Key Takeaways:

• 4batz’s Still Shinin options standout collaborations with FLO, Maxo Kream, Leon Thomas and Zillionaire Doe.
• The 15-track debut album continues his cinematic alt-R&B fashion, with Roman numeral sequencing and moody manufacturing from Teddy Walton.
• Songs like “act xvii: done sippin” and “act xvi: twentyfoe7” showcase his Southern roots and emotional storytelling.

4batz remains to be shining, and maybe even brighter than earlier than. On Friday (Sept. 12) at midnight, the “act ii: date @ 8” star delivered his long-awaited debut album, Still Shinin. The 15-song effort arrived with options from Leon Thomas, FLO, Maxo Kream and Zillionaire Doe.

Picking up the place his mixtape u made me a st4r left off — a minimum of in title formatting — Still Shinin continues the Roman numeral sequencing throughout its tracklist. The challenge opens with the minute-long “act ix: too dam young,” by which 4batz admits he’s too younger to fret about being somebody’s “main one.” From there, LP segues into “act x: n da mornin,” one of many few singles followers obtained earlier than the album dropped, and “act xi: she ain’t no angel,” that includes Leon Thomas.

Though we sadly do not get a traditional male-female duet on the challenge, 4batz groups up with everybody’s favourite British R&B woman group, FLO, on “act xvi: twentyfoe7.” He sings, “I’m on my way / To make sure you safe with me, girl / To the end of the road,” whereas the trio counters with the ladies’s perspective: “Feel like you don’t want me / Off me, then you’re on me, boy, just let me know.”

Elsewhere on the album, 4batz groups up with fellow Texans Maxo Kream and Zillionaire Doe, who assist ship a number of the LP’s higher data. On “act xvii: done sippin,” for instance, the Dallas crooner sings about how he “woke up sippin’ lean for breakfast,” regardless that his kidneys are telling him, “Don’t you say this, no-no-no-no.”

Later on the observe, Maxo Kream jumps in with bars about Forgiatos and sipping straight from the pitcher. It all feels very southern, to say the least. “We from Texas, so it hit different,” 4batz instructed music.apple.com/ca/album/still-shinin/1834409258″>Apple music. “We showing y’all the culture right now, man.”

Production additionally performs an enormous function in shaping Still Shinin, thanks largely to Grammy Award-winning beatmaker Teddy Walton. From the beat switches laced all through “act xvii: done sippin” to the lonely, atmospheric textures of “act xviii: getUwet” and “act ix: too dam young,” the whole lot comes collectively like a cinematic masterpiece.

Although 4batz’s newlywed wife, Anycia, doesn’t seem on the album as a featured artist, she does be a part of him for a short second on the satirically titled observe “act xix: yo typical lovestory.” Stream Still Shinin beneath.