Over the past year or so, I’ve begun diving into the rich and gorgeous discography that belongs to Pink Siifu. While there are many things that I could praise Siifu for, I must especially give props to his versatility. Through his solo work under several monikers and multiple collaborative projects, he’s run the gamut from neo-soul, ambient, jazz rap, punk, and several flavours of southern hip-hop. Rather than find one lane and stay within it, Siifu has been continuously carving out new ones for himself. He uses his latest project to tap into all those avenues, with the intention being the creation of a greatest hits album. The title of the project – GUMBO’! – also happens to be the genre Siifu uses to describe his work: a rich dish of numerous ingredients and flavors that is nourishing, good for the soul, and rooted in the history of the South he grew up in.
Across the record, Siifu ping-pongs from different sounds, with fast and frenetic flows on trap bangers like “Roscoe’!” and “Big Ole” and the slow psychedelic waves of “Living Proof (Family)” and “Smile (wit yo Gold)”. Siifu explained in an interview that he was inspired by artists like Gil Scott Heron, George Clinton, and Prince who “put hella genres in their albums,” and set out to execute a similar mission with GUMBO’!. Many of its tracks don’t even relegate themselves to one sonic template, with numerous beat switches peppered throughout the tracklist. Each spoonful of Gumbo never tastes the same as the previous one, but satisfies in its own distinct way.
In interviews, Siifu has described both his artistry and this record as having a chameleon-like nature. As an MC and lyricist, he changes costume over and over on the record. He brings a braggadocious swagger when the energy of an uptempo trap beat calls for it and a meditative and contemplative tone when things slow down. Wearing all these different masks allows for Siifu to explore many facets of his personality and tackle the many thoughts weighing on him. On “SMILE (wit yo Gold)” he lists his bag, stress, aunty, and cousin as some of the many things on his mind.
With the incredibly ambitious and shapeshifting nature of this record, some criticisms that could arise would be that GUMBO’! lacks focus or cohesion. But it is the exploration of all these different sounds and themes that gives the record its strength as an insightful look into Siifu and the people in his life. The human condition cannot be relegated to one single all-consuming feeling, role, or aesthetic, and so why must a piece of art do the same thing? We must be many different things to different people and ourselves, and to deny the exploration of all sides of ourselves to hyperfocus on excavating one element may prove unfulfilling. Can we really unpack one box without acknowledging that we have our hands in several of them?
The music business and music fan culture has sometimes taken issue with letting artists explore a range of emotions, themes, and/or genres, and often looks to define acts/albums in as few terms as possible. People missed the chop-up-the-soul Kanye, cringed when Lil Wayne pivoted to rock, and called Bob Dylan a traitor for going electric. Nearly any defiance of expectations based on one’s previous work is bound to receive some backlash when an artist switches their style up.
At the same time, artists who don’t reinvent their sound are often criticized for a lack of innovation, as listeners perceive a sense of diminishing returns as their catalogue grows. At different points throughout their career, an artist may face criticism for both not changing and then changing too much. After the massive success of Sunbather, some critics and listeners felt that Deafheaven, and the genre of blackgaze as a whole, had painted itself into a corner with subsequent releases. After shedding most of their metal tendencies on the latest record, this has been their most divisive release to date amongst fans and critics alike. Some admire the new direction, others despise their abandonment of the old sound, and others don’t know what to make of it.
This simultaneous expectation of an artist to stick to a sound and break out of it raises some interesting questions. What do we expect artists to do when both of these pressures are placed on their work? Do we have any right to expect anything in particular from artists? Perhaps the right answer is that there ought to be greater tolerance for artists to do their thing and do multiple things if they choose to do so, and that criticism and discussion of new releases needs to extend deeper beyond surface level analysis of the differentness and sameness of the works with an artist’s discography.
What Pink Siifu does on this album and what he has established with his eclectic body of work is that you cannot put simple and concise expectations on him. It doesn’t capture the full nuance of his work to describe him as a rapper, singer-songwriter, producer, bandleader, poet, father, punk, son, or fictional record store clerk. He is all of these things and more. The metaphor may be chameleon, but the reality is human. It is too late, and would be incredibly short sighted, to stuff his music into one category. You can’t pick out the shrimp from the gumbo, you have to eat the whole dish.
If we can praise Siifu for his genre-bending experiments and the ability to bring both things new and familiar with each release, we ought to also extend that freedom to other artists too, even if they’ve largely stayed in one lane. It seems silly to only label some artists as jacks of all trades, when there is nothing that firmly establishes that other artists are unable to excel in multiple sounds or contexts. A left turn in one’s discography perhaps need not be such a shock. Sure they might have a sound they’ve been known for so far, but that can hardly tell the whole story of what they might be capable of, inspired by, or set out to achieve over the course of their artistic practice. Rather than evaluating differences in sound alone, let us also consider the lyrical subject matter, sociocultural relevance, the emotional punch, impactfulness of the songwriting, or the myriad other ways that a piece of music can stand apart from others.
In the case of GUMBO’!, each different path the record takes feels very solid in it’s execution. And while that could be attributed to Siifu’s vision or “genius”, it is very important to highlight the collaborative relationship existing between him and the many other artists playing a role in the record. Siifu may be doing his own thing, but he is not doing his own thing on his own. None of the tracks are tackled solo and 34 different people are credited as featured artists or producers. Siifu explained in an interview that:
“having the community on the album is so pivotal to me, but it’s about having the right community. Not everybody on this album is my day one, but everyone on this album has great morals. They’re easy to talk to, they’re real people…That was my main thing; I wanted to make an album for the folks that I fuck with hard.”
Even if it is Siifu’s vision guiding the way on the project, there exists a mutual level of trust and respect between him and the others on the album. His referring to them as the community suggests his relationship and admiration for these people as being deeper beyond what they contribute on a musical basis. The album then exists as a gift back to that community, established from the get-go with the opening line that introducing it as being “for tha folks.”
The modern music industry often mythologizes the hyper-individualistic solo artist, someone who grinded alone to create a renowned piece of art. Think about all the fuss about J. Cole going double platinum with no features, or the constant rhetoric put forward by music tech as providing the freedom and opportunities for the solo up-and-coming artist to hit it big without any support from the traditional music business.
Of course, this obscures the less visible forms of collaboration that exist. 2014 Forest Hills Drive may be without features listed on the tracklist, but there are numerous other vocalists, instrumentalists, and producers who are credited in the album’s liner notes. Even the bedroom producer may not be as much a lone wolf as they appear on the surface. Anyone working with samples in their recordings is repurposing the playing of another artist. If we want to get further removed from the direct songwriting process, likely someone else put together the instruments and recording software utilized by this musician. As is with any form of production with society, the output of any music is incredibly social in nature. Any artist or group of artists that has the tools, time, and ability to play and create music, cannot do so with their basic needs of food, shelter, love, and autonomy being met. GUMBO’! recognizes this too, with the many references to family and friends, who are very much part of the folks the record is for and who it couldn’t have been made without. One particularly distinct example is Georgia Anne Muldrow’s vivid portrayal of a caring mother on “Scurrrrd”. And we can contrast this album’s creation with that of another artist who has never been shy about expressing appreciation for the love of his mother, but has perhaps lost sight on showing a fair level of respect to some other members of his community.
In some instances when collaborators are brought in to work on a project, there exists an unfortunate dynamic in which those who assist in an album’s creation are treated as being in a lower hierarchical position, working for the artist/label, rather than with them. When leaked text exchanges between Kanye West and his engineers emerged earlier this year, reactions were split on whether West was right to fire someone over text for being late to a session or to have another work for 33 straight hours. Some found the treatment of these workers to be rather cruel, while others defended it as the standard of the cutthroat nature of the music industry. In response to those who found West to be acting rather ruthless, Sevdaliza argued that one may have to sacrifice their wellbeing and respect to work in a position of servitude in order to produce great art, gain access, and eventually make their way up the industry ladder. This attitude, when put forward by artists, may be representative of them looking back on the early stages of their career and seeing this as a right of passage that people must go through to progress as an artist. It very much seems like a music equivalent of pulling yourself up from your bootstraps, beginning as the exploited underling and paying your dues in a undignified line of work in hopes that you can move up from being the oppressed worker to become one that gets to do the oppressing within the industry’s class hierarchy.
Thankfully, the other side of the discussion sees people criticizing this hierarchical method of collaboration, and note the necessity to reject this model and cultivate alternatives to it. Jaime Brooks, who is a great follow on twitter if you’re looking for an artist with an insightful critical perspective on music capitalism, explained in a series of tweets:
“embracing the grinding loner paradigm is just auditioning to be one of the people k*nye underpays to make his records for him. genuine counterculture would require artists to do the opposite, to demonstrate how ineffectual and impotent hyper-individualistic creativity is
there’s so much talent outside the mainstream. there’s so little talent within it. it’s not hard for us to compete because we’re less talented, it’s because we’re all isolated from each other, afraid of getting “lumped in” to a “crowded lane.” we’ll never win that way.
these celebrities with money and cults of personality can gather a bunch of talented people together and compel them to work together to create works that transcend the format and become cultural moments. working people cooperating with each other could do that too, and better.”
https://twitter.com/elite_gz/status/1436096533703782420
Siifu’s self-described greatest hits are realized through the work of a collective that is credited as so, rather than heralded as a monstrous individual effort by a genius that underscores the contribution of those involved in its creation. With the community, Siifu puts out this sprawling, ambitious piece of work where his many talents and those of others can shine. It is this communal approach that allows artists like Siifu to fully realize the most vibrant and beautiful vision of their artistry and debunks the music industry’s version of the ever nonsensical great man theory. I hope that the success of projects like GUMBO’! allows for more to recognize the social nature of production that allows for any and all pieces of art to come to life, and inspires us to build thriving communities in which we reject the alienating and often fruitless solo grind mindset. Resisting the continuation of hyper-D.I.Y ethics in favour of an egalitarian do-it-with-our-community approach will allow us to create incredible pieces of work, and projects like GUMBO’! exist as proof that this is possible.