In New York, time moves at its own pace: Facebook is still the social media of choice, CDs are still handed out on the street, and radio DJs still have the power to break a song. Likewise, the 23-year-old Bronx rapper A Boogie Wit da Hoodie feels like he belongs in a long-gone era. When A Boogie drops in one of his petty, lovestruck tracks on his latest album Hoodie SZN, the quotables could double as a teen in 2008’s AIM away message sent from a T-Mobile Sidekick; when he gets violent, he makes me think that the melodic and stick-talking Tim Vocals has been spiritually resurrected. But it’s all part of what has made A Boogie one of New York’s most essential—and most popular—artists. Because despite Hoodie SZN’s 20 songs facing the typical bloated-album problems like pacing issues and forced collaborations, through it all, A Boogie hardly ever loses his Bronx edge.
Over the last two years, the bright melody and AutoTune flow of A Boogie—that Lil B famously compared to Dej Loaf’s—has become a New York staple. The Bronx’s Lil Tjay, Brooklyn’s Jay Gwuapo, and Long Island’s Lil Tecca, are three emerging New York stars and collectively they have all found inspiration in the vocals of A Boogie. It’s why on Hoodie SZN’s “4 Min Convo,” A Boogie says, “I hear too much me in niggas’ songs, so I had to switch it up.” Thankfully, A Boogie never really does switch it up—the last time he did he released his straining, pop-crossover dud International Artist—and the album’s best moments come when the Bronx songbird embraces his signature style.
The aforementioned “4 Min Convo” is A Boogie at his most engaging and melodramatic. He uses a piano-heavy CP DUBB beat that could believably be an A Boogie-type beat to balance both the spitefully loving and ruthlessly savage aspects of his personality. The track has no hook and is one long verse of A Boogie rambling and venting, then later thanking Drake for inspiring him to record his jaded view on relationships. The intro track, “Voices in My Head,” follows much of that same blueprint as A Boogie questionably compares himself to both Malcolm X (“And I be feelin’ like Malcolm, I got the X on my back”) and Michael Jackson (“I feel like I’m the rappin’ Michael”), in his softest, threat-filled melody. That same vocal success carries over to “I Did It,” in which, despite A Boogie confessing to his infidelity, he irrationally blames his cheating on his lack of trust in women. It’s the exact type of borderline insane and candid take on love that has made A Boogie’s views on the subject come across genuine.
Currently, rappers of A Boogie’s prominence sacrifice project consistency for features intended to maximize streaming numbers—Kodak Black recently admitted to this in an interview about Juice WRLD’s guest spot on his album. Hoodie SZN’s weakest moments come when A Boogie sinks into collaborations, where his vocals begin to mirror the imitators he wants to separate himself from. On “Swervin,” the London on da Track production cannot save yet another strained A Boogie and 6ix9ine collab in which the incarcerated Brooklyn rapper sounds like he’s repaying a favor. And A Boogie’s personality is diluted by the sight of Juice WRLD, as the Chicago emo-rap superstar strangely sings about demons and angels as if he’s unaware this is an Uptown bottle-service club album. But when A Boogie does find a guest he has chemistry with, like on “Come Closer,” the guitar-heavy duet with Queen Naija, they feed off of each other, as she cleverly flips his own pettiness against him.
Hoodie SZN does not offer any new realizations about A Boogie. The Bronx rapper hardly breaks from the moody, tough-talking to hide his heartache sing-rap formula, but with A Boogie that’s when he works. Because if New York dislikes anything, it’s change. And as long as A Boogie stays the course, his music will be loved, appreciated, and endlessly shared throughout the city’s ancient, but still thriving Facebook feeds.
