13 Months of Sunshine

The Portland rapper broke through in 2016 with the carefree “Caroline” as an eager student of André 3000 and Tyler, The Creator, then spent the next almost-decade finding his own voice: witty but searching, with a penchant for bright, bubbly beats. Now 31, Aminé is ready for a long, five-star vacation on his third studio album, <i>13 Months of Sunshine</i>, his first since 2020’s existential <i>Limbo</i>. (In the years between, he dabbled in hyperpop on 2021’s <i>TWOPOINTFIVE</i> and collaborated with KAYTRANADA on 2023’s <i>KAYTRAMINÉ</i>.) He’s in his deep-house bag on “Familiar” and “Vacay”, on which he finds himself two spritzes deep, “out of office” email in effect, draped in a hotel robe, “on my Dua Lipa”. He jets across the pond on “Arc de Triomphe”, skating over a UK garage shuffle that samples The Streets. But it’s not all affogatos and plunge pools: On Leon Thomas duet “New Flower!” he recalls his days as an intern for Complex and Def Jam, remembering being sent to fetch sandwiches for Big Sean. And after a beat switch on Afrobeats bop “13MOS”, he dives deep into his Ethiopian and Eritrean family legacy: “I was named after my grandfather/So, I can’t put shame to the name I’m proud of.”