Mixtape Download: Leon Thomas - V1bes - RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture

In the press release for V1bes, singer Leon Thomas offers the following briefing: “Vibe: A person’s emotional state or the atmosphere of a place as communicated to and felt by others. This mixtape is a quick view into the mind of a free spirit.” The brevity and simplicity of this opening statement is deceptive. While the press release seems to promise a barrage of banality – seriously, it could be rewritten to say, “A Collection of Feelings” – the tape itself shows that this is actually interesting idea. Listening to it, you don’t get the slightest impression of who Leon Thomas is. Though the production is adventurous, the melodies are perfectly executed and the lyrics are concise, like a background performance at a loud bar, the tape soundtracks your experience without ever confronting you face-to-face.

For some artists, and perhaps even for Thomas, that is a gross insult. Our current musical climate is all about personality. For the recent Beyonce album, for example, which is currently drenched in hype, its hard to imagine a second life for the songs. Songs that are driven by personality tend to quickly lose their vitality; you won’t see such songs endlessly covered on Youtube. They tend to flicker away along with the personalities that drive them. Songs in which personality is suppressed have a different life trajectory.

V1bes is a collection of such songs. These tracks don’t attach themselves to you; the hooks don’t sink into you; these songs have a life of their own. They’ll wave at you and they’ll even cross the street and strike up a conversation if you invite them over, but they just don’t need you. This doesn’t mean that they’re purely ambient, made to be ignored. They just offer a different listening experience, one that is clearly more about the music and the feelings, the vibes that the music generates, than the person who made it. That’s not a paradigm for all music – some music needs personality (like rap, of course) – but for Thomas it works. Mission accomplished. Listen below.