SiR comes from a musical family. He grew up singing in church in his hometown of Inglewood, California. His mother voices Chaka Khan and Michael Jackson, and his brother is Grammy-nominated rapper D Smoke. With these credentials, SiR’s path to stardom—dropping an independent album, signing with TDE, earning a Grammy nomination—seemed destined. But his rise to the top was anything but smooth, and left him with deep scars, as HEAVY, his first new album in five years, shows.
The album begins with SiR feeling the “weight of the world” on his shoulders, before reflecting on his numbing lifestyle that led to a downward spiral into drug addiction and several stints in rehab in recent years. Peaking during the workout: “The world is getting on my nerves, man, this doesn’t excite me at all,” he laments on “IGNORANT,” his catchy second song with Ty Dolla $ign. “
SiR’s previous albums straddled the line between traditional love songs in the style of neo-soul greats like Maxwell and D’Angelo and solipsistic, toxic R&B. HEAVY digs deep and unearths SiR’s scars – some that can be fully healed, and some that can never be healed. He faces the consequences of his mistakes on the Isaiah Rashad-assisted “KARMA,” bathes in pain on the standout title track and dons a villain on the gritty “NO EVIL” Mask, a nihilistic plea for help: “When you’re invulnerable, you can tell the truth/No one wants to believe you,” he sings with a princely wail.
SiR’s newfound vulnerability reaches its peak on “ONLY HUMAN,” a self-produced song whose second half is a cappella as he swoops down with angelic vocals, succinctly articulating the album’s themes: “Risk everything for a floating, fleeting feeling…there’s no way around it” the choice I made. “
The sonics on HEAVY also differ from SiR’s first two albums, which favored atmospheric neo-soul. Here, he opts for a more direct beat. His vocals – sometimes smooth, sometimes rough – permeate over programmed drums and modern-sounding trap&B. The album’s sound reflects SiR’s changing moods: frantic drums crashing against soft keys, and regretful background coos.
Although the album features some of SiR’s most raw and personal songwriting to date, some were tripped up by his sometimes clumsy writing. Take the anachronistic “SIX WHOLE DAYS,” for example, where SiR sings about clichés like “blinded by my own stupid ways,” or the generic-sounding radio anthem “YOU” with its mid-2000s hook: “ Tonight we’re gonna make a song/It’s about you.” That’s paired with album highlight “RICKY’S SONG,” in which SiR imparts life wisdom to his 20-year-old nephew in a concrete and heartfelt way.
On the album’s final track, “BRIGHTER,” SiR trudges through the mud and finds comfort in the pain: “There’s nothing more amazing than when the light starts to break through,” he sings with a hard-earned smile . Overall, HEAVY sees the TDE singer get super vulnerable and come face-to-face with demons from his past.
Release date: March 22, 2024
Record label: Top Dawg Entertainment
Listen to HEAVY below:
