Review Summary: The first time I heard this, I couldn’t make it very far in before turning it off, but when I sat down and digested it, I was blown away.
Phony Ppl, the nine-person group, or rather, the “physical body,” come together to create a blend of jazz, R&B, and hip-hop that clearly reflects their chemistry. Straight out of the heart of Brooklyn, Phony Ppl have mastered their craft through three years of bonding and developing a collective relationship in order to overcome the stresses of having such a large band. MaffYuu, the band’s DJ, producer, and drummer admits that there are times when the nine opinions clash and the band must work through it, which is bound to happen in such a large group. Taking their time on their debut was a smart decision, because when Phonyland came out, it clearly displayed their style as mature as it continued to be to date. The acoustic, unpolished jazz vibe that is audible in all of their music is refreshing, and hints at how fantastic they must be live.
This album is about love, and it opens with Special One., whose themes will be repeated towards the end of the album, telling us that “impossible is nothing,” that you can achieve anything you set your mind to In a sense, this album is a day, and it begins as he “greets the sun,” feeling like the day ahead will be special. It then leads into End of The niGht., which makes me assume he was looking forward to the night especially. They are at a party, and as Elbee Thrie is hanging out with his friends, they see a group of girls, and one of them in particular catch Elbee’s eyes. He doesn’t necessarily have anything planned, but he wants to hang out with her. Then, in Baby, Meet My Lover., Elbee tells us that he has trust issues and doesn’t want to commit to one person, and he introduces his two lovers to each other.
Smoke To Get Sober., is a side-step, where the group gets high and begins theorizing about if being high was the default, and by getting high you were actually becoming sober, the way you were born.
HelGa., then, is a metaphor which uses the popular 1990s cartoon Hey Arnold! to describe people who aren’t being honest about their feelings. In the show, Helga Pataki bullies Arnold in order to hide the fact that she is in love with him. Elbee Thrie says “The song is as if Arnold knew that Helga was feelin' him, [and] the perspective is from someone who notices. They’re putting their two cents in.” Someday. describes the fluctuation in an unhealthy relationship (similar to Helga and Arnold’s, but in a different scenario), where there is no grounds to expect any consistency, and he doesn’t know “what shape will we be in [tomorrow]?” Here, we get a clue from the title of the album of the relationship and what it will be. The lines here lead us to believe it is being written on Thursday, and if “on Wednesday, we’re only to be friends,” and yesterday is tomorrow, then this couple will end up only as friends.
We are then given two songs of peaceful interlude to reflect on this, before we get the hit single Why iii Love The Moon., where we learn that Elbee feels that after all of this, the most stable place that he can put his trust is in the moon, as “every night it’s there for you; it’s constant.” If you put your feelings in the hands of one person, they will drop them, and since it is not socially acceptable to divide that love up between more than one person, he resorts to the moon. As he does so, he puts out a warning to everyone who will go the human route to “just be careful where [they] look for love” because you can’t see what goes on behind the curtain.
Despite all this, he wants so badly to Take A Chance. with this girl he’s been mentioning. He doesn’t forget that he is imperfect just like everyone else, and he ponders what he can do to make it known that he is in love with her. If she isn’t into him, he reassures her that the worst that will happen is she’ll never see him again.
Statue Of Liberty. seems to be another side-step where he reflects on being poor or homeless, and how sometimes you have to fake-it-to-make-it, in terms of acting like you have money. The hook on this song “as soon as things start to go my way, time turns into yesterday,” they use the word “yesterday” again, and earlier it meant that the couple would only be friends. In this case, however, it would mean that things could be better, perhaps even So Much Better. Then, we continue on this subject on money after being reminded that “impossible is nothing,” on the song So Much Better., a sort of inspirational track where we get an idea that money is unimportant, and that you should do what you would do if money were nonexistent. I particularly enjoyed the lyric “They take our dreams and give us jobs,” an accurate explanation of the feeling of not being a “lucky one.”
Compromise. essentially depicts a story where the woman wants to settle down and the man wants to too, but not yet. Because of this, they are beginning to grow apart. Elbee embodies the man here, and encourages her to continue pushing forward and continue doing what they are doing, perhaps sarcastically because it is breaking his heart.
Finally, the most compelling and heartfelt song on this album: Somehow. While the lyrics may be indicative of loving a woman, Elbee tells us in the writer’s notes on Genius that this is an internal song. When you’re lonely, and “the only thing saving you is you [...] you gotta hold on to yourself. Just keep loving yourself.” Nobody asks to be born, but everyone has to make due with what they have. Elbee in particular lives his life with the understanding that when he is at a low point, it is temporary, and when he is at a high point, it is also temporary, which is a powerful motivation to continue living.
It is still up for debate as to what “Yesterday’s Tomorrow” truly refers to, be it the past and the future are concepts and need not be worried about, vice versa, or the theory I was explaining earlier about how things could be better or worse. This is my theory of choice, and Somehow. backs it up. If the loose, jazz-rock, and R&B flavor is your thing, this is a must-listen. The first time I heard this, I couldn’t make it very far in before turning it off, but when I sat down and digested it, I was blown away.
Phony Ppl has been a consistently great band, and as I continue to listen to their past material, I find that I can’t find many bad pieces. This is one of my all-time favorites.
