Posthumous albums are always a tricky business. It is so difficult to get the sentiment right, to make sure the intentions are clearly to honour the artist, and not just to achieve material gain. There is even a question as to whether this music should be released at all. 

It is clear from reading interviews with the likes of Vargas & Lagola, Aloe Blacc, and Carl Falk, all of whom worked together to complete Avicii’s TIM, just how much they cared about their late Swedish superstar and friend. Songs from TIM are difficult to listen to now, they say, and the nature of the songs on the new album make it evident why this is so.

It would be easy to read TIM as heavily foreshadowing the DJ’s passing. It is pervaded by darkness, with the first track, ‘Peace of Mind’, opening with the lyrics,
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​Bad Reputation tells the tragic story of someone hiding their depression (“I don't want to be seen in this shape I'm in/I don't want you to see how depressed I've been”), while ‘SOS’ pleads for a lover to come save them from their insomnia (“I get robbed of all my sleep/As my thoughts begin to bleed”). 

Having said this, it’s strange reading through the lyrics of TIM, because on the basis of them alone it’s hard to view the album as anything but a suicide note from Avicii. However, listening to the album is an entirely different experience. The melodies are often tinged with sadness, and Carl Falk explains that Avicii would combine major and minor chords in the same line, the latter giving the songs a feeling of wistfulness. But there is an energy about each track, a sense that Avicii hadn’t lost his feeling of wonder and inspiration that shines through so prominently on his Stories hit, ‘The Nights’. 

‘Never Leave Me’ is a boisterous, euphoric ode to a loved one, continuing the theme from SOS with the lyrics,
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​'Heaven’, his collaboration with Chris Martin, is undoubtedly the standout track, and one that fans have been waiting for since it was teased in 2014. It is overwhelmingly uplifting and positive, and initially it seems a little odd that it is positioned as the second track on TIM, as it could have provided a concluding note of happiness as the album closer. But then you remember the most tragic aspect of this album - it’s a tribute to a story that didn’t end happily. 

The track that was chosen to finish TIM, ‘Fades Away’, epitomises how perfectly the sentiment of the album was judged. It references the ‘troubled times’ and the ‘trials to find somewhere we belong’ that have coloured the preceding eleven songs, but ends on a note of optimism,

This album carries such an emotional weight with it, that it was always going to be tough to find the balance between tones of positivity and regret. TIM finds this middle ground in a way that few other posthumous albums succeed in doing, and in my view, this is Avicii’s best work to date. His collaborators spoke with sadness about how it felt like he was on the brink of something massive musically, and how he would never get to execute this vision. TIM is as close as we can get to the perfect tribute, and the perfect reminder of how influential and talented Avicii was. 

I think it is easy to underestimate the impact Avicii has had on music, and people, around the world. The testimonial message board on his website is evidence of this, with tributes being posted from a whole range of nationalities - there are few artists whose music has touched so many people. We all remember when ‘Levels’ broke into the charts back in 2011, and essentially set the tempo for a decade that would be dominated by House/Pop fusions from EDM titans such as Calvin Harris, David Guetta, Martin Garrix and The Chainsmokers. Avicii’s crossovers into Folk, Rock and Country music broke down genre walls and introduced many new artists to fans that would not normally be interested in these kinds of music. 

On a more personal note, it seems apt that I’m writing this review in the lead-up to Father’s Day. Zac Brown Band is my father and I’s favourite band, and we always have one of their CDs loaded into the car stereo, ready for our road trip sing-a-longs. The paths of our music tastes don’t often meet, but this is a great instance where we can really share our love of music with one another. And the only reason I ever heard about Zac Brown Band, was because they were featured on the Avicii song ‘Broken Arrows’, and I thought hey, why not give them a try. 

Equally, I remember playing my dad Avicii’s ‘The Nights’, and he fell in love with the carpe diem spirit of the hook,

​Before any big event in my life, my dad will still text me the words, ‘Remember, these are the nights!’, just as a reminder to make the most of every moment. It seems a bit trivial to call an EDM song my favourite song, but because of the meaning associated with it, ‘The Nights’ is definitely up there for me.

Avicii has had a much bigger impact on me that I would have ever imagined. While the album is heavily tinged with grief, TIM is also the perfect celebration of Avicii’s talent in creating music that resonates with his listeners. Despite the pained lyrics and the tragic context, TIM has at its heart the message Avicii always tried his best to convey - one of hope.

Maxim Mower

Get this amazing album on CD or Vinyl below

I wanted to ask you about the origin of your name, THEMXXNLIGHT, and the reasoning behind switching the O’s out for X’s. 

“So in Hindi our last name means ‘the moonlight’. And then we just felt spelling it with the X’s made it more mysterious, as well as being symbolic of us being twins.” 

A year before you secured the Rolling Papers 2 features, you were recording in your dorm room on the 2004 version of GarageBand. I wish it could make me sound like that! Have you upgraded your kit since then?

“(laughing) No! It’s still hella old, a really, really old version of GarageBand. I think it’s the 2007 version.”

You rejected offers to play basketball at MIT and California State, and instead ended up graduating from RPI in New York with an engineering degree. A lot of readers will be at that point in their lives where they are having to choose between what they’re being told they’re supposed to do, i.e. get a degree, get a Masters, get a secure job, etc., and their hobbies. What made you take that leap of faith and opt for music over engineering and sport?

“That’s a good question! Somehow it worked out perfectly with the timing. At first, we imagined we’d play basketball for four years while doing our degrees. But within the first two or three months, we just didn’t feel a connection with the coach. It was a new coach, as the coach that recruited us had left. So we decided to drop from the team. Initially, we just made songs for fun, but by the tenth song, Wiz discovered us! That was two and a half years into making music. We graduated, then Rolling Papers 2 dropped in July. So it didn’t really involve any leap of faith before then, it was after that album released that our parents were like, ‘Ok, you can take some time away and focus on music’. It was a family decision, it wasn’t a rebellious, 'We’re running away from home’ kind of thing. Our parents said, ‘We’ll support you, and you guys can pursue this, and see how it goes’. 

You’ve spoken in the past about how your sound has been heavily influenced by one of your favourite artists, The Weeknd. What drew you to his style of R&B? 

“In high school, we were kind of shower singers. We always took instrumental lessons, but we were never trained vocally, and we still haven’t been, even though we do want to be. We were kind of singing around campus, and then we first heard ‘The Zone’ by The Weeknd one morning before getting dropped off at school. We just thought, ‘Yo, he sounds super unique, he sounds like an angel.’ He’s Ethiopian too, and his music actually has close tie-ins with Indian music, so immediately we felt very accustomed to his sound. We did a few The Weeknd covers and put them out on Soundcloud. They got shared by a couple of OVO and The Weeknd fan pages. It was crazy, it felt like our idols were slowly turning into our reality.” 

Speaking of Drake’s OVO label, you recently shared a photo with Roy Woods on your Instagram. What features can we expect from the upcoming EP and album? 

So we have one song with Chevy Woods, that’s going to be on his album in the summer, we can’t say what it’s called just yet. Then for our own projects, yeah, we have Roy Woods and Ye Ali. We've also worked with Megan Thee Stallion, she hit us up after the Wiz songs. She sent us a song which had two verses, but the hooks were blank. We recorded something, and she replied saying, ‘Yo, my mum loves it, my whole team loves it’. To be on her album would be a major honour, she’s an amazing female artist doing great things right now. Also TM88 is producing his album sometime this year, we have a song on there that’s co-produced by Sledgren. Also, Roy Woods has a full EP in the works. We have a collab project with him too that we’re excited about.” 

Wow, so a lot to look forward to! I wanted to talk to you about your Indian heritage, and how big a part that plays in your music.

“It definitely plays a big part. Jay Sean inspired us a lot, it feels like the entire world still doesn’t know he’s British Indian. Obviously, NAV with XO, signed to The Weeknd, we would love to be a part of that. It’s clear that The Weeknd supports artists no matter what their culture is. Him putting on NAV was pretty crazy, and a great step for our community. Again, NAV paved the path for South Asian artists to really make it in genres other than Bollywood music.” 

How does it feel to be role models for minority groups pursuing careers in music, particularly Indian Americans, because apart from NAV, there aren’t many in the game at the moment?

“There is a lot of pressure to please the community, because we can’t do a lot of the same things. Obviously there are a lot of drug influences in NAV’s music and videos, his background is more from Rexdale from Toronto. So it’s hard to find the balance for us. Based on feedback from the community, I think we can be good role models. Local high schoolers come up to us like, ‘Yo, you guys are legends, you’re the biggest inspiration for the Indian community’. We wish we’d have had an Indian rapper come to us and say, “Yo, you should pursue music’, then we would have been way more inspired from a younger age. What’s great as well is that people from all over India are also noticing us.” 

You mentioned how NAV has the freedom to make a lot of drug references in his music, and modern R&B as a genre definitely contains numerous themes of drug use, with The Weeknd, for example, also following this trend. Do you feel, as artists that are just coming into R&B and are perhaps still seen as outsiders, that there is a pressure on you to conform to these stereotypes of R&B music? 

“Yeah, good question. Not really, it’s kind of the theme of R&B to be on a druggy vibe, to put you in a high mood. We don’t feel pressure to do any of that stuff. Obviously singing about it makes sense because that’s the style of music, R&B is typically very sensual. If you want to do drugs, if doing drugs helps you in listening to that kind of music, then we’re not going to judge anyone for what they want to do. But there’s no pressure for us to partake in that. Our music is not heavily drug themed, there are very, very few references to drug abuse. We focus more on passion, and love story type stuff. There are some references, because like I said, it comes with the territory, but generally that’s not what we aim to sing about.”

Finally, for my blog I have this concept called Self-Help Songs, where I pick certain lyrics that people can learn something from, and I thought it could be cool to ask you about some lyrics from one of your newest Wiz features, ‘All For You’. Your chorus reads, “If you need someone to treat you right/If you need someone to talk to, call me/I’ll do anything you like/I wanna do it all for, all for, all for you”. What was the inspiration behind these lines?

“Yeah, so it’s kind of the beat that carried it. We heard it and it had that really reminiscing, slow jam R&B vibe. But we could also imagine Wiz going crazy hard on it. We thought we could make something that pleases both R&B and Rap fans. In terms of what inspired the lyrics, we came up with this story. We were kind of imaging a scenario where one of us was with a girl, maybe taking her around a shopping mall, treating her right kind of thing. Basically it means using your success in the music industry, to give back to your girl, and being unselfish, like ‘Everything I do, I’ll do for you’. Both songs are kind of about greatness, and giving back, and reminiscing.”

Interview by Maxim Mower

Hear THEMXXNLIGHT on Wiz Khalifa’s latest album, Fly Times, Vol.1: The Good Fly Young, and stream their brand new single, ‘Good Things’. ​

    The recent furore surrounding Hot 97 radio host Ebro Darden’s mild interrogation of Kodak Black, a rapper currently awaiting trial for a sexual assault case, is worrying to say the least. After the #MeToo movement’s attempts to cleanse Hollywood, one might have thought Darden’s stance would have been championed for being ‘woke’ in an era where the US President can (allegedly) pay off a porn star to keep quiet and still stand in front of his supporters like some kind of toupee-wearing god. 
    But no, if anything the response to the Kodak incident was overwhelmingly hostile towards Darden, with commentators criticising him for making the rapper feel ‘uncomfortable’. Ironic, considering he is being charged with doing things to someone which will have made them feel just a tad worse than ‘uncomfortable’. I get the whole innocent until proven guilty approach, because it is important to remember that the charges may indeed be shown to be false, and the media are right to avoid jumping the gun and producing another Cliff Richard smear debacle. But there is a difference between suspending judgment, and turning in the opposite direction and assuming that the accuser is lying. Chance the Rapper recently spoke out saying that he regretted working with R. Kelly, who has been the subject of a recent documentary reaffirming numerous allegations of sexual assault involving women and teenage girls. Chance admitted that he ignored the accusations because of the R&B singer’s celebrity, and had presumed the women were merely seeking publicity. It is just as dangerous to adopt this kind of attitude, as it is to adopt the mentality that Kodak Black is definitely guilty. 
    Of course, when celebrities are involved it has been known for sexual assault allegations to have been proven false, and submitted merely with the intention of getting in the papers. However, the truth is that this is usually not the case. The FBI puts the number of ‘unfounded’ rapes, i.e. those found to be false, at 8%. When you consider that the US Bureau of Justice estimates that only 35% of all sexual assaults are actually reported to the police, this figure becomes even more significant. Some cases will be submitted purely for publicity, and there are no statistics specifically in relation to sexual assault charges involving celebrities. But at the end of the day these rappers and singers are role models to a tremendous amount of people, so we surely have to treat their allegations with only the same amount of scepticism as we would a case involving the average Joe. Otherwise, if our immediate reaction to a sexual assault charge against a celebrity is ‘They’re probably lying’, then this will inevitably translate into our treatment of normal cases. 
    Ebro is 100% right for not merely sweeping the Kodak issue under the carpet. People should be aware that the man being interviewed is being tried for sexual assault, rather than simply ignoring the case and promoting the rapper’s new album like everything is hunky dory. People tend to get on their high horses at this point in the debate, arguing that if we refrain from listening to certain artists simply because of their private lives, then we are on a slippery slope to censoring art in general. They claim art should be treated as amoral. 
    But it is not about censoring music, it is about giving people who may be tempted to listen to Kodak Black the relevant information, which they can then choose to use as they wish. Many may be aware of his trial, but don’t believe music and the artist should be linked so concretely, with the credited artist not even being the main contributor to many songs that will have involved writing teams, producers, mixers, etc. Others, though, will undoubtedly choose to avoid buying a record that is linked so heavily with a potential sexual offender. 
    The problem runs deeper when the artist has already been shown to be guilty. My friend recently recommended an Xxxtentacion song to me, saying how beautiful the music is. But she wasn’t aware of his history of quite horrific domestic abuse, involving battery of a pregnant woman and attempted strangulation, and when she was made aware of this, she was shocked, and felt guilty for listening to his music. But the guilt should not lie with the listeners, for everyone is of course entitled to endorse whichever music they please. The issue is that she wasn’t even aware of his history, due to the overwhelmingly positive publicity the rapper has received after his passing. It is virtually impossible to listen to an Apple Music or Spotify Hip Hop playlist without almost accidentally listening to Xxxtentacion or 6ix9ine, the former of whom has been recorded admitting to his crimes, and the latter of whom has already been charged for sexual misconduct. Morality is treated as such a malleable concept in the modern era, with the increasing popularity of cultural relativism as a philosophical worldview, and I am not suggesting we start telling people not to listen to certain music and ranking some songs as morally superior to others. The point is that sexual crimes should not be glossed over simply because a rapper is popular. Hip Hop needs its own #MeToo movement. 
    For too long casual sexism has been an inherent part of rap music, with people like myself ignoring it with the justification that a lot of rap lyrics are purely fictional, written with the intention of fulfilling the gang-member, drug-dealer stereotype. But while Film is clearly making the effort to give women the respect they deserve, Hip Hop is flailing way behind.
    People should be free to listen to these artists if they choose to. But in my view, their music should not be actively endorsed in the way it has been, simply to increase revenue for streaming services and record labels, in the process ignoring their sexual misconduct cases. At the moment, it is harder to avoid these artists than it is to listen to their music. Over the past couple of years Hip Hop has become a burgeoning feature in the charts, and I am as happy as anyone about this. However, it is crucial that the flourishing of this overwhelmingly male-dominated genre is not accompanied by the undoing of the positive steps made by numerous powerful female chart presences, such as Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift, Little Mix, and Jess Glynne to name a few. 
    The Hot 97 backlash is the last thing that Hip Hop needs. The genre needs to start showing more respect to victims of sexual assault, just as Ebro was trying to do in his Kodak interview. If you ask me, Hip Hop needs to start showing more respect to women in general - we need fewer songs objectifying women, and more songs made in the ilk of Lil Yachty’s ‘Worth It’, for example, which subverts this culture in his tackling of the issue of body image:

“I love you for who you are,
God don't mess up at all,
Even when he make us with flaws” 

This attitude should be standard, rather than the exception. 

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Maxim Mower