MAVI, a jazz-rap pioneer is back with his first album since 2022, “shadowbox” dropped on August 9th unexpectedly and it was quite a pleasant surprise. This was a highly anticipated album because MAVI’s first album in 2019 was considered by many to be one of the best of the year despite his lack of experience.
But let’s get into the actual album, “shadowbox” was a great album overall but we’re going to start with the bad. The worst songs for me of this album were “Tether” and “the sky is quiet”
“Tether” has a very warped type of beat with a typical MAVI flow, one of my least favorites of the album. His flow isn’t particularly good on the beat, and the production is almost overdone making it difficult to hear the already bland lyrics. If something like this had better lyricism, I’d like it more, but it felt like he was trying to recreate an experimental track from another versus experimenting with his music.
The next song that just fell short of the others was “the sky is quiet”. The song has upbeat production yet is kind of basic with an AMAZING flow, this lyricism is truly pure MAVI a collection of purposeful nonsense, yet it doesn’t feel quite how I thought he was aiming to focus this album on and felt out of place.
Many speculate on albums about the best songs in a row, and how well they flow, and, in this album MAVI truly encompassed that old-school straight-listen method.
The last seven songs of this album are a truly emotional experience. Diving into MAVI’s own mental health, fame, and demons, they truly are a “shadowbox”. These tracks flow seamlessly, especially “drownthe snake” into “Drunk Prayer”. These two songs truly represent the album, the child within and the demon within grow up together, no matter how your dreams change.
The stark transition from “Drown the Snake” had me confused writing this and yet it’s flawless, when MAVI gets on the song asking how to kill that demon I almost got chills with all the buildup. This feels like the perfect climax of the album with not a single filler lyric straight spilling his emotions into a song with slow yet purposeful delivery, which makes his lyrics feel even more important
As an artist, MAVI plays around genres often considered to be in the sub-genres of “Jazz” and “Lofi” hip-hop. Often compared to artists like “Earl Sweatshirt” and “Joey Bada$$” there is really no artist that is still making music the way MAVI has been in the past few years.
MAVI continues to rap with his whole soul and delivers a wonderful experience throughout the end of the album. As a final grade I give “Shadowbox’ a 9/10, there’s for sure better albums out there but that shouldn’t discredit the quality of this album.
