Illustration by Kai Henthorn-Iwane
Rich Brian’s debut album, Amen boils down to the theme of gratitude, which makes sense because he has a lot to be grateful for. He’s an 18-year-old rapper that grew up in Jakarta, Indonesia and first caught the world’s attention when he was just sixteen. He got fame and recognition as a part of meme culture when he released “Dat $tick” under his former name, Rich Chigga. Over the last two years, he carefully separated himself from memehood and established himself as a real rapper. Before the release of Amen, Rich Brian maintained a consistent stream of singles and racked up features from artists like 21 Savage and XXXTentacion. His debut album proves that he’s talented but is obviously unsure of how he wants to be perceived.
The vast majority of the reason that Rich Brian is on such shaky ground is because he got famous a little too young. He’s making weird mistakes every teenager does, but his are projected out into the public eye. A perfect example of this is his recent name change from Rich Chigga to Rich Brian. He says he originally chose the name Rich Chigga as a way to “diminish the word’s power.” He has since come to the realization that he was “naive and made a mistake.” While seeking out attention for problematic behavior is never kosher, it’s clearly just a mistake made by a temporarily inconsiderate, attention-hungry teenager.
Sometimes he spells out his youth specifically like in “Chaos,” when he says, “I’m eighteen now/ And women can legally have sex with me.” Most of the time he proves it by saying something that is just so classic for a teenage rapper, like, “And that p*ssy bald, look like it just got a chemo, ayy.” While he clearly has a talent for production, Rich Brian’s lyrics are more or less on par with a 15-year-old SoundCloud rapper. It’s initially part of what makes him fun to listen to, but once you realize he’s trying to be taken seriously it makes him significantly less endearing.
Rich Brian’s pursuit to be seen as a legitimate rapper has manifested itself in intense authenticity. A couple of songs on Amen are just somewhat random stories. While a real narrative to a song is refreshing, Brian is just too young to have authentic stories that are genuinely interesting. Authenticity is nice, but there are circumstances where it’s just so much more fun to be lied to. It’s an admittedly ugly part of human nature, but it’s inherently more fun to be deceived than it is to listen to “Kitty,” which is a weird and intimate story about how Rich Brian lost his virginity.
At his core, Rich Brian has a distinctive voice and a great ear for production. The overwhelming majority of his flaws stem from the fact that he’s just trying too hard to figure out who he is. It’ll be fascinating to see where he goes as time goes on and he establishes a stronger sense of self.