Most hip-hop producers could put in their 10,000 hours on FruityLoops and still never come close to Playboi Carti’s “Magnolia.” The blissfully simple four-note earworm earned Carti his cult following and turned its maker, Pi’erre Bourne, into a sought-after producer.
Rather than continue to feed hits to stars like Carti, Lil Uzi Vert and 21 Savage, Bourne has put all his attention into his solo career as a rapper. Which brings us to The Life of Pi’erre 4, his major-label debut and the first real test of whether he can carry a project. The answer is not quite—his heavily Auto-Tuned vocals have a tendency to get washed out by his hazy backdrops, and Pi’erre 4 is one-note as a result, more vibe than statement.
At least the vibe is enticing. Bourne’s beats hum with the same off-kilter melodies that made “Magnolia” so thrilling, and the edges are filled with interesting noises. The fuzzy synth notes on “Be Mine” sound like they were played on an electrified toy piano, while “Romeo Must Die” turns on a distorted refrain that sounds recorded 500 feet below the ocean surface. Most of the tracks are accentuated by over-the-top sound effects—a lion roar, or a reworked vintage DJ drop (“Damn Pi’erre, where’d you find this?”)—that give the project the momentum of a street-bought mixtape.
Once you get past the initial dopamine rush, Bourne starts to run into trouble. Unlike the MCs who buy his beats, none of which are featured here, he fully saturates his voice in Auto-Tune, more akin to T-Pain or Fetty Wap than Uzi. His voice often drowns in the mix as a result. Add this to the fact that none of the songs evolve much over their runtimes —put Pi’erre 4 in waveform, and it’d look like a bread loaf, a hunk of sound with no peaks or valleys—and you start to tune out.
Which is a shame, because Bourne puts effort into his lyrics. All the obvious tropes are here—money-chasing anthems (“Doublemint”), odes to jealous exes (“Feds”)—but he hints at a more interesting story in between. On “How High,” he dives into his formative years in Queens (where he split time between South Carolina): “Just a college nigga, honor roll/I dropped out of college, lost my home.” On “Try Again,” he speaks of the loneliness that comes with his sudden rise in fame: “It’s just me, and I’m alone again/Spending all my money on my own again.”
There are some catchy hooks as well—on “Racer,” Bourne croons nimbly alongside some late-’90s R&B keyboards—but for the most part, the beats on Pi’erre 4 speak the loudest. Nowhere is that more obvious than on standout track “Guillotine.” The beat sounds like Bourne looped a creaking screen door; a warped sample breathes with the beat, groaning ruefully every four bars. The sound alone says more than the forgettable clichés of Bourne’s lyrics, demonstrating that the producer, for now, does his best work behind the boards.
