Hi, everyone. Brainthony Draintano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new Kid LAROI album, BEFORE I FORGET.

This is the second full-length album from Sydney, Australia, singer and songwriter, The Kid LAROI. A guy who has been active for years now, originally broke through on the emo trap wave of the late 2010s, garnering quite a bit of support from arguably the genre's biggest star, the late Juice WRLD. Many confirmed the two were close for some time. LAROI has even featured on a couple of posthumous Juice WRLD albums, too. He's been a staple feature for a number of artists who similarly blur the lines between singing and rapping, be it Polo G, Trippie Redd, or Post Malone.

Let's not also forget this guy collaborated with none other than Justin Bieber for the smash hit, "Stay". Ever since that massive song, The Kid LAROI's appeal has very much been spanning outside of the rap sphere, too, because it seems like he used his debut full-length album to really take the first step in evolving his sound past the emo trap vibes that he was once known for, consciously diving more into pop rap, moody altpop, with some acoustic vibes, too.

He really went from the F*ck Love mixtape to actually being in love with Tate McRae, the Canadian pop phenomenon herself, which is important for the purpose of this review, I promise, because the two were in a very public relationship for quite some time, and this romance even led to a devastatingly mid feature on McRae's last album, the song, "I know love", which feels like listening to two people who peaked in high school going absolutely gaga for each other. Kind of cringe, but ultimately, harmless, and as long as both of them are happy, that's all that matters.

Unfortunately for The Kid, things went sour with McRae within a matter of months, and the result was a pretty quick breakup that apparently altered the entire trajectory of this guy's career because he scrapped what was originally his planned sophomore album just to record a project based around this breakup, within a three-month period. And while, yes, it is true, the breakup album is a long-storied and celebrated format, resetting the whole direction of your fledgling music career to do one might not be the best move. And The Kid got a warning sign that that might be the case shortly after releasing the first single to this album, the track "A COLD PLAY", which was put out last September.

It's a chilly little trap number, kind of a depressive Beerbongs & Bentleys-era Post Malone with buttery baby boy vocals, à la Justin Bieber. The writing reads something like, "Who was I to think I could fix you, baby? / Who would I be if I didn't miss you, baby? / I hope that you know you were appreciated. / Around my house, I still got up all of our pictures, baby." So, that's kind of the tone of the track. Sad, but really trying to be slick and play it cool. Though the music video on the song depicts LAROI just absolutely fucked up, crying. And need I mention the obvious Coldplay nod to the track, "Fix You", here?

So yeah, this song comes out, the stage is set, but then, in less than a month, Tate McRae, musically speaking, struts in with a fresh pair of pumps, and steps on this album rollout's nuts – just steps on the nuts with the song, "TIT FOR TAT", just an added track, a deluxe extra, just brought onto her new album, [on which she sings] the bar, "Fix your fucking self / Kiss my ass for that." She then from there proceeds to shit on The Kid for almost three minutes straight saying that she took their future off of his plate, that she was considering maybe getting back with him at some time, but now that he's acting like this, no way.

Again, "A COLD PLAY" didn't even have a month to breathe, and Tate McRae just already smothered the kid in the crib. So what is a Kid LAROI to do? Change course, rethink the rollout, record another album in three months? I don't know. He must have some humiliation kink because he's decided to just, I guess, drop the album as is with songs such as "I'M SO IN LOVE WITH YOU" and "MAYBE I'M WRONG" intact.

And now that I can hear the entirety of BEFORE I FORGET, this record to me really sounds like a Kevin Federline without his Britney Spears, the shell of a man, lost, distraught, in search of meaning or purpose, also a sound, a style, any semblance of anything that might be the least bit distinct or recognizable, because musically, instrumentally on this project, there's not a whole lot to report, genuinely. Outside of a few moments like the touches of chipmunked vocal chops on the intro, maybe a little bit of '90s/2000s RnB flavor on the back-end if you took out half the seasonings. For the most part, this record sounds like bargain bin spins on the same mid-fi, space-y R&B energy we were just hearing on Justin Bieber's Swag that dropped this past July.

But now that The Kid LAROI is doing it, it's got less bite, less teeth, less passion, less of that genuinely subversive energy that guys like Dijon were helping to bring to the table with his master-minded production. In a way, it's kind of arguable that Swag album had more of an impact on the overall sound of this record than the breakup it's supposed to be about. Whether, again, we're talking about the space-y beats and glossy group vocals of a track like "JULY" or the twangy guitar licks that paint much of the song, "PRIVATE".

There's even "5: 21AM", which of course is like, 'ooh, raw, acoustic demo ballad track that's really giving us a peek behind the curtain into this super emotional moment' that was just, I don't know, too painful to do a final, finished version of. It's just painfully performative, because while this record might be rushed to some degree and littered with mediocre writing, "I felt a whole lot, but I didn't feel good. / That's why I drove to your neighborhood. / I don't want to talk, but I know we should. / Baby, I can't remember just where we stood, / and I can't be what you wished I could, / and it hurts so bad, but you look so good."

But make no mistake, this album is still monstrously calculated, at least in terms of its presentation. Even the title, BEFORE I FORGET, like, 'Oh, yeah, I got to put this album out and rush it together just because I might forget to say all the things I have to say on it. That's why all the songs, for the most part, sound so bare and reverb-y and hollow. It's not for lack of effort or development. It's because the things I have to say here are just so profound that they must be said now.' Even though his many descriptions of this relationship the record is about, come across so vague and drab. ("I'd say you're so unbelievable, but I actually believed you. / I thought that it would hurt, but actually it was good to see you / because I know how you operate and now I really see through. / I got nostalgic once or twice, but I'm going to be okay.") I feel like I'm reading the major plot points or the dialogue, the back and forth that go on in the midst of a really bad TikTok romance novel.

Not to mention this same track, "NEVER CAME BACK" – it feels like it's suffering from some severe male manipulator framing like, 'Oh, we broke up, but it's too late. I've already depicted you as the person who's missing me. And meanwhile, I'm the Chad guy who never came back.' Either that or we're getting really questionable displays of obsession on the song "THANK GOD", where LAROI describes being next to some new girl who he's with and thanking God that he has a privacy screen because if he didn't, she would be able to look over and see that he's looking at pictures of his old girlfriend. And while exhibiting this behavior, he unironically belts out lines like, "Am I insane for saying you are entirely to blame?" Look, I understand missing somebody, that's fine, feeling a little nostalgic over an old relationship, but this is nutty.

What's even weirder than this is the progression of this album's psychology. It's emotional, not development, but regression, because we go from this to LAROI putting together this like, Lewis Capaldi-ass-flavored piano ballad where he's whining about how 'maybe he's actually in the wrong somehow,' though he immediately switches around once again on the closer, pretty much depicting himself as having done everything right and being the most stand-up guy when this relationship was actually functioning.

But yeah, I'm really not sure what I can say about this record that is super positive. The production is, for the most part, listenable. It's very boring, it's very tacky, it's super derivative. It is really in desperate need of a makeover and some flavor and some personality, but you can hear it. The Kid LAROI, also like the production, is an all right singer, has a few passionate highs here and there across the tracklist, but for the most part, his performances are just, at their best, agreeable. Like, again, you could listen to them and not feel offended. The writing across the record is actually pretty bad. It's very basic, it's very plain, it's very underwhelming. At points, it feels a little twisted and manipulative and not even in an interesting way.

But yeah, the Kid LAROI, 2026, ushering in a new era of pop, rap, RnB, mediocrity. Amen. As I'm feeling like a light three on this thing, a light three.

Anthony Fantano. The Kid LAROI, forever.