Brian Imanuel learned to be an entertainer online. Of Chinese descent but raised in Jakarta, Indonesia, Imanuel joined Twitter at 11 and started posting oddball, almost absurdist Vines that verged on black comedy. He learned English scanning random videos on YouTube and broadened his vocabulary watching Judd Apatow movies. He was intrigued by rap after seeing a Tyga video on TV, and, at 12, first tried his hand at rapping, over Macklemore’s “Thrift Shop.” As Rich Chigga—a portmanteau of “Chinese” and “nigga”—he flipped a life online into a rap persona on his breakout song “Dat $tick,” saying things like, “I’ma hit you with that .45/Bullet hit yo neck round the bow tie,” while brandishing guns and wearing a fanny pack in the video. But where viewers were open to his sickly clever use of satire on social media, they were less forgiving of the epithet in his name, his flagrant gunman posing, and his blatant use of the n-word. At the top of the year, he shed his problematic alternate skin, rebranding as Rich Brian.
On some level, the appeal of “Dat $tick” was all spectacle. The caricature Imanuel created—taking Asian and black stereotypes and turning them on their heads for a cultural mash-up—was a transfixing, if not controversial, show. It’s part of why his label, 88rising, commissioned a reaction video of other rappers gawking at the song’s visual, finding power in their glee and bemusement. That’s also why some listeners have taken offense, citing his cartoonish portrayal of black culture as thoughtless, causing the uproar that led to the name change.
Brian says now he “regrets” going by Chigga, telling The New Yorker: “I want to write from my own experience.” On his first full-length project, Amen, Rich Brian makes amends by simply being himself, playing up his bizarre origin story. He is still improving as an artist, but he is extremely limited in what he can do at this stage. Not only is the project largely basic in its writing, it doesn’t sound like he’s having any fun whatsoever. It seems like he’s still playacting a rapper on Vine, and many of his songs would benefit from that medium’s brevity; they go on just long enough to expose themselves as replicas.
Brian promised that Amen would abandon the trap posturing, and there are several songs on the project that do try to answer who exactly he wants to be. Some songs consider his rise from internet it-boy to full-fledged rapper, while others involve the toll even moderate fame can take on an introverted, lifelong outcast. But in diverting from his former trap ways he overcorrects, listing off the Snapple facts of his life. On “Arizona,” he raps, “I just talk and they call me a lyricist,” an unwitting self-critique.
Amen borders on autobiographical, and Brian produced or co-produced every song on the project. Some beats are very “listens to Mike WiLL Made-It once,” but then there are details that surprise, like the xylophonic synth plinks on “Occupied” and the oboe whine of “Trespass.” His deadpan, sometimes half-murmured flows chug along between minimalist synth arrangements, rattling off various common occurrences, sometimes as if simply reading back the minutes of his day. Brian is a decent rapper, technically speaking, though he can go long stretches without actually rhyming anything. He could become a good beat maker, but his current strength lies in his wit and the ability to translate his online lifestyle into workable rap boasts.
Brian is most perceptive when he examines his proximity to the internet. There are bars about converting his money to Bitcoin and observing America through a digital lens from Indonesia. He raps a lot about taking Lyfts and staying in Airbnbs. When imitating an overly enthusiastic fan who claims to know him, the character’s tenuous connection to the rapper is that he Postmated him once. “Pressin’ on keys, got my life so sweet man/GoFundMe on your bitch’s pinned tweet man,” he adds on “Cold.” This is who Brian is, really: a web-savvy gag rapper who folds in the snarkiness of a choice tweet. But while he understands how rap songs are supposed to sound, he doesn’t yet know how they actually work, or what exactly they’re supposed to do.
When Rich Brian isn’t just trying to condense his Vine act into one-liners, he’s using pretty cringe-worthy storytelling mechanics. “Flight” documents his first trip stateside without nuance; it’s almost touristy in its snapshots building to his first session in America with Pharrell (who he identifies as “this dude made ‘Happy.’”) And “Kitty” is a convoluted story about a girl’s mom busting in as he loses his virginity just before a friend helps him escape, only to then find out the girl was his friend’s sister. (The logistics of the story don’t really make sense on the song, either.) His narration of the encounter is as painful and clumsy as the events therein. It’s hard to determine if the whole thing is a joke or not, which is telling.
That isn’t to suggest songs on Amen are unlistenable; most work on at least a surface level, and several jam. The Kid Cudi-indebted “See Me,” in particular, is an example of what Brian can be at his nicest. But there is very little happening within his verses right now, and even as he’s pivoted toward the personal, he’s still doing impressions, sonically and stylistically. “Man, let’s face it, they don’t really listen to the music/They just want to take a trend and then go use it,” he raps on “Arizona,” either completely without self-awareness or fully committed to self-parody. That bemused and baffling feeling remains Rich Brian’s best and worst trait.
