If there’s anything that will prep you for a nail-biting political week, it’s new music. Thankfully, bLAck pARty is here to serve us all with the debut project, Mango.
The Arkansas native has maintained a low profile as a member of the Royalty collective, which includes Childish Gambino, Kari Faux, Ibra Ake, Steve Glover, and Swank. Before producing tracks for acts like Father, the artist began his journey with longtime friend and collaborator Faux. Their track “No Small Talk” was a favorite of Royalty manager Fam Rothstein, who discovered pARty’s sounds on Twitter and helped landed the track on Gambino’s 2014 mixtape, STN MTN/Kauai mixtape.
Blending his influences from Little Rock and Los Angeles in the capitalization of his stage name, pARty also finds an easy way to highlight love, appreciation and self- awareness in “tropical funk” tracks like “Best View,” “Swang My Way” and “Mango.” “People forget that music is a form of expression,” he said to College of Music in March. “If you’re in a smaller town, that need for expression is going to be even bigger.”
Take a listen to what pARty has to offer on Mango, below.