In the last year or so, BandGang Lonnie Bands’ music has taken on a more insular and fatalistic bent. Spurred by the death of two close friends and fellow members of the Detroit crew BandGang, his 2021 single “Heartburn” and mixtape Hard 2 Kill introduced his revamped sound: ominous Michigan-style beats, increasingly jittery flows, and hardened but vulnerable lyrics. Inspired by the way 2pac aired out his darkest feelings on the paranoid 1996 album All Eyez on Me, Lonnie’s newest project, Scorpion Eyes, lets all his bleakest thoughts pour out. It’s harrowing and thorny yet full of skillful rapping, clear-eyed storytelling, and subtle but impassioned vocal tics.
There’s an uneasy edge to his voice, shaky and high-strung no matter if he’s in a pessimistic mood or if he’s trying to conceal his fears by puffing out his chest. A lot of his lines end with exasperated exhales or are trailed by incoherent murmurs, as if he’s gathering his thoughts in real time. The title track sets the album’s tone: Death isn’t looming in the background, it’s the topic. Unlike Pac, who at times seemed accepting of it, Lonnie is fighting to care. “Why you taking life for granted?” he asks an unknown rival, but it works just as well pointed inward. Later, his voice tenses up as he raps, “I think I need some therapy, I’m sparring with depression/I been sippin’ heavy lean, battling with addiction,” over a skittish instrumental that accentuates the nervous mood. They feel like words he’s saying for the first time.
Throughout the album he isolates and dissects his own feelings in ways that feel almost invasive to hear. On “Help Me,” his croaky vocal cadence stretches until it strains as he tries to swat away suicidal thoughts fueled by a pill addiction and the anxiety that his kids are destined to inherit his struggles. He’s lonely on “Rolling Stone Cold,” aware he’s his own worst enemy but too goosed-up on pride to do anything about it. “Still a Mama Boy” tells a story of regret. He feels as if he wasted his mom’s hard work and vents by comparing himself to his dad: “Thinking about how pops did my mama make me wanna kill him/She ain’t even be bitter, she begged me to fuck with him/I hate I even got a couple traits like that fuck nigga.” The switch between angry and wistful is seamless.
Not all his attempts at self-criticism are sympathetic, though. On “MarkTwain,” he raps about smacking a woman in front of his daughter, and just because it’s said in a remorseful tone doesn’t mean he gets a pat on the back. Like a lot of tortured, self-destructive men in art, he tries to justify treating the women in his life terribly by playing it like the guilt that haunts him is just as bad.
In more ways than one, Scorpion Eyes is a difficult listen. With so many rappers killed by violence and addiction in the past few years, it’s chilling to hear Lonnie rap so openly about his own fears. But what makes Scorpion Eyes so hard to turn away from is the nuances of the music, how pain comes through in so many ways beyond the lyrics. With “Strathmolism” it’s the worn-out singing that wouldn’t be out of place on a No Limit mixtape. On “Stop Wrapping My Life,” it’s the frequent pauses he takes between lines that make every bar feel soul-wrenching. “No Pillow Talkin” conveys the same jumpy energy as the songs on Drakeo the Ruler’s Cold Devil: like the walls are closing in. None of it makes the discomfort go away, but music this complex, layered, and blunt doesn’t come around too often.
