The Name (Capitol)

“Shots fired,” shouts Vancouver rapper SonReal on the first song of his five-track EP The Name—and he means it.

In a world where Auto-Tuned trap music is taking over the hip-hop scene, SonReal’s summery beats throw a stick in the wheels of convention. Flirting only briefly with the snappy accents of trap in “Soho”, a song that sounds particularly out of place on the record, The Name is built on jangly riffs that approach ’90s pop. Combining piano chords and horn arrangements with cowbells and claps, “All I Got” and “Hot Air Balloon” create a vibrant framework that spices up the rapper’s more conformist mention of gold, rings, and jewels.

In contrast to SonReal’s previous EP, For the Town—a collection of B-list trap tracks—The Name’s innovative musical direction is already paying off. The EP’s first single, “Can I Get a Witness”, is in heavy rotation on the radio, and has picked up nearly four million plays on Spotify—a number that far surpasses the performer’s previous offerings.

Sure, the EP might sound a little bit like Justin Timberlake circa 2006. But The Name is less about the songs than what the artist is doing. As rap continues to push further toward minimal beats, SonReal’s complex arrangements provide an exciting alternative to the genre’s homogenization.