Jeremih has spent nearly a decade working hard to exceed his own limitations. After breaking out in 2009 with the catchy but formulaic hit “Birthday Sex,” the Chicago R&B singer followed a fairly typical release schedule for a few years. Then, in 2012, he dropped Late Nights with Jeremih—a lush, filthy gamble whose best moments, like the smooth, Mike WiLL-produced “733-Love” and the spectral Skype sex song “Fuck U All the Time,” proved that he was more than an above-average pop-R&B singer, raising expectations that he’s still trying to live up to.
He’s since chased the success of that self-released mixtape to varying results. His 2014 collaborative EP with Shlohmo, his Late Nights studio album from the following year, and his 2016 holiday tape with Chance the Rapper are the bright lights in Jeremih’s career. On those releases, he’s shown an open mind and an adventurous spirit in a time when many of his peers would rather tether themselves to trends. But there are also entries in Jeremih’s discography that are a little sloppy, like Late Nights: Europe, a mixtape with scattershot studio mixing, inconsistent sound quality, and a tedious Lothario tone that hasn’t aged well in the past two years. The Chocolate Box, a four-track EP he’s released in anticipation of a new full-length, is another one that could have stayed in the vault.
The songs here are just fine, mostly. Opener “Cards Right” is slick and sweet, and “Forever I’m Ready” is a de rigueur rap-singing cut, à la Tory Lanez or Travis Scott, with inoffensive but eye-rolly lyrics about how his paramour is a “bad girl like RiRi.” “Nympho” offers a reprisal of the ghostly textures of Late Nights with Jeremih, but not enough of a future-facing evolution of the sound to make it exciting. All of these failings, though, are minor compared to the EP’s true blemish, an ode to midnight blow jobs called “SMTS.” This is an acronym for “suck me to sleep,” which you will know well by the end of the song, because the entire falsetto hook is Jeremih repeating the line over and over again: “She must’ve sucked me to sleep/Bad bitch suck me to sleep/Savage, suck me to sleep… Had to make a song how she suck me to sleep.” Did he? His boorish and almost bored delivery suggests that “SMTS” would have been better left as a studio in-joke.
There is a lot of room in modern pop for explicitly pervy music that doesn’t alienate its audience. Ty Dolla $ign, for instance, can make a lyric like “I used to love these hoes, but now I love this money” sound tender because of his husky, romantic delivery. But if you’re going to turn “locker room talk” into balladry, your technique needs to involve something more appealing than desperate falsetto chirping.
With a little gruffness, or even a more Migos-informed style of delivery, “SMTS” could have been a salacious, blush-worthy party cut. Instead, it’s just awkward—and there’s far too much competition for the king of Filthy Sex Jam Mountain these days for Jeremih to get over with something like this. When his projects are well-considered, or made with hyper-focused collaborators, he can be the most enchanting man in the room, which is reason to look forward to MihTy, his upcoming duet tape with Ty Dolla $ign. With The Chocolate Box, Jeremih just underscores the fact that some ideas are better kept to yourself.
