American Boyfriend: A Suburban Love Story

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For those who haven’t heard, Abstract is a twenty-one year old musician from Texas. Released in 2014, his debut album MTV1987 showcases feelings of vulnerability through harsh, grunge rap. But his latest record, American Boyfriend: A Suburban Love Story is storytelling in its most vivid and cinematic form. Compared to others who capture the high school experience and coming of age, Abstract does the opposite of glamorizing it. American Boyfriend may just be the most nuanced and touching documentations of growing up and coming to terms with your identity. American Boyfriend is romantic, providing a sense of warmth and familiarity his preceding work failed to offer. It’s everything MTV1987 isn’t. Abstract sheds a layer of his self revealing everything he never was, has been and continues to be. The record features co-production from Michael Uzowuru, who has collaborated with Frank Ocean in the past. Defying traditional pop song structure and genre and basing the album from Abstract’s experience with another man— his first love, American Boyfriend is today’s Channel Orange. Both records journey through masculinity and sexual identity: the simultaneous feelings of lust, pain, and euphoria that seems so …show more content…

It’s the person recognizable from our childhood, whether through experience or memory of the kid who sat alone at lunch, taking in the laughter of everyone surrounding them and secretly wishing they were a part of it. Or maybe it’s the kid who spent lunch with their teacher to numb the feeling of isolation. The song is long drawn out but end with finding someone who makes the feeling of isolation worth the wait: “I think about you all the time. I’ve waited for you all my life. I need you right here by my side.” And maybe, just maybe, there is light at the end of the

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