Smiddy95, an artist who knows how to work his angles, land punchline jab after punchline jab and finish you off with a beautifully crooned uppercut to your feelings, leaving you hooked all the way.
On his latest album, Day’z and Confused, Smiddy95 takes the listener on a close to the heart journey through the mind of a man trying to maintain his sanity, working to understand how to love while remaining true to himself. 7 tracks long (let’s call it a week), one could call this project an EP but that would almost feel like an unmerited demerit against what is a well-constructed, intelligently laid out presentation of an album. For Smiddy, this project was “my 2023 response to all the city girlz out there. Man’s still a city boy, but at the end of the day I still want love. I’m speaking to the romantic side of the dudes out there.”. And damn does he ever. Top to bottom, the project is a refreshingly quick 23 minutes. It might not seem like a whole lot of time, but it’s more than enough for Smiddy95 to take any listener on a complete journey, day by day, emotion by emotion.
Before we get too deep, yes, the title is somewhat inspired by the old-school classic, Dazed and Confused. Speaking more on it, Smiddy stated, “I’ve seen parts of the movie here and there. Really I liked the title, the movie poster and the whole vibe it gave off. There’s a lot of ambiguity in the way I worded the title.”. Beyond avoiding copyright issues, the wording of Day’z is meant to be an allusion to the days of the week, spending them living the best you can while being confused about everything that’s rattling around the inside of your brain but no matter what bringing it back together by the end of the week just to start it all over again. “The album is speaking on the uncertainties, the contradictions that we all live within”, Smiddy explained, a thought process best highlighted by the second song on the project, “Lie 2 Me”.
Structured so each song correlates to a day of the week, the song, “Superman” kicks off the week. A slightly chaotic track in regards to the variety of flows and melodies that Smiddy runs through, it lays out the cold, hard realities of waking up to real life on that first day after the weekend. It sets up the rest of the project well, allowing the listener to slide into Smiddy’s shoes as he is doing his best to understand himself while at the same time being self-assured enough to draw the lines in the sand to keep his own mental safe from overextending himself with a partner. Following-up is the track “Lie 2 Me”. To Smiddy, this is his absolute favorite track on the project, and one of his most honest songs he’s ever released. Although it might not seem it, the reality of it being better at times to exist in a lie rather than have the picture shattered by a cold hard truth. At the end of the day, truth is a necessity but who the fuck hasn’t wished before that they could go back before the truth dropped on their head like a brick, permanently altering (and damaging) the way we see life.Sometimes, you just want the person you love to lie to you if it’s something that will forever change the landscape of your relationship. This is one of those tracks that makes me take a sec, sit back, and really consider whether or not honesty is always the best policy. As someone who has done their fair share of fuck-shit in relationships, it can seem like being honest really is just a burden off of one’s own shoulders and puts it squarely onto someone who never asked for it and most likely didn’t deserve to deal with the situation. The track does exactly what any GREAT music should; force the listener to take a step back and look in the mirror, sit down and really think through the questions being asked/facts being stated/points being raised throughout.
“Wake Up” is the most familiar sounding Smiddy95 to those who have either been rocking with him before or heard some of his previous releases. Back in his hustle mode bag, focused solely on getting to the bag and making himself into the boss he is, Smiddy releases pure animosity towards those who decide to get in his way. That could be physically or mentally, it doesn’t matter. It’s Saturday, and Smiddy’s going to get what’s his. Personally, the preceding track, “Pinnacle” is my favorite song on the album hands down. Smooth and steezy like a slow-rotation 360 off a 25-foot kicker, the track exudes relief and joy, like reaching the end of a taxing week and knowing that you finally get to sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor.
This isn’t the most lyrically hard-hitting project that Smiddy95 has released, but what is lacking in intricate rhyme schemes is beyond replaced with the wordscapes that Smiddy paints for the listener. His emotions are conveyed clearly, by laying bare his mental states and thoughts following a rising and falling action along the course of the project (aka the week). Sonically, the engineering is crisp and while not without some vocals that could be clearer, overall the project draws the listener in and with its short run time gives them an entire YouTube shorts-series within a ride to work. Overall, this project is a very-worthy follow-up to 2022’s The 95 (Tape), finding Smiddy95 expressing yet another layer of his deep artistic bag. Go run it on all platforms, and check Smiddy out on Insta to stay up to date with his releases and other artistic projects he’s working on!
The Come-Up 