Even on the heels of a fresh album release, Perry Maysun always has a new project up his sleeve. The prolific Westchester rapper, who often spends days at a time cooking up beats and verses in his room, churned out a new release every month in 2023, and he doesn’t show signs of stopping any time soon. “I love making music and I have ideas 24/7,” he says, “but I don’t like putting out loose singles. It just doesn’t feel as fulfilling as knowing all the songs have a home. I’m a sucker for an album.” It comes as no surprise, then, that even Maysun’s latest collaborations have given way to larger releases: a partnership with fellow New York rapper Young Wabo has already yielded a mixtape (Warping Time) and a full-length album (Peace Blessings Be), which both boast introspective, poetic verses over soul-lifting alternative hip hop grooves. “We made Warping Time in my room in like four days,” Maysun remembers. “And then we started working on Peace Blessings Be, too. He stayed in my house for like a month. We were just creating, creating, creating. It was like lightning in a bottle.”
Not every song he creates makes it onto an album like Peace Blessings Be, but Maysun is a firm believer that every track deserves a home. Songs that didn’t originally find their way onto full albums can be found on Maysun’s Reverie mixtapes, a series of projects that serve as a refuge for the sonic misfits. “I love these songs, they’re great,” Maysun says. “But they’re like orphans. Reverie is my song orphanage. I have a great time puzzling them together and making a beautiful sequence of songs.” The collections range in size—Reveries I and II are quick 6-song EPs, while III and IV make up full-length albums. For Maysun, there’s no point in holding onto the music he makes: it belongs out in the world. “People think that if you put out too much music, it saturates you,” he reflects. “But you can’t saturate yourself. Why would you want to be less of yourself? When a color is saturated, it’s the most pungent.” To fans who might find his relentless release schedule a bit dizzying, Maysun has only one thing to say: “Keep up.”