Aminé’s debut album Good For You was surprising only for how great it was last year. In a rap world full of rage, despair and mystery, he was surprisingly cheery and honest. His new album/mixtape/EP OnePointFive proves it wasn’t a fluke. It’s full of all that goofy energy that made him interesting in the first place, and a couple moments that show he’ll probably be a star sooner rather than later.

Aminé’s great gift is his left-of-centre writing. Like Danny Brown, his brain just seems to be wired down different paths. That leads to natural creativity in some of his lines, even over the most drawn out topics in hip-hop. It’s never more apparent than on the intro. ‘Dr. Whoever’ is a typical throat-clearing rap album intro designed to hook the listener with catchiness and rack up streaming numbers. Unlike most of those intros, ‘Dr. Whoever’ doesn’t feel forced at all. It really does sound like Aminé is rapping off the top of his head about whatever fleeting thought he has. That leads to some truly distinctive lyrics. We discover he’s progressive (“can’t man up if masculinity your only weapon”), his family (“me and my father love each other but we barely show it/he hates that I left home and the lawn is now his to mow it”) and girl troubles (“she got me feeling like Paper Boy, but I cry when she leaves”). The bare-bones piano-led beat brings Aminé’s eccentricity to the fore. It’s that eccentricity that streams through OnePointFive and makes clear that Aminé will be around for awhile.

This is a short project clocking in at 34 minutes and it feels appropriately unambitious. There doesn’t seem all that much flow to the tracklist, other than that these were 13 tracks Aminé simply wanted to release to maintain his newfound buzz. In the end, there’s promising moments on just about every track. “Reel It In” features a nutty, almost GameBoy-sounding beat and a cooky hook from Aminé (“Bitch I’m the news/CNN”). “Shine” finds Aminé in a rare falsetto moment on that refrain, and the changeup makes the song. “Ratchet Saturn Girl”’s second-half sounds like something from Tyler, The Creator’s Flower Boy in all the best ways, and Rico Nasty pops by and unapologetically blows away the lead artist on “Sugarparents” (“he want me to buy him shoes? He ain’t worth shoestrings”).

Those bright moments pair well with Aminé’s wit. Tracks that would be forgettable are lifted by the odd line, like on “Blackjack” (“I’m the best in the group chat/niggas won’t admit that”) or ‘Why?’ (“they let me skip the DMV line/that’s when I knew it was real”). The project as a whole is a bit darker in sound than Good On You, which is a slight disappointment. The best moments on that debut album were on goofy tracks like “Wedding Crashers” where Aminé was overwhelmingly exuberant. There’s even a (admittedly forgettable) track with Chicago street-head G Herbo on this one. The production is handled by a few key in-house figures – Pasqué, Aminé himself and Tee-WaTT. In his next effort, the West Coast rapper would do well to go weirder down the rabbit hole and see what comes out with some outside help. It feels a bit claustrophobic here.

But this is an exciting step forward for the 25 year-old. He’s setting himself up for big things. Perhaps the most difficult skill for a rapper to learn is how to write. Some get it, some never do. It’s easy to see but hard to define. OnePointFive is proof of one thing at least: Aminé has it in spades.

7.4