Eddie on Aux: Summer Walker, Mick Jenkins and more

“Eddie on Aux” is a biweekly series on a few songs that intrigue me. They don’t have to be earth-shattering or terrible, just something interesting enough to warrant an article. It is not a recommendation of what to play in the car to impress your friends, despite what the title suggests. 

“Unloyal” (with Ari Lennox) — Summer Walker

On her latest project, “Still Over It,” Summer Walker is as confident as ever in her brand. She remains the pinnacle of melodrama and messiness and writes her songs with such brutal honesty that those traits somehow become aspirational.

In the same way that Drake is treated like a folk hero by some of the male population, Walker’s music gives the female audience an imperfect role model to follow — flaws and all. Her songs are sermons composed of Instagram caption-worthy one-liners and perfect fodder for those whose lives aren’t nearly eventful enough to live vicariously through Walker’s gospel.

“Still Over It” centers around Walker’s romantic split with longtime collaborator London on da Track, who produced 14 tracks on her previous album, “Over It.” Ironically, the breakup put Walker’s music in the hands of other beatmakers, and her sound diversified as a result.

On “Unloyal,” she operates at a slower BPM on a soulful, loungey cut. “I guess I’m unloyal, baby / We’ll call it what you want,” she sings, unbothered, backhandedly insulting a man for being childish and unreasonable. Over a smooth saxophone and drums that pace the song at a saunter, the line feels all the more scathing.

“Ballad 0” (Recorded At Electric Lady Studios) — Japanese Breakfast

All Michelle Zauner has done in the last year is release an album and EP, write the soundtrack for a video game and publish “Crying In H Mart,” a New York Times bestselling memoir, which is set to be adapted into a movie. Now, she adds a live album, recorded at the iconic Electric Lady Studios in Greenwich Village, to her already incredible body of work. Zauner is the most unconventional of stars — born in Seoul, with a degree in creative writing from a small liberal arts college — nothing could have foreshadowed her prominence. But she’s arrived nonetheless, writing books and songs that display her polymathic range.

Zauner’s live album is recorded under Japanese Breakfast, the band she fronts and the name most associated with her music. The songs are mostly acoustic renditions of her older work, with sparse live instrumentation behind Zauner’s voice. Without the sonic distortion or excess, her vocals take center stage and fill the room. “Ballad 0” repurposes a song she originally recorded in the early days of the pandemic, when she was confined to her apartment. What was a bedroomy, lo-fi tune is transformed into a heartfelt folk ballad. 

“Things You Could Die For If Doing While Black” — Mick Jenkins

Mick Jenkins seems to appreciate good poetry. On his 2018 album “Pieces of a Man,” he emulates the brilliant, revolutionary spoken word poet Gil Scott-Heron’s work of the same name, as he ponders great questions of the mind.

Like fellow Chicago-native and musical predecessor Common, Jenkins raps over jazzy beats with a narrator-worthy voice but sometimes digs himself in a hole trying to be too intellectual, or too creative with metaphors and wordplay. But at his best, he operates like a poet, lyricizing with intention.

“Things You Could Die For If Doing While Black” leaves little to the imagination, as far as song titles go. Jenkins, though always profound, doesn’t usually tackle politically relevant issues as overtly as he does on “Things.” On the track, he follows a structure often employed in other forms of activism: the first-person narrative that centers himself in actions that have led to Black lives being lost.

“Might wanna go for a jog” and “Might wanna sleep in my bed” invokes the tragic murders of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, respectively. Before Jenkins’ tackles larger issues, first, he wants a chance to live in peace.

“Small Crimes” — Nilüfer Yanya

I first came across Nilüfer Yanya while watching the HBO series “Industry.” At first glance, the show about a handful of yuppy Oxbridge grads navigating the buzzsaw world of investment banking wasn’t something I thought would be terribly enlightening. But like Yanya’s music, which is featured in the show’s outstanding soundtrack, the show captures the seesaw of existential anxiety and raging ambition in today’s 20-somethings.

When Yanya released “Small Crimes” in the infancy of her career, her songwriting talent was evident. She’s since made genre-bending music with roots in bubbly indie rock, but it’s her pen that has been the mark of her songs. “Small Crimes” plays similarly to “nostalgia, ULTRA”- era Frank Ocean; she writes complicated emotions into strings of clarity.