Photo Credit: Brian Ziff
On Music…
A few nights ago, Duckwrth and his partner made tacos. That very same night, me and my girlfriend made nachos. Hours before the nachos adventure, I was in my office listening to the advance of Duckwrth’s newly released album, SuperGood. His commercial debut, the music follows the name, makes me dance around my office, and makes me believe in happiness. According to Duckie himself, that was the goal of this album: To inspire happiness. At a time where happiness feels impossible to grasp, consider SuperGood quietly revolutionary in mood, but also consider it bombastic in sound. The album is a departure from Duckwrth trying to rap circles around his peers. It’s all about vibe and feeling, and it works.
“People need to be reminded of what joy looks like, what happiness looks like,” Duckwrth told me during our most recent interview. “What it feels like to be able to dance again.” Though he was pushing off the release of this album because of his own mental demons and health issues, we’re back now. We’re back and the album is a smattering of sunshine and cotton candy skies. It is a record with its own sparkle, gleam, and gravitational pull. Duckie made an album to dance to, to fawn over. The standout, “Too Bad,” induces smiles, shoulder shimmies, and thoughts of the baddest girl you know running through your head as you embarrassingly dance around your office between meetings. Just me? Okay, I’ll take it.
SuperGood is special because Duckwrth grew up. On 2012’s DUCKTAPE, the goal was to be a rapper’s rapper. The goal was to rap his heart out and spit that super hot fire over and over again until our ears were dulled by the bars. Eight years later, Duckwrth is far more concerned with the feeling of the music. He wants to make “song-songs.” For one, this meant inviting in a host of collaborators and being okay taking a step back and letting their ideas into the forefront. For two, this meant tapping into his ear for melody and worming his way into the heart of feelings—even colors—to get the album of our dreams.
It’s not about “spitting hard,” as Duckwrth said. It’s about producing something the listener can live with. I wish more artists took this approach, and made music where their ego was removed and their desire to bake their work in our collective lives took over. SuperGood is Duckie’s best project to date because it speaks for itself. Duckwrth doesn’t have to do anything drastic on the mic to get us to fall in love with his sound. There’s an element of trust to the making of this album—though his perfectionism was running rampant—which gives it a wonderfully human touch.
Each song on SuperGood is positively a jam. The album sounds effortless but also meticulously crafted. The moment artists release their need to prove themselves and start creating from a pure place, the better their art becomes. Desperation does not beget great art, but confidence and focus on craft certainly do. The pursuit of emotion is more noble than the pursuit of self-affirmation. By all means, create art for yourself, but don’t fall into the trap of creating art to make a point about yourself.
Of course, to arrive at this conclusion requires maturity and growth, and to make projects the total opposite of SuperGood. So, today, we celebrate Duckwrth’s growth and his pursuit of feelings. We celebrate SuperGood in the same way SuperGood celebrates life itself. Duckwrth has nothing to prove and everything to gain. The music is immaculate for that very reason. We’re in the doldrums, for sure, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t spotless tunes to tap into. That doesn’t mean we can’t dance through the trauma. Duckwrth gifted us the soundtrack. And the soundtrack is SuperGood.