It’s been less than a year since Chicago rapper Taylor Bennett self-released his last EP, Be Yourself, but it looks like he’s been itching to outdo big brother Chance The Rapper in quantity, at least. His new EP, The American Reject, released today after a week of teases on his Instagram page, his third in just three years (with 2017’s Restoration Of An American Idol completing the trilogy). With a cover reminiscent of Chance’s 10 Day Project and a tracklist featuring appearances from Chance, Mr. Hudson, Supa Bwe, and Ty Dolla Sign, the eight-track EP is Taylor’s way of pointing out how similar we all are, despite our apparent differences.
“I realized to myself that what I want to do with my music is to bring people together, and I think the best way to bring people together sometimes is to even out the playing field,” he told Lyrical Lemonade in an interview about the new project.
“I think that very often we try to use things like skin color, money, materialistic assets and others like that to say that we are better than other people, but I think that even people who have money buy these things because they feel and want to be accepted by a different class or different people. It brought me to the overall idea that all of us are rejects and we really all don’t belong, but that’s a part of being unique, different, and standing out. I wanted to further that idea and get more people to understand that even KKK members are rejects because you can be accepted by some people and hated by others. Everyone deals with it: transsexuals, black kids, white kids, doctors, everyone.”
The American Reject is out now. Check it out above.
