Charlotte, North Carolina underground sensation MAVI returning after a couple years to put out his 3rd album. Emerging off his full-length debut Let the Sun Talk a day before his 20th birthday, he would go on to land a verse on “El Toro Combo Meal” off of Earl Sweatshirt’s 2nd EP Feet of Clay a month later as well as preluding the further well received Laughing So Hard It Hurts in the form of a debut EP of his own End of the Earth. Few singles later, he’s ready to Shadowbox.
“20,000 leagues” goes drumless to start the LP rapping about saving him from himself whereas the 2-part “open waters” takes a cloudier route instrumentally keeping the drums out the picture for both halves explaining that creating art out of suffering is a haunting if not a futile endeavor. “i did” finally puts some drums in the equation keeping it cloudy talking about doing stuff that he promised not to do anymore & “i’m so tired” strips the drums once again abstractly wanting to be washed off so he can can make another song without a crater or a scar.
The beat on “tether” kinda has a glitchier, funkier tone altogether reminding that we’re all gonna die at some point in our lives while “the sky’s quiet” raps about making a bunch of hearts bleed unable to measure a correct amount of soup although he’ll get back on that when he eventually does. “latch” squares up at the score even if he wasn’t sure this is what he meant over Madlib-inspired production, but then the piano/boom bap hybrid “grindstone” addresses a bitch ass dude named Brandon telling him why he’s the greatest.
After the “drown the snake” skit, “drunk prayer” talks drinking until he’s unable to feel shit over a crooning sample wailing behind him leading into “the giver” telling his partner to make it make sense for him over lavish keys dashed with kicks & snares. “too much to zelle” goes for a psychedelic trap approach getting back to his boogie just before the jazzy “testimony” produced by Tom Levesque of Vanguard Music Group refers to himself as a living dream. “my own ways” finishes the album going his own path accompanied by an instrumental that doesn’t add the drums in until near the end.
Feeling a hopelessness towards Laughing So Hard It Hurts, MAVI felt like he had to come back learn & really how to make art all over again centered around visual art, fashion, interior design & design as an artistic framework & as an organizational force in society. The orderliness in the lives of the devoutly religious became an attractive subtext & lot of shadowbox’s backbone comes from his time with The Black Experience in Design, gaining the idea from them that design is power & the ability to determine the order of things & the way things are supposed to be are power.
Score: 4/5
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