Matt Muse explores love & nappyness on new EP

Matt Muse is a name that’s relatively new to me. I first caught wind of the hip-hop artist roughly a month ago at a Young Chicago Authors open mic event where he was one of the featured performers. Although there were more than a dozen Chicago-based artists who had the privilege of stepping up onto the stage that evening, I was immediately taken with Muse’s captivating presence. Upon listening through his limited catalog, it became evident to me that his studio recordings are no different: Love & Nappyness is the second of his “Nappy” projects, and it handily eclipses last year’s Nappy Talk.

Love & Nappyness explores five of the eight different types of love mentioned in Greek philosophy, so in this way I suppose it could be classified as a “concept album” (or EP in this case), though to me it feels more like a cohesive collection. But regardless of what it’s called, Muse captures each “love” in a way that is both effortless and engaging. This is most evident on the EP’s heartfelt bookends, open letters to God and his late grandmother, respectively, where Muse examines unconditional love—on the vibey opener “St. Matthew [Agape]”—and familial love on the aptly-titled closer “Family, Still [Storge].” This is also true though on the couplet centered on self-love, albeit in two separate lights: “Ain’t No [Philautia]” and “Myself [Philautia II].” The content covered throughout the EP can get rather dense, particularly on these aforementioned cuts, but Muse does a fantastic job of keeping even his most personal moments accessible to everyone.

His delivery is relatively straight-forward throughout, giving it that extra level of accessibility. His flow is one that possesses a certain melodic quality often missing from your run-of-the-mill rappers; then again, Matt Muse isn’t your run-of-the-mill rapper. This melodic feel is sometimes complemented with stellar backing vocals, such as those on the opener. One thing that’s true of the entire EP though is the instrumentals, whether that’s with the neo-soul leaning “Love Wrong [Eros],” the fun bounce of “Ain’t No” and “Shotgun [Philia],” or the subtly rocking groove of “Family, Still.”

My main (and really only) qualm with Love & Nappyness is the brevity of it all. For instance, my favorite track on the EP, “Shotgun,” is a bright-sounding banger that captures Muse’s storytelling at its best, but even after being combined with the “Shotgun Interlude” that sets the mood immediately before it, the song barely reaches two minutes in length. This is the one glaring example, and thankfully the only individual track that evokes that desire to hear more. Overall though, I’d say the same thing about the EP as a whole. Muse says he chose these five different loves as opposed to all eight because these are the ones he related to the most, but I believe he could have just as easily gone the distance on the entire concept.

That said, you know a release has to be quality if the main flaw is that it’s too short and leaves the listener longing for more. From his flow and wordplay to his storytelling and the music around it, Love & Nappyness just has that x-factor to it, something that’s not always a given in hip-hop today. If this isn’t enough to persuade you to give Matt Muse a listen, I’m not sure what is. Having just headlined a sold out show in his hometown, the Chicago native is destined for even greater things—who knows what else is up his sleeve? So go ahead and jump on the bandwagon now, and if you don’t, well… don’t say I didn’t warn you.

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