Atlanta Spotlight:
Lucky Daye - II
Over the past few weeks, good music has been coming in small doses. Gone are the days of needing more than 10 tracks to have a release. Two weeks ago, I talked about how I was playing Summer Walker’s 4 song EP “Clear” on repeat. Since Friday, I’ve been doing the same for Lucky Daye’s “II”.
Lucky is basically releasing an album in chunks of 4-5 songs at a time. This week, he put out his second installment. He weaves effortlessly between singing soulful choruses with funk beats underneath and intricate raps that speed up and slow down like a vintage Kendrick track. He starts the EP with one of the most catchy and creative songs I’ve heard in a long time.
The first song “Karma” has Lucky showing the two different sides of himself. In the first verse he sings about his new girl and how well everything is going, probably taking it one step too far by telling her “I ever got the chance to, I’d come and meet her mama”. In the chorus he realizes he might be taking it too fast, and reminds himself that he better slow it down. By the second verse we find out that she’s moved on, and he’s following her around throwing tantrums backstage and failing to figure out what to buy her affection with. Again, he reminds himself that he needs to slow it down, but switches to rapping and telling how he’s really feeling in the last verse, then outros the song with one of the tantrums he mentioned earlier.
It’s a fitting ode to how everyone is living life these days – dual personalities. Not in the American Psycho way that is portrayed in movies, but how we all have the person we show on the outside, and the one we keep on the inside. There’s the version we want every one to see with our posts online, when we “slow it down” and carefully choose the words, gifs and emojis that will strain out any thoughts that make people uncomfortable. It’s the catchy, confident, braggadocious version that starts the song (and makes your head nod).
But when the affection stops coming, Lucky switches into unfiltered mode – capping it all off with a one sided argument. It only took three minutes for Lucky to take us from bragging about his new girl to his friends, to overhearing a phone argument from him like we are in a booth next to him in Waffle House (we’ve all been there, right?). Overall, this is why you’ll never hear “Karma” on the radio. Lucky is willing to show us both filtered and unfiltered versions of himself. It’s fantastic, and you should make sure to add it onto whatever playlist has your heaviest rotation.
The other three tracks are so different from one another, that I can’t compare him to any combination of artists without starting a long checklist. But that’s the good thing about these great EPs; it will only take you 16 minutes to find out for yourself. Then do yourself a favor and make a playlist combining it with his first EP “I”. Check out both here.
He’s opening for Ella Mai in March, so if you were smart enough (unlike me) to get tickets before they sold out, make sure to get there early enough to catch Lucky.