"In another life, Monaleo is toting a fuchsia briefcase into a courtroom, ready to argue on behalf of a girl who ran over her ex-allegedly. At least, that's what her mother envisioned for her: a career in criminal defense, starting by attending Houston's High School for Law and Justice. "She thought I just had a way with my words," Monaleo told Vulture in 2022. Her new mixtape still brings her familiar brash humor, but this time, she's also grappling with mortality and legacy."
"It's the topic of conversation on opener "Life After Death," where Monaleo imagines throwing hands with an opp in the afterlife over a theremin-like whine and a drum loop that could have been pulled from a YouTube beat pack. "Dignified" is more affecting, using narrative fiction to dramatize Monaleo's anxieties. "Fox News saying I was just a troubled star," she raps, predicting the headlines that might follow her hypothetical death in a car crash."
Monaleo blends brash humor with meditations on mortality and legacy across her new mixtape. She was raised with expectations of a criminal-defense career and attended Houston's High School for Law and Justice. Opener "Life After Death" pairs a theremin-like whine and a drum loop with imagined afterlife confrontations. "Dignified" uses narrative fiction to dramatize anxieties and anticipates headlines that might follow a hypothetical death. Production sometimes leans on cheesy electric-guitar swells that undercut melodrama. Her singing remains beautiful, but piano and acoustic ballads continue to be weaker elements compared with her storytelling over throwback Southern hip-hop.
Read at Pitchfork
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