There was a time when someone doing what S. Raekwon is doing would have probably been aiming to land an in-studio performance on TRL. Now his kind of stuff is considered "indie" and he has to angle for write-ups on blogs like mine and Bandcamp Daily. He's lucked out, if I'm being honest. Seriously. Once upon a time, being a pop star and an R'nB artist was all about exposure via basic cable, and how you'd land such a covetous position was by mimicking whatever the last person featured on basic cable was doing. The internet has thankfully exploded this dynamic. It's not about grabbing a moment's attention from a sea of millions of passive viewers by delivering on their expectations. Now you can do whatever you want, and as long as you can find an audience for it, smaller than a million, but still large enough to sustain you, then you have as good of a shot as anyone. Why S. Raekwon has me thinking in these terms is because of the way he molds together contemporary polished pop dynamics with a sort of early-'00s style of easy-going college rock. It's perfect for radio airplay, and also perfect that that sort of thing doesn't matter anymore. His sound is both timeless and easily identified with. Even if you've never heard anything like it before, it will bring on a flood of memories that you feared you'd lost. Intensely optimistic and inspiringly personal. Akin to something that a college band would be playing at a house party in one of those unapologetically schmaltzy romantic comedies, where after the climactic resolution, the romantic leads at the center of the flick realize all the ways that their misadventures and misunderstandings have brought them closer together, and then they kiss under some fireworks or something. Call me corny, but that type of sentimental storytelling appeals to men mightly, and it's what makes I Like It When You Smile kind of irresistible as well. The aspects of his sound that appreciated about his 2021 LP Where I'm at Now are just that much more focused and purposefully indulged on his latest EP. His vocals feel less searching and more instantly gratifying and pointed, like a love letter folded into a paper airplane and sent sailing on an arching collision course with the landing strip of your heart. The grooves are tighter too, while also managing to be more relaxed and effortless, as if all it took for his band to get on his level was a wink and a countdown while he snapped his fingers to set the beat. There are sections of incredibly breezy guitar and piano combos that skip carefree on the prickly peaks of boom-bap beats, and these magnificent medleys feel as cool and natural to the album as the sunny early morning stum of the solo guitar that backs up the lovey-dovey "Talk" or the adoring organ coos and subtle building grace that backlights "Tomorrow." It feels like Raekwon has really figured out what his sound is with this release. And now, all he wants to do is see you smile.
Find it from Father/Daughter Records.