You’re at a party, tossing drinks back, pretending you know how to dance, and suddenly, the aux is passed to you. A pit grows in your stomach.
“Play something good,” your friend shouts over the speakers, but you can’t quite make out the words. The anxiety starts to works its way up. Your head gets a little foggy. Time slows down to a trickle, and then you begin feel alone, so alone, abandoned in the middle of a vast sea to be violently eaten by the jaws of criticism if you play the wrong thing.
Well, rest easy warriors of summer, because The Knockturnal is launching you a lifeboat with its “Summer Bops,” a weekly column dedicated to saving your ass whenever you need to impress that cute barista with the rare vinyl collection, or need that perfect song to complete that perfect party playlist you stayed up till 4am curating.
Most of us have at least one existential crisis in our lifetime. In these moments of acute introspection, when we reckon with our insignificance on a cosmic dimension, we might ask ourselves dangerous questions that threaten the walls protecting our feeble egos: Are we merely puppets dancing on strings? Have I lost my chance at achieving my dreams? Who and what is my authentic self? These are the questions that keep Bay-area born rapper-producer JOON up at night. But instead of unloading his emotional baggage to a therapist, he rather take those anxieties to the trap house for your pleasure.
His latest single “Pneumonia” is enveloped in this spirit of self-questioning. As JOON faces his own inner malaise, he compels others to examine the worthiness of their own lives, to ask those harrowing questions we burrow deep inside the catacombs of our own consciousness. It’s somber stuff, but not without a sense of whimsy. “Pneumonia” is still a fun song, the type of banger that will help you cut through the dizzying August humidity with its wobbling bass and scintillating melodies.
Artwork via author.
