jaboukie Young-White recently announced his long-awaited debut album, All who can’t hear must feel, which is out this Friday via Interscope Records. Ahead of the release, the artist has shared the project’s final pre-release single, “26.”
Following the album’s previously released “BBC,” “GONER,” and “not_me_tho,” “26” is fleeting and braggadocios, a rap track built on the tension between a singsong chant and a maxed-out bassline so enormous and abrasive it could blow a set of car speakers. Check it out below.
Regarding the track, jaboukie said, “I found myself incorporating the sonics of music that I grew up with feeling challenged and oftentimes alienated by, and recontextualizing those sonics in a way that gave me empowerment and made me feel closer and more accepted in those same soundscapes I grew up in.
“‘26’ lyrically and flow-wise is a riff on Buju Banton’s ‘Boom Bye Bye,’ a homophobic anthem that has been a blemish in the history of dancehall music. Even though the song is 36 seconds, I think of it as packing a big punch like a shot of Wray & Nephew.”
This week will not only mark jaboukie’s debut album release, but also the announcement of his debut live music performances. Catch jaboukie performing his music for the first time ever, with some live comedy as well, this fall in New York, Los Angeles, and his hometown of Chicago. Public on-sale begins this Friday at 10 am locally.
jaboukie, a 28-year-old Chicago native, is best known as a stand-up comedian, but also for his TV writing (Big Mouth, American Vandal) his stint as a correspondent on The Daily Show, various acting roles (Black Mirror, C’mon C’mon, Rap Sh!t, Only Murders in the Building), and several Twitter suspensions following impersonations of CNN, Donald Trump, and the FBI.
But after Interscope CEO John Janick heard some scrapped songs jaboukie had worked on for a project paying homage to the late Juice WRLD, and discovered that he’d banked dozens of demos he recorded at a home studio he built himself, Janick drew up a record deal. The result is All who can’t hear must feel.
