Maybe out of context, ‘Maybe in Nirvana’ – originally recorded in 2020 – isn’t what anyone was expecting. But when has Smino ever been predictable?
Evan Dale | December 14, 2024
There isn’t an artist more prolific across any of the mosaic of stylistic spaces that he inhabits from any given track to any larger project, than Smino. The St. Louis rapper, vocalist, and free wielding musical experimentalist molding hip-hop, Neo-soul, and R&B into a shape that only he can seemingly assume has made himself nearly omnipresent to modern music, while at the same time, impossible to replicate. And yet regardless of his prolificity, Smino hasn’t released a proper full-length project since 2022’s acclaimed Luv 4 Rent, which saw the extents of his musical width stretched further than ever before, and which saw his artistry explore more depth and hone more creative focus than any prior collection.
Musically, an enigma to say the least, enigmatic, too, is the way he remains so thoroughly present in music even when his projects are particularly rare. Instead, it’s been Smino’s consistent release of singles, and innumerable presences as a feature to so many different artists inhabiting so many different stylistic spaces, that truly defines his ubiquity and uniqueness across the landscape. And now, at the tail end of 2024, he’s back again with a 10-track project that feels equal parts free-wielding fun and methodically avant-garde, while almost certainly something that no listener was expecting. Once again, with Maybe in Nirvana, Smino feels indefinable, albeit altogether less constructed than with any prior release.
His path has always been his own. No one has ever sounded like Smino. Even prior versions of himself tend to defy what comes afterwards. Few have ever brandished the silver-tongued mastery of wordplay that exclamation marks his every verse. And fewer still have ever seemingly had more fun recording. It’s in that triangulation of his aesthetic that has always made him so energetically approachable, yet so dauntingly uncanny and subsequently challenging for new listeners and pop-adjacent hip-hop fans alike. It’s not a challenge to enjoy his music, however, because that’s simply built into the way he creates it; built into who Smino seems to be at the innermost id of his artistic definition.
But, Maybe in Nirvana will almost assuredly challenge even the most dedicated Smino fan when taken out of the context that the project was originally recorded in 2020, a year after NOIR, long before Luv 4 Rent, and more closely aligned on the timeline with his conceptually loose 2020 mixtape, She Already Decided. When digested through that lens, it makes much more sense that, while listening for the first time in 2024, Smino appears to have devolved to the quirky, unattached rap savant that long ago made him a force of rising hip-hop experimentation, in lieu of the auditory architect of one of 2022’s most important projects, and next to his 2017 debut, Blkswn, his most conceptually throughline work to date.
Sans the expectation and prior commitment to memory of what hip-hop, Neo-Soul, and R&B can sound like when kaleidoscopsed through the many colors of Smino’s artistry, yet guided by the steady hand of the many features and producers of the Motown-released masterpiece that is Luv 4 Rent, Maybe in Nirvana emerges as a risky and belated independent release that few artists in modern hip-hop would have the courage to gift to their fanbases. But outside of the modern framework, Maybe in Nirvana – akin to how his fans responded to She Already Decided – would be a celebrated mixtape.
We’ve become spoiled in the streaming era to think that all projects should have the polish of a studio album. Released independently through his collective, Zero Fatigue, Smino’s backlogged project is reminding music that the mixtape era once gifted us with uncut gems with every release, even if they were far from perfect.
Maybe in Nirvana is strewn with a little bit of everything. Dear Fren – a tribute to his late grandmother and cousin – moves with the personal emotion and musical softness that brought Smino’s Blkswn into so many of our libraries. ReadySet Goku imbibes the depth of artistry that Smino would eventually make consistent on every track through Luv 4 Rent. High-energy production marked by trunk-rattling bass and signature quirky chords, the track is fit with an addicting chorus that pulls into focus his always sharpening skillset as a vocalist, and intersected by quickfire, unpredictable verses and interjections. The project’s titular cut is a hard-hitting midwestern anthem where, from its introductory bars, ‘Smoke make me float like a butterfly, skrrt like a beamer,’ is a masterclass in wordplay and the kind of high energy that once made NOIR Smino’s most uncompromisingly banger-heavy album. Tequan sees Smino infuse reggae-influence into a Neo-Soul ballad where Zero Fatigue teammate Ravyn Lenae makes her first of two appearances. On the second one, Glo-Fi, she steals the show, balancing her own impossible high notes with Smino’s imperfect crooning for an uplifting closer. And in the spaces in between her two features, Bun-B drops a pseudo-out-of-place but expectedly tantalizing verse on Ms. Joyce, while reggie and Thundercat bring their own flavors to the madcap Hoe-nouns.
In a hip-hop era where the mixtape structure has largely gone by the wayside, Smino’s Maybe in Nirvana – broad, unfocused, and unpredictable – reignites some nostalgia for the imperfection that oft gifted listeners with intermittent keepsakes we never would have gotten if artist weren’t willing to take the risks to release them.
Will we look back on the album as one of Smino’s best? No, because its nonlinear release makes it almost impossible to contextualize in 2024. Are we better off to have it than to not? No question.