Pity Party

Summer 2020 may have been canceled for obvious reasons, but there was still no lack of candidates for Song of the Summer honors. And the most unlikely contender was “Stunnin’,” a cheeky retro ’80s synth-rap bop that blew up on TikTok and allowed 20-year-old North Carolina-based Nepalese Canadian producer Abhinav Bastakoti—aka Curtis Waters—to quit his job at a smoothie shop and sign a major-label deal. But while the self-aggrandizing rhymes of “Stunnin’” were clearly played for laughs, Pity Party reveals the more sobering flip side of that braggadocious behavior. Like fellow Canadian sensation Powfu, Waters bridges the Warped Tour and SoundCloud-rap generations, whether owning up to his most self-destructive tendencies in electro-pop-punk sprints (“6Pills”) or tending to his broken heart in acoustic emo-rap confessionals (“Toxic”). But with the digital New Wave blitz “System,” Waters shifts his attention away from his own problems toward the poverty and police brutality plaguing the streets of America, providing a potent reminder that the revolution will not be TikToked.