Zayn Is More Than The Next Timberlake Or Bieber; He's Pop's Most Honest Artist

Zayn's "Mind Of Mine" album has just dropped, and he's proven he can more than make it on his own.

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The process of transitioning saccharine-sweet boy-band members or precocious child singers into more edgy, provocative avatars is nothing new. We saw it happen with Justin Timberlake after *NSYNC, and more recently and overtly, Justin Bieber. Both went from being the butt of the joke, to everyone’s guilty pleasure, before finally being heralded as the pop music wunderkinds they were always meant to be.

It stands to reason that mainstream media outlets were quick to make comparisons between these shifts and the journey of Zayn Malik, who almost exactly one year ago left pop juggernaut One Direction. Now, out on his own for the first time, Zayn’s debut album Mind of Mine is evidence that there’s no need for him to travel along the same transformative trajectory ­– because this album represents who he’s been since day one.

Mind Of Mine, is exactly the kind of music we expected from his breakaway: edgier, darker, more sexual, and more adult. Malik is now a 23-year-old man, and has wanted to be able to speak like one for a long time. It’s easy to look at a once squeaky-clean teenage artist that begins to openly reference sex, alcohol and drug use, and assume this is their impression of what an adult is supposed to look like. But it’s Zayn’s newfound (or at least newly-liberated) ability to vividly depict the reality of human relationships that asserts his move away from the kids’ table.

In a world viewed through the spectrum of One Direction, relationships are always tinged with, and sometimes drenched in positivity – if love isn’t working now, give it time, and it will. But on “It’s You”, Zayn touches on a love that is pain. “She” features a female protagonist that hasn’t loved or been loved “in the right way”. “Fool For You” depicts Malik as a man destined to return to the same woman forever, regardless of how tainted their love becomes. It’s this acceptance of the true complexity of love and relationships that really sets him apart from his one-time brethren. While they cover the black and white, and admittedly do it very well, Zayn has created his own lane where he can finally explore grey and pink matter to his heart’s content.

It seems natural then that Malik would choose the form of a pure R&B album, with a sly tip of the New Era cap to rap music at each turn, to showcase this brand new understanding. In fact, Zayn’s appreciation of these genres is possibly the most palpable influence on Mind Of Mine. In an interview with Complex, he spoke at length about 2Pac’s All Eyez On Me, and the significant impact the album had on him. Pac’s fearlessness, honesty and courage appealed to Malik, and despite still working to hone his sound on this debut, there’s a similar philosophy underpinning Mind of Mine.

At the same time, the album touches on quite a few rap album tropes at each end, with the title track–a piano ballad with a reverb-drenched vocal–acting as a fly-in introduction and a warm welcome to Malik’s mind. The latter half even features a song with no hook called “Lucozade”, a set of stream-of consciousness verses that find him sipping pink and blazing haze; it’s something that could easily pass for a joint from Zayn’s hypothetical Gangsta Grillz mixtape.

Nods to some of modern-day R&B’s darlings also abound on Mind Of Mine, with Zayn deftly switching between the solemn contemplation of Frank Ocean (“It’s You, “Befour”, both produced by Channel Orange mastermind Malay), Weeknd’s earnest dedication to airing his flaws (“Wrong”, “She Don’t Love Me”), the effortless cool of Miguel (“Truth”) and even the consistently crass illustrations of artists like Chris Brown (“TIO”). The sole feature on the album, Oakland California’s Kehlani, lives up to her reputation as one of the realest R&B singers on the come-up on “Wrong” – her desperate urging that she’s “a problem with problems” is about as raw as it gets in the mainstream pop game.

The album is naturally not without its radio moments, with the perpetually pleasing single “Pillow Talk” sitting pretty at the top of the track list, and acting as our entry-point to the rest of the record. Tucked away in the bonus tracks is the rubbery and rowdy “Like I Would”, where Zayn finds himself briefly possessed by the jealous-ex archetype that Drake has perfected so spectacularly.

But the songs on Mind of Mine that demand your attention are those that are experimental and unpolished; so opposite to Zayn’s previous work that they insist on reverence. One striking entry is the acoustic intermission “Flower”, which employs one of Malik’s most haunting vocals, eventually sliding over a humidly thick bassline that’s gone far too soon. Here, Malik gets in touch with his Pakistani heritage by singing in Urdu – it’s a beautiful and surprising moment that many artists simply wouldn’t have the conviction to pursue on such a high-stakes debut.

Translations give us the lyrics “until the flower of this love blossomed / this heart will not find peace / give me your heart”, a simple, but impactful sentiment. “Flower” is Malik’s deepest breath after nearly suffocating in the formulaic, and perhaps why it works so well as an intermission – it’s a break from any theatre, a simple and completely honest split second for a man that's been gifted with few.

 

The title and album cover directly remind us that we’re hearing everything that’s been on Malik’s mind – perhaps even since he was a child. In discussion with The Fader about leaving One Direction, Zayn said the project has been with him for at least 10 years: “this album has been in my brain, and it’s just been there, sat with me, needing to be out”. Six of those years were spent as a cog in the churning pop machine, as part of what Malik depicts as a limiting regime that prevented him from even growing a beard, or dying his hair.

His eventual escape was a homeward bound towards his own authenticity. For someone that idolised and appreciated 2Pac for the honesty in his art, the maddening feeling that he wasn’t being true to himself or his fans as a member of the manufactured five-man-band was something he had to act upon, telling Complex: “It was one of the things that wasn’t going to go away, so I had to go away”.

Malik confessed to The Fader that while recording with One Direction, his tendency to slip into R&B crooning, which he described as being himself, was constantly suppressed: “it would always be recorded 50 times until there was a straight version that was pop, generic as fuck, so they could use that version”. On Mind of Mine, Malik is finally allowed to be himself, unbridled, and unapologetic. And it all feels genuine, because we can believe that this is the art he’s wanted to create for a decade. 

Zayn’s recent prank on fans, adorning himself with a grotesque Gucci Mane-style face tattoo before revealing it was fake, gives us the impression that he’s ready to be subversive and antagonistic. While Mind of Mine is far from anarchic, it shows immense potential. He’s proven it once before, but Zayn might just be one of the only stars perched at the top of the pop stratosphere that’s still willing to shake the railing – even when everyone else around him is too afraid they’ll fall.

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