070 Shake // Modus Vivendi

GOOD Music

It's been two years since Kanye West released Ye, his first project since the rapper's mental breakdown in 2016 and subsequently unrelated endorsement of Donald Trump. Understandably, the album polarized a lot of folks, but one of the only elements not to do so was a number of vocal parts by 070 Shake, a relative newcomer to the GOOD Music family. Now, on her debut album, the young genre smasher takes styles introduced by her mentors — most notably on albums like 808s & Heartbreak and Man on the Moon — and pushes them to stratospheric new heights. Following the lead of the album's artwork, Modus Vivendi is future-pop through and through. And that's putting it simply; in the same way that Billie Eilish mashed influences last year, 070 Shake presents a gorgeous sonic collage of trap ("Rocketship"), retro-pop ("Guilty Conscience"), and electro-grunge hybrids ("The Pines"), each take as successful as the last. If 2020 is the year Gen-Z music truly takes hold, we'll be lucky to have 070 Shake join the legion of female artists at the forefront of the genreless movement.

— Aaron Mook