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The debut album from HiMarcus is a snapshot of himself, but also his creative generation at large. The online bohemia of today’s pop and hip-hop is made up of youth in financial, psychological, and political distress while having an entire global and historical creative archive at their fingertips to pull inspiration from, and yet, be antithetical to tradition. They’re troubled and ambivalent about the world, but also flamboyant and exuberant. They can make music that is booming and bustling, but also smoothly intoxicating. HiMarcus has created an album that can truly speak to (and speak for) much of the affected today. It also feels like this album is coming at the right time for the Rio Grande Valley, whose art and music scene might be on the cusp of a golden age during this post-lockdown resurgence that just hosted an experimental media festival and has found a new de facto home for live alternative music.

It’s eerie how these songs can feel like they are implanting false memories, as the stripped-back stomp found in various 2000’s hip-hop club hits form the foundation of most of these tracks, from the Timbaland-ish keys and drums in the crooning “Call,” to the provocative Missy Elliott energy in “Me”. . . and yet, the comparisons become unnecessary when it all adds up to a masterpiece that is greater than the sum of its parts. You can play the where-have-I-heard-this-before game at the first seconds of each track, but then the songs begin to swell in magnitude, tension, and eccentric moments that give each one a life of their own.

Lyrically though, HiMarcus lives in the post-808s and Heartbreak hip-hop world, as most of his themes deal with relational uncertainty, his own shortcomings, and anxiety, using many vocal registers and techniques to colorfully express his concerns. The vocals give the album an androgynous feel. There are pitch-shifted feminine whispers, assertively delivered raps, and everything in-between.

True to the complex ups and downs of Marcus, his financial status doesn’t effect his ability to dream big and express some bravado in the chilling hip-hop suspense of “Ball” — “Credit low, like the tank in my own car. . . Shimmy shimmy y’all, trying to free fall, trying to get loose, can’t think small.” There is spirituality and vanity occupying the same space in the whiplash-inducing rush of “Mistake,” as he brazenly asks: “kneeling for the wine, where the bread it?”

Opposite to his flamboyant persona, is the defeated demeanor in “slap,” as he expresses his willingness to change for another person, even at an unhealthy level: “Ima walk by your side like a dog tied. Ima come back home when you say so. . . I can try to be who you want to.” We can also feel his devastating sense of inadequacy in the chiptune melancholy of “Rich,” as he sings “what if I can’t make enough for my mom? What if I can’t make enough for my pa?. . . Wish that I was rich for you.” The multifaceted character of Marcus is fully fleshed out in just 24 minutes across the album’s nine tracks.

Above all else, it’s a great hip-hop and pop album that’s brimming with personality, flow, and pulse. It’s focused, unpredictable, and strangely accessible. It works as a testament of today’s creative climate, but also of a man from an underprivileged part of the country who is rolling with the punches of an unforgiving world in his own idiosyncratic ways.

Score: 10/10

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