“Umami/Water” comes in two halves. The first part is slinky and full of low-end distortion, while the second section grafts the same textures onto a drifting ballad framework. The track appears on Le1f's Riot Boi album, which hit stores at the end of the week.
Le1f discussed the origins of the song with Complex. “I got this beat from Lunice,” he explained. “I was really inspired to make a song dedicated to my friend Juliana Huxtable. There was a lot of talk in political media, as well as clickbait, about transgender issues. Feeling like I wasn’t educated and sensitive enough to trans issues, I wanted to correct that for myself, so I delved a bit more into educating myself on the struggle and a lot of the issues that are happening in the trans community.”
The MC also described his mission with Riot Boi. “I wanted to make something that encapsulated all of these ideas and feelings that I had about the state of my generation and my community: being the first-world, being the gay community, being the gay black community, being the black community. Being, you know, all these different groups of people, I wanted to make music for us and something that was unique. Something that was fun for the clubs and for the car rides, but also showed my passion for a lot of the social and political issues going on right now.”
Listen above, and look for Riot Boi on November 13. Read Le1f's GEN F profile.
