Nashville’s Brian Brown is a rapper whose sound is irreplicable. Custom fit with a deep draw and a knack for telling vivid stories, his earlier 2020 album, Journey is, like several other projects from his Nashville compatriots, one of the more immersive, unique hip-hop projects in memory. And fresh on the heels of its release and a slew of further video and collaborative work in the city, he’s back with Vanity Pack. The two-track collection serves as much more than an interim single drop, but also as a look into the continued evolution and refinement of one of hip-hop’s most one-of-a-kind aesthetics.

 

With production from Nashville transcendentalist, Namir Blade who also just released an immersive concept album, Aphelion’s Traveling Circus, Vanity Pack’s first inclusion, Car & Driver is a meditative lyrical bout overtop a sample heavy beat. While its second, RIP Limelight, though far from sidestepping Brown’s signature flow and lyrical endowment, is a slower anthem addressing the struggles of coming up in hip-hop.

 

Together, the two tracks are just the latest tiles in a greater Nashville mosaic being hand-cut over the past couple years, and only the newest in an emerging Brian Brown patchwork that is firmly establishing the rapper as one of the most distinctive, well-rounded sounds in all of music.