Sy ShacklefordWhen English emcee Frisco Boogie dropped his album “C.I.R.C.U.S.” last year, it was released during a time of COVID-19 uncertainty. Conceptually, it pertained to the absurdities of life and the stress attached to it. However, in 2022, he seems to have found a silver lining. With “Sunflowers in September”, he’s provided us with another self-produced effort, but one that takes a decidedly 180° turn from his last album. The production is just as consistent. Along with the lyrics, the album comes with a heavy “Hey Young World” vibe.
Starting with “Intro – Life is Short”, Frisco produced an instrumental with movie sample dialogue. It feels somewhat nihilistic as the topic is life’s progression and inevitability towards the end. Then it moves to the first official song, “Delight”. There’s a lighthearted flute production while, topically, Frisco raps about how age in hip-hop shouldn’t matter and how he’s gotten by via denying the trends. “Strollin” has a psychedelic, floating daydream quality to the production.
Frisco laces a melodic boom-bap style beat on “Mean” with the clear message being “mean people suck” and karma will come to them eventually. There’s a certain Zen-like mindset that Frisco has throughout the album, which probably inspired him to sing some of the hooks on several songs, as well. This is most epitomized on “A Beautiful Place”, where he goes in detail describing his rhyme book as his happy place over airy production. Aside from the intro, the album has one other track less than a minute long. On the “Words of Wisdom” skit, the message of living in the present is conveyed over an instrumental sprinkled with DJ record scratches from DJ Glibstylez.
He takes this theme even further on “W.S.T.”, which stands for “World Still Turns.” It contains piano keys and jazzy horns with its “life goes on” sentiment. The sole featured verse on the album comes from UK emcee Kam on “Arr Yeah!” over some mellow blues guitar strumming. The album’s best production, however, is found on “Lemonade.” This track has very ‘90s R&B feel to it, like a Babyface production, even down to the hook. “Everything’s fine in the sunshine” is repeated as the message is to never fail to make lemonade:
Of the final two tracks, there’s “Whenever You Need Me!” and “Sunflowers in September.” On the former, the theme of uncertainty about the future is coupled with a stream-of-consciousness flood of future images. On the latter title track, it’s lyrically filled with positive wordplay. Though personally, I think “C.I.R.C.U.S.” was better overall, “Sunflowers in September” certainly can get through some of the cracks in the pavement.