At the height of an era where "artists-gone-viral" tend to lose direction and pivot into a career of continuously trying to outshine the short-lived experience of being an internet sensation, here emerges an artist who is deciding to break the cycle and invent her own rules. There is a lot to be said about the hitmaker Benee, who received incredible attention for her breakout single "Supalonely" during the all-too-well-known TikTok buzz of the COVID-19 pandemic. Before this global success, Benee had already been receiving a noticeable amount of attention for her earlier releases through the music platform SoundCloud. What drew listeners to Benee from the start was her ability to completely ignore the pressure of conforming to trends and never show up as anyone but her unique self.
What truly allows Benee to stand out in the slew of artists all trying to be different from the rest is how shamelessly she wears her personality and is able to replicate it in her music. "I'm like a snail, you're a guy, kinda mad, I can't fly," she remarks in the song "Snail" from her debut album. We are given a glimpse into a mind so welcoming of weirdness and awkward confessions that it is hard not to fall in love with it.
Following an entire album of songs so representative of her personality, Benee shifted gears to give us Lychee, a seven-track EP that is overflowing with emotion and vulnerability. Lychee is an exploration of sound and approaches storytelling in a way that is unfamiliar but still able to execute her vision immaculately. Beginning with the cheeky "Beach Boy," we get thrown into the daydreams of someone yearning for the kind of fling you fantasize about and forget the next day. It is a rose-colored song with a big imagination, and it segues perfectly into the real world of the rest of the EP.
What follows is a confessional of songs filled with the all-consuming feelings of worry, confusion, and resentment. "Never Ending" comes in with full force to inflict a ravaging cut straight to the heart. The line "It's funny when you lose your bearings, but you didn't see it coming" is a mere calm before the storm of trap beats and flashy lyrics that make up the chorus. It recounts how sometimes the only thing that comes of a relationship is a sour taste in your mouth. In the fallout grows a rediscovering of the self, and the courage to start all over again.
The EP reaches its climax with a crescendo of clashing synths and angst in the final track, "Make You Sick." At nearly seven minutes long, it is a roller coaster of clever disses met with confidence, painting a messy picture that sounds exactly how a breakup looks… yeah. It is her coming undone and finding the pieces to be put back together. It is worn so unashamedly and refuses to exclude any bitterness or lingering heartbreak. Somehow the chaos falls perfectly in place, and the song circles right back to a repetition of the opening lines. She is victoriously coming back to herself, and it is an apt conclusion to the brief but tumultuous collection of songs that is Lychee.
