Naeem juwan Tells Moses Sumney WhyIt Was Time to Retire Spank Rock
Call it what you want. Transformation. Evolution. Reinvention. For Naeem Juwan, dropping his Spank Rock alter ego felt more like liberation. Although the name was spot-on for the type of raunchy party-rap personified on his 2006 breakthrough YoYoYoYoYo, as Juwan matured, both as an artist and a person, he discovered that being Spank Rock came with certain expectations. The persona he’d built—wild, unencumbered, and straight-up nasty—overshadowed the person who built it. Now, he performs simply as Naeem, a logical next step for a musician who wants to be no more than who he is. The result is Startisha, Juwan’s first album in nine years, a spacious, sonically curious record that sees the 39-year-old exploring new emotional and sonic ground. No two songs sound the same, and while he does revisit his Baltimore club roots on the brazen single “Woo Woo Woo,” Startisha is more notable for songs like its title track, a floating anthem written about a childhood friend that sees Juwan stretching his singing voice into a falsetto as he meditates on the complexity of Black womanhood. As Juwan tells the musician Moses Sumney, it’s the kind of song he dreamed of making when he became Naeem.