Rappers with a lot to say don’t always put out a lot of music. Malik Elijah, on the other hand, is nothing if not both thoughtfully and creatively prolific. From Maryland with a lot of range and a broad vocabulary, Malik Elijah crafts across his taste for stylistic depth anchored always to his robust knack for raps. His latest single on a string of many going back to last year and reaching apex with the drop of sophomore project, Free Lemonade, is SFTS.

 

Shooting For The Stars rides the rails of a silky, keyboard riffing beat from @ka1_1ak, granting the kind of musical playpen necessary for Malik Elijah to explore the range of his sound from the rapped to the melodic, and back again. And from Malik himself, deep-toned landscape-painting lyricism in verse, what is perhaps his most refined vocal bout to date in chorus, and a blissful effortlessness in the relationship between the two musical lanes prove yet again that he’s one of the most exciting and widely talented up-and-coming names in hip-hop.