made jet a hige villain because i love him too much for that. jet 4eva

#i cant wait to write more #i love when i have fic inspo #if anyone ever wants to know more ab my fics and what im planning just ask!!#i hope i didnt give away too much for my fic w this post but im too excited to hide what i have planned #i think its gonna be really good #ask me ab my yuekka mailee and other zukka fics as well!!!#ask me about any ships rlly i probs have a prompt idea for them in my ‘to write fanfics’ folder on my laptop lmao #okay im ab to het a little deep and heavy here #i was rlly rlly sad and unmotivated and in a bad headspace for a long long yime #but getting back into fandom and discovering atla and writing again and meeting so many nice ppl on this app helped me so much #and whenever i get these bouts of inspiration i feel so grateful for everyone here whos helped me with that #i love writing i love talking about it and its oje of the few things left i still have motivation and derive happiness from #i know this app is often filled with hateful and harmful posts #but i love it here #the community i have with my moots has rlly helped me so much and i love you all #im sorry im drinking again and m tipsy and im gettin emotional #i told yall rum and cokes were dangerous #atla #hdsac #sokka #zuko #zukka #zukka fic #this is the good good #avatar the last airbender #fanfic #my writing

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