There are some catchy hooks as well-on “Racer,” Bourne croons nimbly alongside some late-’90s R&B keyboards-but for the most part, the beats on Pi’erre 4 speak the loudest. On “How High,” he dives into his formative years in Queens (where he split time between South Carolina): “Just a college nigga, honor roll/I dropped out of college, lost my home.” On “Try Again,” he speaks of the loneliness that comes with his sudden rise in fame: “It’s just me, and I’m alone again/Spending all my money on my own again.” All the obvious tropes are here-money-chasing anthems (“Doublemint”), odes to jealous exes (“Feds”)-but he hints at a more interesting story in between. Which is a shame, because Bourne puts effort into his lyrics.
Add this to the fact that none of the songs evolve much over their runtimes -put Pi’erre 4 in waveform, and it’d look like a bread loaf, a hunk of sound with no peaks or valleys-and you start to tune out.
His voice often drowns in the mix as a result. Unlike the MCs who buy his beats, none of which are featured here, he fully saturates his voice in Auto-Tune, more akin to T-Pain or Fetty Wap than Uzi. Once you get past the initial dopamine rush, Bourne starts to run into trouble. Most of the tracks are accentuated by over-the-top sound effects-a lion roar, or a reworked vintage DJ drop (“ Damn Pi’erre, where’d you find this?”)-that give the project the momentum of a street-bought mixtape. The fuzzy synth notes on “Be Mine” sound like they were played on an electrified toy piano, while “Romeo Must Die” turns on a distorted refrain that sounds recorded 500 feet below the ocean surface. Bourne’s beats hum with the same off-kilter melodies that made “Magnolia” so thrilling, and the edges are filled with interesting noises. The answer is not quite-his heavily Auto-Tuned vocals have a tendency to get washed out by his hazy backdrops, and Pi’erre 4 is one-note as a result, more vibe than statement.Īt least the vibe is enticing. Which brings us to The Life of Pi’erre 4, his major-label debut and the first real test of whether he can carry a project. Rather than continue to feed hits to stars like Carti, Lil Uzi Vert and 21 Savage, Bourne has put all his attention into his solo career as a rapper. Most hip-hop producers could put in their 10,000 hours on FruityLoops and still never come close to Playboi Carti’s “ Magnolia.” The blissfully simple four-note earworm earned Carti his cult following and turned its maker, Pi’erre Bourne, into a sought-after producer.
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