Music Insights
VIDEO VIEWS BY JC: bLAck pARty – 4AM in NY
A convenience store door jingles. The lights flicker, and just for a moment you’re in a moving subway car shuddering on its wheels as it screeches through the night. bLAck pARty has bottled a vibe in his moody ode to New York.
LA’s Malik Flint aka bLAck pARty is an Arkansas export that classifies himself as a little R&B, a little hip-hop, a dash of psychedelic soul and something he calls “tropical funk” which makes sense when you hear it. The twenty something artist got a big bump up in the music game with the rare honour of being on Childish Gambino’s recommend list. His first and most recent album was 2016’s Mango, a tangential drift into Flint’s romantic obsessions and daydreams. His newest release 4AM in NY seems to be the crest of a wave he’s been riding for some time. The love ballad takes the form of an open letter to a city, or a particular vibe.
Don’t know what I’m going to do
in the middle of New York
when my mind is all on you
and I just feel so blue
at 4 am
The essence of summer is fleeting in memory, something Flint encapsulates in this brooding tune. The music video wavers in and out of focus as does our hero’s concentration. A nearly perfect one-take, we float through studio sessions, underground parties and morning commutes in a stream of consciousness that plays out like a lucid dream, or maybe just a really late night. Singer Anajah adds intrigue as the white rabbit leading us on- or more accurately, as a leather clad girl in a red hat. Melancholy ripples run through the track despite the buoyant hip hop beat, with sliding vocals that drift in and out of earshot as if being repeated in Flint’s mind. 4AM in NY is the first single from the soon to be released album titled Endless Summer.