Hi, everyone. Makethony Sensetano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new redveil album, sankofa.

Here we have the newest album from Maryland-based rapper, songwriter, producer, singer, redveil, who is now on his fourth full-length record here, I believe. This guy has slowly been making more and more noise since the turn of the 2010s, and he is now just 21 years of age, I believe, with this record out.

I think it's important to keep in mind that this dude's progression has started since he was at a pretty tender age in his mid-teens. He was already out here starting to make a career off of his music and playing shows, and he's pretty much kept it independent the entire time, too. His last record was easily his most talked about so far, and he put that out on his own.

This new project is out here through redveil LLC, as well as Fashionably Early Productions. Going into it, though, considering I have been underwhelmed to a degree by redveil's past stuff. I was hoping that he would find some way to eclipse his very obvious influences that he tends to wear on his sleeve here.

But for some, the lack of novelty and specificity to redveil's sound doesn't so much matter because still, clearly, a lot of effort goes into his beats, into his rhymes, as well as the ambitious musical arrangements that we hear all over this new album too. Because in a lot of ways, what we are talking about here with this record is some primo jazz rap with a lot of vocals, leads, and chord changes that come straight out of the 70's soul playbook.

But as tasteful as this album is, much of it does still sound like what you would get off of a steady diet of Tyler, the Creator – second-act Tyler, of course – early Chance the Rapper, as well as some Mac Miller too. In some ways, I still do think redveil is incubating a little bit when it comes to coming through with a sound that is truly all his own.

But sankofa still does bring improvements abound on all fronts that are worth noting and celebrating. For one, this record most definitely contains a lot of redveil's most passionate and focused verses and songs to date. The intensity and hunger coming off of, "pray 4 me" alone is something to behold. A performance like this is just refreshing in a field of artists out there who either sound like they're too cool to be bothered or are on some level asleep at the wheel.

Even on spots of this record where redveil leans more into his singing voice, which I don't think is as strong as his rapping yet, we still do get some very thoughtful and personal moments like "mini me", a track that's very much about identity with redveil wondering who he is becoming as his self-perception and this newest version of himself that we are seeing as a result of all the progression he's made in his career, and in his life, intertwine. And while it's great that he's growing, he also mourns that loss of that younger version of himself, that version of himself that maybe on some level was more pure or less corrupted by the changes in the world around him.

We hear similar themes on the track "stay the night" with him talking about growing older, being 20 years out the womb, but still being at a little bit of a loss as to what to do, where to go. It's a moving track that's very much about coming clean and being honest with yourself, though it does finish out with a blown-out ending where I think how rough around the edges of the production sounds is kneecapping the potential for how beautiful the instrumental tries to sound as it builds up for a brief finish.

But still, that messaging does hit, and I think the messaging continues to be the biggest selling point on this album, regardless of what track you're listening to. The song "history", for example, is a massive standout, and to me, it feels like redveil is trying to share in being aggravated and burned out over these diaspora dreams, feeling out of place where he is currently, and fantasizing a world and a setting where he would be more at home and more comfortable.

And while he says on the track he doesn't see the Caribbean as being the original origin point of where he's from, it feels at least more comfortable where he is now. He tries to visit and reacclimate himself there and learn about his history and maybe see this place as an area where he can maybe feel comfortable in some way. But then he is hurt by his experience of just like visiting this place in a context where it just feels like a bit of a vacation destination. So it ends up not being like the oasis that he originally hoped it would be going there.

And the final two tracks on the record are two of the most powerful and incredible when it comes to redveil building a narrative around the life that he has led up until this point. He describes first getting into making beats and looking up to his brother and being really into tracks off the Minecraft soundtrack, making friends online, too, through a relationship that he describes as being pretty formative for him. It's interesting to see him describe this in an age that is often painted as very isolating for a lot of younger people, talking about how a lot of young people are missing those IRL connections, and while to a degree, that is most definitely true, in-person relationships should always be emphasized. It seems like this connection and connections like these through the internet have done a lot to just shape him as a person.

However, it becomes very clear that he is really longing for a connection with his brother, which he goes into deeper as we head to the finish of the album, as he describes this meeting for the first time in a long time. He's really trying to do everything that he can to rekindle this relationship and almost feel it out in a way to where it feels like old times.

It seems like he gets pretty damn close in a heartwarming moment with, again, just some very thorough and detailed descriptions of the relationship dynamic here. It's actually, again, really moving, really shockingly beautiful. The brotherhood, the familial connection, and how this plays into the album's overall themes of redveil understanding himself with respect to those who are around him, and comparing that to moments on the album where he feels lost and, again, lonely or isolated at the same time.

I also want to give a quick shout out to "brown sugar", which is a really smooth, catchy, lovely track; I think one of the best singles redveil has pulled together in his career so far, too. And again, even though there are some moments on the record that I think were a little short of breath, underdeveloped for the levels of instrumental ambition he was showing at some points in the tracklist here and there – and again, really just echoing a lot of his influences super, super hard to the point where it's a little deja vu – I still can complement this as his best project so far and a pretty impressive improvement upon nearly everything he was doing on his last record in terms of, again, the focus lyrically in the verses, the storytelling, the passion in his delivery. While the grooves and sample chops and general musical acumen of his last record were definitely solid, you've got that on this LP, too. On top of it, these wonderful layers and arrangements.

Also want to say shout out to redveil for a very sharp and apt title for the record as well, because apparently it's named after this symbolic bird whose whole deal is looking backward while moving forward in a way that allows it to learn from the path it's taken to get to this point, which is obviously an intentional choice. When you look at all of the verses redveil has written here in that lens, through that objective, they all make sense and come together and thread together really well, which is why I'm feeling a strong 7 to a light 8 on this project.

Anthony Fantano, redveil, forever.