Love, Friendship, and Family: Rich Brian Introspects Modern Relationships in WHERE IS MY HEAD?

Touching some grass is questionable for Brian Immanuel, known as Rich Brian. He pushes the phrase by keeping grounded on grass, as depicted on the cover of his third studio album, WHERE IS MY HEAD?. Being grounded resonates with rumination, self-reflection, and maturity. It also means getting closer to Indonesian culture by sampling Keenan Nasution’s “Cakrawala Senja” — originally written by Fariz RM and Imam RN — in the opening track “Senja”. Also, the appearance of Ivan Gojaya and Augstin Oendari in the free and easy “Jelly Air Island” reaches more audiences. With 15 tracks running around 48 minutes, WHERE IS MY HEAD? easily celebrates Brian’s mastery in the production room.

Sonically, most of the alternative R&B aesthetic is too difficult not to associate with Tyler, The Creator. The attitude of giving more space for singing rather than rapping and exploring R&B rather than being looped with a generic trap formula are reasons to prove the statement. Not to overly compare Brian’s creative mind with Tyler’s, but as soon as “Oh Well” and “Body High” are played, some synth-based songs and melody of Flower Boy hits your memory.

“Serpents” contains the gnarled production of “Earfquake”, but Brian plays around with the influence, with bass sounding like EMP bullets in The Matrix shot across the race track of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Tyler’s murky vocal aesthetic in Goblin is also voiced in “Took A Breath”, despite angelic presentation emblazoning the track. Making it more challenging to detach WHERE IS MY HEAD? From Tyler’s influence.

The trap ala Rich Brian hasn’t disappeared. “Jumpy” came as a blood-rushing and psychotomimetic single featuring Ski Mask The Slump God. The psychedelic bassline and smoggy melody at the beginning are possessed by an intoxicating trap beat panning in your head, signifying what Rich Brian is typically known for.

The appeal of WHERE IS MY HEAD? isn’t only about the flourishing production element. Storytelling is a realm Brian aims to get more intimate with. He doesn’t bridge between eclectic wordplay and digestible reference. WHERE IS MY HEAD? is composed of unburdened, loose, and personal songwriting compared to any of his previous works. The sense of longing for grandfather in “Fat Cats, Starving Dogs” is served with Danny Brown’s frenetic alternative rap. The main theme itself echoes Lana Del Rey’s “Grandfather please stand on the shoulders of my father while he’s deep-sea fishing.”

Being vulnerable and translating it into songs are the DNA of “Little Ray of Light” packed with a set of hair-raising strings gradually cracking the low production quality. And friendship is actually the main theme, knotting nearly all the numbers in the album. The best track Rich Brian has ever written, “Timezones”, is worth the discussion. The songwriting is Brian’s pinnacle of craftsmanship. It is complicated and intense as Brian’s emotional state in cyberspace. The striking thunder is deeply felt when he was betrayed by his ex, but his friends and closest ones stand still for him. Those are online friends, preventing Brian from sinking deeper when he’s spiralling. We’re drowned in the vortex of unexpected impression marked by the louder and jagged binary’s friction on the left of your ears.

“Timezone” might even resonate more with millennials and Gen Zs, whose social interactions are born and nourished from internet-based platforms. Giddens proposes that ‘modern friendship has a relationship unprompted by anything other than the rewards that that relationship provides.’ In other words, friendship exists to the extent that the connection is valued for its own sake.

Extending Giddens’ finding, Denise Carter claims that ‘in many instances the free-floating nature of online friendship enables this trust to be achieved more easily, and this trust is a major contributory factor in maintaining the commitment and intimacy of online friendship’. This finding is in line with Brian’s experience (“And to my other friends up on the net / We don’t talk as much, but I’d be down to reconnect / ’Cause when I was at home / Hoppin’ on them Skype calls made me feel less alone”). The confession of “Timezone” is like “Hey Jane” in CHROMAKOPIA, but Brian contextualises it based on his generation’s modern relationship.

WHERE IS MY HEAD? is unquestionably a step forward release from Rich Brian. It captures his exploration of production quality by looking for a wide array of samples, offering as much rap flow as possible, singing more than rapping, and telling better storytelling. However, most of the tracks like “Butterfly” “She” and “Is It?” don’t hold the same strength. Careful selection of youth features in the industry saves the record for they contribute aptly to the over.

Click here to stream WHERE IS ME HEAD? by Rich Brian