DOPAMINE

When he blew up in 2019 with his bubbly breakthrough hit “Ransom”, Lil Tecca was a 16-year-old from Long Island by way of Queens who drew his catchy melodies from Speaker Knockerz, Chief Keef and A Boogie wit da Hoodie. Six years and five albums later, Tecca is a bona fide star with his own established sound—glossy, hyper-melodic and decidedly more grown up than the kid who still wore braces in the “Ransom” video. “My life changed so fast that I don’t even recognise myself from last year,” he sing-songs on “Dark Thoughts”, the lead single from his fifth album <i>DOPAMINE</i>, over a beat that channels The Neptunes circa Snoop Dogg’s “Beautiful”. Beyond a Ken Carson cameo on the glitchy “Tic Tac Toe”, Tecca holds his own throughout its 17 tracks, from chirpy love songs (“Favorite Lie”) to starry-eyed sonic experiments (“One Night”) to the addictive “OWA OWA”, which slows and chops a sample of The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star”.