Aminé’s debut album, Odyssey To Me, is one of my favorite albums to ever come out of Portland. Having seen the young Portland rapper-turned-vocalist grow up to transcend genre and indulge in a unique Afro-Caribbean urban sound along with his producer Jahosh may influence my personal opinion, but there’s no arguing that the album was successful as they went on to push over 10K downloads in less than 2 months. The tape got so popular, people started bootlegging it overseas.
His new EP, En Vogue, builds on that progress, further infusing elements of varied genres with Jahosh’s ever-progressing, dramatic and drum-heavy instrumentals alongside Aminé’s melodic rants and raps. The moody & cinematic title track and Get Down (which features singer Emily Libera) have been the most popular tracks on the project by far, and rightfully so; I conclude the latter to be an absolute masterpiece. The danceable 7-track affair has other gems as well, namely Plastic Life, Game Needs Me, and Oregon Fair. He also gets a fire feature from Neka (of the duo formerly known as 7hirdwav3) on Mr. Nobody.
Fun, filtered and raw, En Vogue, recaptures the vibes of OTM without emulating its approach. It is not, however, superior to it’s predecessor. Still, Aminé’s talent to broach colossal concepts without a fuck to give shines brightly on this latest offering and I’m expecting a swarm of fresh visuals shot between here and New York – where he recently threw the EP release party featured below – to take the form of promo shorts and music videos over the next few months.
It will be interesting to see what’s next for the 20 year old with star potential. Will he continue to push the envelope, or settle in a lane? We shall see.