‘Who The Man’ is the first single of 2024 for the Hawaii-born artist and the third single from her upcoming second album.
Los Angeles-based songwriter J.Lauryn has shared her new single ‘Who The Man,’ as she continues to pivot from being a gifted songwriter for other artists to being a leading music star in her own right.
With ‘Who The Man’, J.Lauryn marks herself as one of the most intensely listenable rap artists, with an aggressive yet bouncing flow and a lot of energy. The song focuses on what it means to be at the top of your game and be able to show it; it’s full of references to J.Lauryn’s successful career as a songwriter for other artists (Post Malone, Young Thug, BTS, DJ Snake – to name a few) and how she’s ready to take the throne as a solo singer-songwriter.
‘Who The Man’ also toys with what listeners and viewers might expect from their rap frontwomen. In the lyric video for the song, J.Lauryn is dressed in a green business suit, with her eyes covered in shades and her hair firmly up. She makes clear that she’s not choosing to be revealing, per se, because she’s focused on upending what it means to ‘the man’ in the music biz. Having successfully navigated the industry over the last decade – as both a businesswoman and a creative – she wants to ensure people know she’s a cut above most female music artists you’re likely to encounter. Besides, as she says in the song’s lyrics, “I much rather keep it baggy since the pockets are fat.”
The lyric video also sees J.Lauryn amid a tropical setting, surrounded by tall green flora. As she makes clear, almost everything she does – visually, aesthetically, and musically – harkens back to her Hawaiian background, which J.Lauryn has always tried to stay connected to. In speaking about her recent work, J.Lauryn says that she has attempted to “reconnect to [her] island roots” and that she defines her sound as being “reggae music with a twist.”
‘Who The Man’ is the third single from J.Lauryn’s long-awaited second album and follows from previous tracks ‘Bad To The Bone’ and ‘Pretty Hi.’ What’s particularly exciting about these new releases is that they show how one of America’s most interesting artists finally focuses intently on her solo career.
J.Lauryn released her acclaimed debut album, Golden Year, in 2017. But she essentially put her solo ambitions on hiatus around the time the album was coming out, finding that she was getting inundated with being asked to do songwriting collabs with some of the most prominent artists in the world (a few of whom are mentioned above).
These new songs show that J.Lauryn is ready to be the music frontwoman she and her fans deserve.
