There is such a thing as being so hopeless that you don’t even recognize it anymore. Perhaps that’s why Loe Shimmy doesn’t appear to be having that much fun on Rockstar Junkie. Even the cover of his latest album shows him unamused, smoke hanging in the air, giving an aloof side-eye. At one point, he plainly says, “I think I got way too high.” Loe Shimmy knows the drugs have put him in a prison, that they are propelling him forward on a path he can’t continue without them, and any imagined alternative seems more alien than his current chemical exile.
The Floridian crooner is the second rock star junkie to make it big out of Broward County, Florida, which has repeatedly led the state in drug and opioid overdose deaths. Kodak Black and Loe Shimmy were both raised in Pompano Beach, a flat and marshy exurb of Fort Lauderdale, about a 45 minute drive north from Miami. Kodak’s own struggles with substances tend to garner as much attention as his music these days. It’s refreshing to see Loe Shimmy, who worked with Kodak on the local classic “Bounty,” genuinely at odds with his lifestyle. Rockstar Junkie oscillates from numbness and helplessness to the type of brash confidence someone on tour with Sexyy Red and 80mg of OxyContin might feel.
Rockstar Junkie has the experimental immediacy of pain-rap pioneer 03 Greedo, known for his winding 30-song mixtapes. Loe Shimmy sounds comfortable here, switching effortlessly from warbled melodies to rapping. The Auto-Tuned falsetto of “Private Party” and “You Decide” show his versatility, as he effortlessly turns a phrase like “It could be what you want it to be” into a memorable moment. On the brutally honest “Gave It,” he says, “I’m on too much drugs, I don’t need no love” with the type of nervous excitement one feels while waiting for their dealer. This is his third album in under two years where he’s said as much.
Loe Shimmy acknowledges the dangers of tying his identity to that of hedonistic excess. He names a song after Juice WRLD, whose death at 21 represents a tragic, worst-case-scenario embodiment of the Rockstar Junkie ethos. His music also feels spiritually indebted to Rich Homie Quan, another late rapper who combined once-in-a-generation emotional intelligence, an acute understanding of the big picture, with the artistic instincts to make a vision out of it. Loe Shimmy, too, is so adept at creating his own world and contextualizing his pain that the big-name rappers who do show up, like Quavo, Sleepy Hollow, Trippie Redd, NoCap, and Luh Tyler, among others, never come close to matching his trademark moans and malleable flows.
As tortured as he appears, Loe Shimmy still occasionally lets himself enjoy the success that’s led him into such a hollow and lonely space. Near the beginning of the record is the excellent “Tubi Movie,” an ode to the charming hodgepodge of films one might find on the infamous streaming service. A few tracks seem only a tweak or two away from a true pop crossover. “Say Hey” sounds like it was made from the bones of the water world from Super Mario 64. He’s great at picking these beats that never intrude on each other, giving the project a fluidity not typically found in 20-plus song albums in the streaming era. The attention to detail is proof that Loe Shimmy hasn’t reached the autopilot stage of rock star mode yet, where the art finally takes a backseat. On the album’s emotional centerpiece, “Not Alright,” he wonders if it’s all even worth it, saying, “I’m richer than a bitch and still ain’t happy.” Perhaps there are more important things than achieving your dreams.
