As an aspiring songwriter, Jahron Brathwaite signed a publishing deal with Warner/Chappell at 18. The songs the Mississauga-born artist wrote for other artists before assuming the moniker PARTYNEXTDOOR never found much traction, but after darkening his sound Brathwaite caught the ear of OVO co-founder Oliver El-Khatib in early 2013. Fast-forward a few months and his vocals were floating in the background on Drake’s Nothing Was the Same. Since then, Brathwaite has become one of Drake’s closest collaborators, with writing credits and/or appearances on each of his last three solo releases. Earlier this year, Brathwaite scored his first Billboard No. 1, penning Rihanna’s humid Drake-featuring summer jam “Work,” which spent nine consecutive weeks at the top of the charts.
The island vibes of “Work” soak Brathwaite’s third studio album, PARTYNEXTDOOR 3. The album helps prove he’s a lot more than just Drake’s patois advisor. Clothes that don’t quite fit his boss feel effortlessly tailored to Brathwaite: “You heard a lot about Jamaicans, and you wanna know what it’d be like,” he sings with an infectious assuredness on “Don’t Know How;” “Only U” is three minutes of sweat and anticipation erected on top of a skeletal swing; on the cavernous “Not Nice,” he expresses his need to “hold the corner and then slow whine it.” The way physical pleasures intertwine with emotional turmoil encompasses most of Brathwaite’s focus on the album—in Brathwaite’s world, sex is not as a shortcut to intimacy but a reflection of it, even if he has a tendency to latch onto carnality in the absence of intimacy.
Given the time PARYNEXTDOOR 3 dedicates to the aftermath of infidelity, that’s pretty often. “Come and See Me” is tuned to more a nuanced frequency, disguising a lament about uneven give-and-take in a relationship in the clothes of an “R U up?” booty-call anthem. Unfortunately, he’s not always as tuned to his partners. “Why do you act like I’m sexist or something, just for calling you sexy?” Brathwaite asks with genuine confusion on “Nothing Easy to Please,” a line suggesting some of his relationship woes might stem from not understanding women quite as well as he thinks. When he claims that “she knows what I have to calm her down” on “Don’t Run,” it’s both a reference to his sexual prowess and the mindful attention of a supportive partner.
Once again, helping elevate Brathwaite’s lust is his production. He tucks unexpected elements in spots they may go unnoticed at first—you might not catch the whistling littered throughout “You’ve Been Missed” until the fifth listen, but once registered, it’s just another memorable hook amongst a litany of others. These are the rewards of a studio rat given free reign, where awe is found in the novel arrangement of sounds in space.
PARTYNEXTDOOR 3 is stuffed with such moments: the random drops of water punctuating “High Hopes;” the rusted pipes that act as percussion on “Nobody;” the Carlos Santana-esque guitars that weave in and out of “Spiteful. ”And then there’s “Brown Skin,” which could go toe to toe with anything from Fade to Mind’s catalog, and Brathwaite never once sounds unsure of his footing on the track’s ever-shifting surface.
The downside: left unchecked, this freedom can devolve into self-indulgence. There’s absolutely no need for opener “High Hopes” to be over seven minutes long, and on “Problems & Selfless” the atmosphere crosses the line that separates intoxicating from suffocating. When Brathwaite decides to let a song breathe, though, it usually works to his advantage, giving something that clicks room to simmer a bit longer without overstaying its welcome. On P3, he has earned the right to stretch the edges of a sound that now feels uniquely his.
