Atlanta artist (by way of Chicago) Kodie Shane is a young jack-of-all-trades, the Swiss army knife of Lil Yachty’s Sailing Team. She’s already mastered a few of them: rapper-singer alchemist, hook-making savant, bittersweet ballad scribe, intergenerational R&B translator, and (much like Yachty himself) effortless transmitter of communicable joy. She’s at her best when she fills rap cadences with R&B melodies and when her verses blend into her hooks, sometimes because the verses themselves are hooks, too. After releasing her breakout EP, Zero Gravity, in December, which showcased all of her skills in a sampler, she has quickly delivered a new 10-track mixtape called Big Trouble Little Jupiter. The tape ventures even further beyond genre limits—moving erratically from belligerent pop trap to vintage new jack swing. What it lacks in flow and consistency, it makes up for with big transitions and sheer ambition.
Big Trouble Little Jupiter, billed to be “starring” Kodie Shane, is at least loosely related to the 1986 Kurt Russell film Big Trouble in Little China. Thematically, the tape is mostly about rescuing a lover from a boring boyfriend only to lure her into a short-term, noncommittal relationship while-jet setting across the globe. (Not exactly the plot of the film, but close.) Much of Kodie Shane’s strength lies in her ability to generate earworms out of thin air, and that’s still in play on Big Trouble Little Jupiter, especially on cuts like “Be With or Without.” But some song drag, or never get going: Woozy opener “2 Minute” is subdued and nearly sedated. The boxy confines of the slow-trotting, En Vogue-featuring “Your Side” minimizes open space, forcing Shane to maneuver through pockets with more traditional flows. The trap screecher “Like a Rockstar” forces her to over-exert her voice. When she presses too hard, the difference is palpable.
The best songs on Big Trouble Little Jupiter are as soothing and infectious as her strongest work. Songs pivot dramatically from stunt anthems to emotional pleas to personal profiles. On “Twins,” she declares herself a hustler and a pimp in the lineage of Jeezy, Jay Z, and Meek Mill. Over bunched synth strings on “Na Na Naa,” she reassesses her surroundings: “These niggas is my sons, but I ain’t raise ‘em like this/And these hoes they not the one, but they swear that they is.” Her writing is as sharp as ever, producing subtle double entendres like “They all want my swag but they just can’t grasp it” along with scathing reads: “So keep it real with me/And you don’t have me now cause you can’t deal me/I know your man don’t know you here, you know I know you babe.” It’s in these moments, where she examines those around her, that she invites listeners to know her.
Production-wise, she continues to build a rapport with longtime collaborators Matty P and D.Clax here. They have credits on every song on Big Trouble Little Jupiter, and while the songs sometimes seem to come from different decades, Shane almost always pairs them with the appropriate melody and rhythm, finding a precise balance, ripping through some and drifting through others. As they continue to work together, they’re getting a feel for what works through trial and error, scanning the entire hip-hop/R&B spectrum in the process. Though not her best work, Big Trouble Little Jupiter showcases why Kodie Shane is one of rap’s most promising prospects: she’s resourceful and she’s fearless.
