Even at his calmest, Recoechi sounds like he’s on the verge of collapse. His thick tenor and syrupy Chicago drawl strain under the weight of his words, which oscillate between clear-eyed notes on the struggles of American life—especially for Black people in his perpetually embattled and belittled city—and the burning, unbreakable belief that a better world is possible. Each verse sounds like the deep sigh of someone tired from a long day, sitting on a stoop and staring at the looming skyline, relighting a joint that keeps stubbornly fizzling out. He’s sure that some kind of God hovers above those twinkling skyscrapers, observing—and maybe scrutinizing—his every move. There’s a divine plan in place, and he has tools at his disposal, but it’s a life’s work connecting the two.
Recoechi hails from Chicago’s East Side, a part of the city where the ends of blocks hug the curve of southern Lake Michigan, and street numbers climb into the 80s. He’s long been a community organizer working with youth programs like Healthy Hood and Hip-Hop DetoxX, a sturdy rebound from a felony charge for selling weed and a few years of heavy ecstasy abuse. In interviews, he frequently brings up the concept of grace as his guiding principle, emphasizing that when working to build a better future, it’s crucial to recognize that people start from very different places. A concentration on sustainability touches everything in his life, from his day job as a solar installer to the slow and steady assembly of his music career. Until now, Recoe’s discography totaled fewer than 10 songs, but his talent landed him looks from influential legacy figures like Sway and Statik Selektah. FLAVAZ, his soulful and sagacious debut album, synthesizes those ideas of focus, patience, and compassion in an attempt to document the brutal reality of maintaining hope.
The heaviness of the record is less a veil of darkness than a strained-muscle soreness. On “Pie,” a smoldering cut a third of the way through, Recoe ponders the social engineering of hatred, asking, “In this spinning sphere, who should we just fear?” His cousin calls him up to praise Recoe’s efforts in “uniting the trenches,” but warns him that the threat of senseless violence still crouches above, coiled and ready to pounce. Recoe understands that it all comes back to money—the ways investment in a neighborhood can resurface its pock marks and the ways the violence of jealousy can ripple like shockwaves through countless lives: Both the pursuit of it and lack of it are deadly. He spells it out directly on “Concentration USA,” intoning, “Enough about the hopes and dreams, this shit about that paper.” These moments of realization abound on FLAVAZ, but Recoe raps about them like he’s rolling up his sleeves instead of curling into a ball.
He’s not a flashy lyricist, eschewing twisty metaphors or dense symbolism in favor of blunt, plainspoken stanzas. His writing sometimes scans as utilitarian, all in service of an unwavering message: The album’s titular concept is his way of explaining that we all contain multitudes. You can hear it in his mixture of sensitive and gruff, asserting on “Da Godly,” “Between the streets and conscious rap, I walk the line perfectly.” Belief in a higher power crops up in almost every song, but it never feels like Recoe’s preaching. He uses his faith as a grounding tool, the way Tupac did, a firm place to land if everything else feels shaky. You can offer tough love and strong convictions without being didactic, and Recoe’s version feels like a hand on your back that says, “Remember to check your posture.”
FLAVAZ is an adventurous and ambitious record, whipping through a profusion of styles and sounds, each executed with the confidence of an artist deep into their discography. The self-titled opener, which features a paranoid melody buried under a rumbling trap pattern, is reminiscent of King Louie’s more minimalist work, with Recoe’s urgent voice outrunning the beginning of each measure. The vibe immediately takes a hard turn, swerving into the lush Soulquarians lurch of “Da Godly,” then downshifting into the gospel-tinged “Concentration USA.” Recoe tackles a B-boy groove in the first minute of “Flavaz Interruption,” which melts into a pool of softly growling bass and spiraling synth melodies. He never seems bothered by the stylistic whiplash, finding his footing with ease and settling into each verdant arrangement.
Renzell.Wav, who’s worked extensively with Chicago mainstays like Noname, Mick Jenkins, and femdot., produces 11 of the 16 cuts, filling the album with warm, rounded tones and hefty, filtered drums. Together, he and Recoe form an inspired songwriting team, adorning tracks with lush vocal harmonies, live horns, and squiggling funk keyboards. Recoe looks at each beat like a city map, finding new ways to move through the rigidity of a rhythmic grid. And though there are a couple of missteps, like a confusing series of skits about a cake shop that never becomes a throughline, Recoe displays a level of poise and attention to detail that’s unusual for a debut. His personality and music feel fully formed, mirroring their Chicago origin—expansive, beautiful, heartbreaking, bone-chilling, and still standing.
