A Boogie wit da Hoodie – Me vs. Myself (Deluxe)
The legend of A Boogie wit da Hoodie was built on heartbreak. The Bronx-hailing MC’s breakout 2014 mixtape Artist was chock-full of it, with A Boogie—whose real name actually is Artist—rapping and singing over consistently melancholy piano about a disloyal partner, a perspective he’d distil into a mantra: “D.T.B.”, or “don’t trust bitches”. Upon the creation of his fourth studio album Me vs. Myself, A Boogie found himself down in the dumps yet again, but in a way he’ll say was maybe too real for the radio. “My mom just beat cancer,” he told Zane Lowe in a conversation ahead of the album. “I was going through that for two years. Just keeping her happy is the main important thing of my process right now. [And] when it comes to PnB Rock, too, that was a big one right there.” Near the end of the project’s creation, A Boogie’s world was rocked by the September 2022 murder of beloved Philadelphia singer PnB Rock, who also happened to be one of his most cherished collaborators. “I had to put him on the album, [but] at the same time, I don't like to do that when it comes to people passing away,” A Boogie says. “It feels like a weird tension towards that. And I don't like that at all, so I separated his song from my album and I'm dropping it [later].” [Editor’s note: PnB Rock collaboration “Needed That" appears on the Me vs. Myself deluxe edition.] Artist says there were “a lot of negative things going on at the time I was making the album”, but you wouldn’t necessarily know that from listening. The project’s 22 tracks sound most indebted to the “rock star lifestyle” he sang about on Artist 2.0’s “Might Not Give Up”. There’s an abundance of big-money talk (“Money Conversations”, “Ballin”, “Chanelly,” “Regular”, “Man in the Mirror”), but also ruminations on waviness (“Water”, “Bounce Back”, “February”), rich rapper courtship (“Take Shots”, “Last Time”, “Come Here”, “Back It Up”) and an ode to friendship (“B.R.O. [Better Ride Out]”). While creating Me vs. Myself, A Boogie wit da Hoodie was clearly focused on giving fans the best of his life, something that makes the project sound like little more than a personal creative challenge. “This feels like my best project in that way where I can really listen to something in the car, something in the crib—at the same time [I’m] going out, hearing it in the club,” he says. “This is my favourite vibe right now.”