In the seven months since pizza boy. entered the P&P galaxy, the young rapper has formed one of the web’s most idiosyncratic, intelligent personas. In that time, too, he’s polished his dense, deeply referential, self-deprecating raps, sharpening his flow, vastly improving his beat selection, and increasing his dynamism from when we first heard him. That’s what happens to smart, determined young artists: If you’re good and you keep studying and learning from missteps, your talent eventually approaches your ambition—at very least, you become more capable of executing your ambition.
pizza boy.’s new album this is pizza boy. comprises his most accomplished set yet. It is, undoubtedly, not meant for all rap listeners, but that’s an effect that seems entirely intentional on pizza boy.’s part.
As ever, best to let our tortured hero describe the proceedings in his own words:
“here i am, at the end of this album process, and i’m having some sort of breakdown.
i’m worried. worried about the accessibility of my content, the appeal of my character and personality, the sound quality of my album, the validity of my ‘talent’… the usual worries. just intensified to levels not yet experienced until now.
i’m fearful, nervous, doubtful, unsure – all of the things i’m not supposed to say in public so as not to ruin the image of the ‘confident artist.’
i think that image is a myth. but y’all might know more than me about that sort of thing. i don’t go outside much.
but to be fair, who am i kidding. i’ve never really been afraid of corrupting that image. honesty is the best policy.
i’ve been working on this album since November of last year, but the majority of it was written/recorded over a 10-week period from January to March of this year.
here’s just some of what went into it:
– too many steak A.M. Crunchwraps
– the recollection of the attributes of over 100 crushes
– cabin fever
– faulty electronics
– reluctant and not-so-reluctant XVIDEOS visits
– the experience of performing for the first time
– the forcing of myself into a somewhat concrete analysis of my position on gender/race relations in 2015
– Wilhelm screams (internal and external)
– countless Skype conversations
– a troubling absence of pizza
i’m not sure how much of that got lost in the translation into album speak, but i’ll just have to see what y’all say.
thank you once again to Pigeons and Planes for ever bothering with me and the things i create in my bedroom.
maybe this album will get me a large step closer to finally ‘winning.’
maybe this album will get me ‘nowhere,’ and i should finish filling out these job applications.
but something tells me to stop worrying about what i can ‘get’ from this, and just remember one of the reasons i ever started doing all of this.
i just want you to ‘get’ ME.
i hope you enjoy it.
– pizza boy.“
Artwork for every song on the album will be displayed on his Tumblr in the coming weeks.
