Photo courtesy of @brentfaiyaz
Wasteland was a defining moment for Brent Faiyaz this year, but that’s not all the Maryland R&B crooner has in store for fans.
His second studio album — which sold 88,000 first-week units and debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 — is a testament to Faiyaz’s willingness to be as transparent as possible, even if the truth is hard to swallow. While the album is still making its rounds with longtime fans and new listeners alike, Faiyaz now has his sights set on finishing a separate project that jumpstarted Wasteland’s creative process.
Detailing plans of an upcoming LP titled Make It Out Alive in a recent interview with Complex, Faiyaz spoke on how Wasteland morphed into its own entity while crafting Make It Out Alive.
“I still have a project I want to put out called ‘Make It Out Alive.’ That’s still in the works—it’s just not this one, because I love the title ‘Wasteland’ and I love what it represents. I have an idea in my head of what I want ‘Make It Out Alive’ to be, but all of the songs that I have been making up until this point didn’t fit that title. I wasn’t in the headspace to put that body of work out.”
Faiyaz via Complex
Wasteland was believed to be Make It Out Alive due to Faiyaz teasing the album title over the past two years. However in December 2021, the singer-rapper shared “Mercedes” — the precursor for Wasteland’s eventual rollout in June. Brent also dropped a few Wasteland tracks over the course of 2021: “Gravity” with Tyler, The Creator and DJ Dahi as well as “Wasting Time” with Drake.
The album fans received (Wasteland) is in all parts inspired by film scores and explores the cinematic nature of music, said Faiyaz in an interview with Vogue. “It was less of an album process and more of a life process,” he explained. “I just made a collection of songs and tied a story line together once I saw that they all kind of shared a similar theme. I didn’t really realize I was working on an album until I was maybe a little over halfway through. Then I realized, wait a minute, this is a body of work.”
Faiyaz also went on to say that during the album’s conception, he was watching “a lot of Tarantino films. I was watching Jackie Brown over and over again. I was also watching Vanilla Sky on repeat. I pulled a lot from that. But mostly I was inspired by the different people that I locked in with, from The Dream to Alicia Keys,” who are both featured on his latest record.
Additionally, Brent teased a collaborative effort with Steve Lacy — whose recent album Gemini Rights earned a No. 1 debut on Spotify’s Top Albums chart. As Faiyaz continues his summer takeover, here’s hoping that he “makes it out alive” with both of these records much sooner rather than later.
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