After five years 6LACK (or 6-LACK depending on who you ask) broke his veritable radio silence by dropping the title track off his forthcoming album Since I Have a Lover. Reaching over 500k streams on Youtube in less than a week, if the album performs anything like the single, three time Grammy award nominee 6lack is destined for another hit.
But what do we actually know about the new album? 6lack hasn’t given us much to go on, but if we want to talk about what we know about the album, let’s take a look at everything we already know about the artist himself.
6LACK manages to quietly fly under the radar, with very little by way of social media fodder, online scandals, or whispered gossip. He’s made songs with a variety of artists that range in genre and style - everyone from The Weeknd (who is no stranger to online scandals, if you’ve been paying attention lately) and J. Cole, to Jessie Reyez and T-Pain. His lyrics are a mixture of emotionally raw, with a tinge of dark sexuality and boastful brags. He manages to effortlessly flow between gentle and melodic to a little aggressive, and he does it all in a way that still manages to touch on a topic that music felt like it was lacking in: Love.
'Since I Have A Lover' Is Full of 'Good Moods'
Since I Have A Lover is going to be an album that does all that and more.
“It’s all my good moods compressed into song format,” 6lack commented, “and I hope it makes you feel.”
If the title track of the album is any indication of what we can expect from the forthcoming album, what we can anticipate is an album that combines the ethereal warble and scratchy undertone that 6LACK is famous for with backing music that sounds effortlessly upbeat. The visual for the song begins with 6LACK falling from the sky until he crash lands into an house long abandoned. The singer crash lands, surrounded by the rubble of things freshly fallen apart. As he emerges from the wreckage and begins searching through the dilapidated hallways, he finds the doorway – and suddenly exits into a world sun soaked and full of life, color, and energy. 6LACK spends the rest of the video literally floating through the streets of Atlanta. The video ends with a transition into what we can only assume is a teaser for another song off the album.
6LACK’s crash landing in the video seems to act as a response to his meteoric rise to fame, following the old adage that one goes up must, inevitably, come down.
The singer came out of seemingly nowhere in 2017 - though if you know 6LACK’s history, you’re aware that his struggle to the top was a long time coming. His debut album Free 6LACK hit #5 on the Billboard rap charts, and earned him two Grammy nominations for best urban contemporary album, and best rap/sung performance for the song PRBLMS.
There Is A Tour Following This Release
While 6LACK and his management are keeping the album, and any spoiler alerts, tightly under wraps until it’s release on March 24th, I’m willing to bet money that this latest album will show an even more introspective side than we’ve seen from 6LACK - yet one that has a positive thread interwoven through each song.
If it makes you feel better, it isn’t just fans that are anxiously awaiting 6LACK’s return. Christopher Patterson, 6LACK’s tour manager, is just as excited about it. When I asked him about the album, he had little to say about what was to come - but he knew one thing was for sure. “I’m just ready to tour!”
