Not All–But Mostly–Fun and Games

Twenty-year old California native Kyle’s debut album’s mission is to bring that feel-good attitude back to hip hop. Kyle has been quoted, saying that Beautiful Loser “is what you play when you wanna laugh, what you play when you wanna smile, what you play when you wanna hear something real and honest, and what you play when you wanna feel good,” and that is the perfect summation of these 16 tracks.

“This is a Hit” starts of with a fun, jangly acoustic guitar riff with playful lyrics but ends with a spoken monologue that gives us a glimpse deeper into the mind of the artist, revealing something more serious and autobiographical. “Fruit Snacks and Patron” follows suit with the more playful opening track. It also serves a dis to the current state of popular rap, pointing out with one of the best lines on the album, “Y’all like them project lights / None of y’all niggas is on.”

Not only is Kyle a talented lyricist, but he is also quite the singer as well. He demonstrates this on the track “Focus On You,” which is not only one of the best tracks on the album, but it is also one of the more serious ones. This is simply a love song filled with several one-liners that will surely make many girls swoon, such as, “And the prettiest thing of all is that your nose is not fake / and your boobs are no facade.”

If Kyle set out to make Beautiful Loser a fun album, well then, that is one thing he can cross off of his to-do list. More importantly though, is that spread out between all the playfulness there is a trace of seriousness sprinkled throughout that serves two purposes: one is attaching an emotional connection with the listener, and the other is  leaving the listener yearning for more of that heartfelt raw heart-on-your sleeve openness.