Review of ONEPOINTFIVE
Hip-hop artist Adam Aminé Daniel, formally know as Aminé dropped his sophomore album ONEPOINTFIVE on August 15, 2018. Aminé is a first generation African immigrant who grew up in Portland, Oregon, and his music is just as untraditional as his life is. Aminé is categorized as an alternative hip-hop artist and this album shows how accurate that description is.
ONEPOINTFIVE is like the salted caramel of albums; mostly sweet, slightly bitter. In the album, Aminé discusses some difficult topics like mental health and being rich and famous, something the former Complex intern and college drop is still trying to get the hang of. Aminé makes his music easy to consume with great production and beat selection. The combination of magically crafted melodies and hard-hitting 808s make the heavy content easy to swallow.
In the intro, DR. WHOEVER, Aminé decided to start the album with some intimacy. In an interview with Rap Genius, he explained that the meaning behind the title DR. WHOEVER was that whoever is listening to the song is serving as his therapist. “Talking about mental health with your n*ggas is weird or scary sometimes, especially in the black community,” Aminé said. The first song wasn’t the only song to touch on mental health. In the fourth song, WHY, he talks about him being depressed and needing love. In the song, he says people can’t see how he’s really feeling while in the background you can hear him mumbling. The album also touches on masculinity, something Aminé has been vocal about. In 2017, he attended the Glitter Pop festival where he performed his whole set in a full face of makeup.
The songs on the album also touch a lot on Aminé’s relationship life. In RATCHET SATURN GIRL, the song moves from upbeat rapping to somber vocals from Aminé. The unpredictable transitions happened a few times on the album and every time it happened it made the song feel much more intimate. Aminé told Rap Genius that some of the situations he described on the album happened when he and singer/songwriter kehlani dated for a brief period. Songs like SHINE and TOGETHER will definitely have you thinking about what they could’ve changed in their own relationships. In SHINE the hook of the song contain lines like “I don’t want to feel like I need you” and “I’m nervous what this might turn into.” It’s almost like a look inside of Aminé’s diary, you can hear him addressing some feelings he’s kept inside.
Now to the caramel part of the album. Aminé is a pioneer of the “nerd trap” of this generation; a group of rappers who make new sounding music put pay attention to detail when it comes to rapping. They’re the inbetweeners. The song STFU2 embodies the alternative aspect of his music. The song has a heavy metal sound, something that scares most hip-hop fans. I used the term nerd to describe Aminé because he makes reference to things that most rappers wouldn’t. For example, he referenced the movie School of Rock when he says: “Rocking and rolling like Jack Black” in the fourth song BLACKJACK. The decision to make the song titles in all caps reminded me of Tyler the Creator who only tweets in all caps. Like Tyler the Creator, Aminé’s music seems to target a very specific demographic of young people. Most of his lyrics are relatable to middle-class millennials who’s biggest problem is pulling up to Chick-fil-A on Sunday. His music is genuinely fun though, between the voices Aminé uses and the skits by Ricky Thompson, this album will have you smiling.
When people visit a new album the first thing they usually do is check the features. I decided to write about this last because it was the least important things about this album. The album featured 3 up and coming artists; Gunna, G Herbo, and Ricko Nasty. When an artist is in high demand it can be hard to get a feature from them. I think that’s exactly what happened with HICCUP, the song featuring Gunna. While the G Herbo and Ricko Nasty features sounded natural, the Gunna feature felt like it was copied and pasted from an email.
This is one of the most underrated albums of the year. This album dropped the same month Travis Scott, Drake, and Nicki Minaj dropped their album so it was easy for this album to get overlooked. Nevertheless, this album will help Aminé solidify his spot as a premier artist of this generation.
