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Steven

by S. Raekwon

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johnnyhofer
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Ned Raggett
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  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    This item is for PRE-ORDER! Items are expected to ship by MAY 3, 2024

    * Any orders containing a pre-order item will ship together when the pre-order ships. Please make a separate order if you wish to receive non pre-order items before the pre-order ship date *

    * Pressed on Opaque Bone colored vinyl
    * Includes lyric insert
    * Art & Design by POND Creative

    Includes digital pre-order of Steven. You get 3 tracks now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released.
    shipping out on or around May 3, 2024
    Purchasable with gift card

      $25 USD or more 

     

  • T-Shirt/Shirt

    This item is for PRE-ORDER! Items are expected to ship by MAY 3, 2024.

    * Any orders containing a pre-order item will ship together when the pre-order ships. Please make a separate order if you wish to receive non pre-order items before the pre-order ship date *

    * Gildan Softstyle Unisex T-Shirt
    * Art & Design by POND Creative
    shipping out on or around May 3, 2024
    Purchasable with gift card

      $25 USD or more 

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    This item is for PRE-ORDER! Items are expected to ship by MAY 3, 2024.

    * Any orders containing a pre-order item will ship together when the pre-order ships. Please make a separate order if you wish to receive non pre-order items before the pre-order ship date *

    * 4 panel digipak with lyric booklet
    * Art & Design by POND Creative

    Includes digital pre-order of Steven. You get 3 tracks now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released.
    shipping out on or around May 3, 2024
    Purchasable with gift card

      $12 USD or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Pre-order of Steven. You get 3 tracks now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released.
    Purchasable with gift card
    releases May 3, 2024

      $8 USD  or more

     

1.
Steven's Smile 03:50
lyrics
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Wide eyed smile Steven Make sure you light up the room Wide eyed smile Steven Don’t let their eyes get to you Turn that smile on Steven They don’t gotta know what you’ve been through Just keep that smile on Steven Don’t let them see the hurt in you But we all know there’s hurt in you Well, maybe they’re hurting too You can dance, you can laugh You can act like how you’re supposed to But you can’t hide it for long No ‘cause a lie doesn’t change the truth And we all know there’s bad in you But maybe they do bad things too So you can keep on smiling You can keep on lying You can keep disguising You keep on hiding You can keep on smiling Steven Just keep on smiling Steven
2.
Old Thing 02:15
lyrics
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Even after all these years I’m still finding out about it Because this thing it can move so fast Spinning in and out of focus Darling I am terrified That maybe I’m nothing without it Because this thing between you and I Is part of everything surrounding me It’s part of everything that I see It’s part of everything This old thing between you and me Between you and me Slowly moving past your eyes I let my mind get cast aside I’m losing track of every word I’m trying to wrap my head around it I catch a glimpse of where we were When love first introduced itself to us And part of me is jealous In the way that I’m defined by this love In the way that I’ve grown so tied to its touch In the way that I’m so defined By this old thing between you and me This old thing between you and me This old thing between you and me This old thing between you and me
3.
Winners & Losers
4.
The Fight
5.
The Camel
6.
If There's No God... 05:05
lyrics
buy track
Jesus Christ, I was so drunk last night I promised you I’d be better Or at least I think I said I’d try But I’ll probably do the same damn thing tonight Because that’s what I do But I promise it’ll just be a few For one last good time Well, everyone lies So that’s what I do And everyone will die One day I’ll go too But if there’s no God Maybe I’ll be okay Jesus Christ, no wonder I can’t sleep at night The lies, the fucked-up memories They’re the good ones for me too Well, if there’s a God, I hope he’s a forgiving one For all the things I haven’t done And what I’ll do from here Because everyone lies So that’s what I do And everyone will die One day I’ll go too But if there’s no God I guess I’ll be okay Maybe I’ll be okay Does everyone lie? Or is it just what I do? Well, everyone will die But my day might come soon And if there’s a God How will I be okay?
7.
Does the Song Still Sound the Same?
8.
It's Nothing
9.
What Love Makes You Do
10.
Katherine's Song

about

Steven Raekwon Reynolds performs as S. Raekwon, but his second LP is simply called Steven. Across 10 tracks of furious and subtly strumming guitars, groovy bass riffs, and whispering revelations, S. Raekwon’s newest album strips back sonic and personal layers to present his most vulnerable, yet authentic self.

Still, stage names can be masks of sorts, creating distance between art and artists themselves. A bi-racial, multi-hyphenate born in Buffalo and now based in the East Village of New York City, Steven wrote, produced, engineered, and mixed everything on the record, in addition to playing every instrument except the drums. Mastered by Heba Kadry (Kara Jackson, serpentwithfeet, L'Rain), Steven sounds exposed and immediate, a palpable evolution from S. Raekwon’s 2021 debut album Where I’m at Now and 2022 EP I Like It When You Smile.

To achieve this, Steven packed up a rental car with all his gear and returned to his fiancée’s parents’ home in Southern Illinois, where they rode out the pandemic and where he recorded half of Where I’m at Now. The house, more than 100 years old, proved to be a nontraditional recording space, but one that provided plenty of physical space as well as spiritual room for experimentation.

Steven and drummer Mario Malachi, longtime friends since their college days in Cleveland, Ohio, spent a week in July 2023 transforming the living room into a makeshift studio, rearranging furniture, sitting face-to-face in front of a mic, and tracking songs in single takes. It was a new way of working together; Mario hadn’t heard any music before the sessions, which created a sense of spontaneity and improvisation for the duo.

Even the writing process was a change for Steven. Mostly written between 2022 and 2023, some of the musical ideas date back to 2018. On earlier projects, the writing, recording, and production almost always took place simultaneously. But for Steven, he wanted the songs to be able to stand on their own, independent of the production. He composed on guitar and sat with the music, revisiting chords, lyrics, and melodies until he felt they were complete. Each song carried a weight, a purpose, he says. “I constantly asked myself when writing: ‘What are the stakes?’ Every song needed to tell a story, or to serve the broader story of the record.”

As they were recording, though, Steven realized the songs offered a certain structural organization. At first, it seemed just musical: The first third bobs and sways with rock, blues, and soul influences. Lead track and lead single “Steven’s Smile,” sets the upbeat mood with a sprinkling of keys from an old Baldwin piano, leading into the head-bopping falsetto of “Old Thing,” and the steady groove of “Winners & Losers.” The middle section, featuring the gut-wrenching centerpiece “If There Is No God…” stretches and soars, showcasing Steven’s vocals — at times hushed and at other times heavy — at the forefront of the mix. The final third settles into an oft-acoustic, singer-songwriter quietude, carried by the off-kilter waltz “What Love Makes You Do.”

Sitting with the final songs, Steven realized that they seemed to coalesce thematically as well. “Maybe subliminally or unconsciously, the songs kind of grouped together in a certain way to explore different areas of myself.” He elaborates, “The beginning is rage and angriness in a certain way. The middle is this uncertainty of questioning yourself, who you are, and if you're a good person. And then at the end, I think it comes to a place of resolution. I’m just examining myself and trying to come to a better understanding of who I am.”

Posing in pensive tricolor on the album cover, Steven could be conveying a range of emotions — curious, patient, regretful, insecure, annoyed, tolerant, understanding. Rather, his neutral expression and body language seems to express all of those complexities and nuances of human existence and more.

Taken as a whole, Steven doesn’t just offer snapshots in song. Baring himself in full musical honesty across the album, S. Raekwon attempts to bridge the gap between the art and the artist. It’s a portrait of strengths and weaknesses, flaws, and fulfillments. “Steven is the sound of me holding a mirror up to and critically reflecting on who I am — the good, the bad, the ugly,” he says. “It’s about trying to understand the multitudes within me.”

credits

releases May 3, 2024

Written, Produced, Engineered & Mixed by S. Raekwon
Mastered by Heba Kadry, NYC
Art by POND Creative

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S. Raekwon New York, New York

S. Raekwon is a singer/songwriter and producer from New York City by way of Buffalo, NY.

Sophomore album, 'Steven' is out May 3, 2024.

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