Over It

Editors’ Notes Summer Walker doesn’t look the way she sounds. The Atlanta singer’s face tattoos are more in line with the aesthetic of her hometown’s many hip-hop superstars than that of ’90s golden-era R&B acts like Mary J. Blige, Xscape, and SWV, but the makeover feels right for the moment. On Walker’s heavily anticipated Over It, which follows her 2018 breakout mixtape Last Day of Summer—as well as the CLEAR EP—the singer recontextualizes some familiar-sounding frustrations and reckonings about hard-earned romantic truths by way of throwback sounds and contemporary real talk.

“Did I ever ask you to take me to go shopping in Paris?/Or go sailing overseas and just drape me in Gucci?” she asks on the Bryson Tiller duet “Playing Games.” “No, I never had an issue, go to the club with your boys, baby/I never wanted you to stay too long, just wanted you to show me off.” Later in the song she borrows a few bars from “Say My Name,” Destiny’s Child’s eternally catchy ballad of the underappreciated lover. Over It is indeed peppered with references to the R&B of Walker’s childhood: Producer London On Da Track utilizes a vintage 702 sample for “Body” and builds the beat for “Come Thru,” which features Usher, on the keyboard line of the ATL icon’s 1997 “You Make Me Wanna...” The album also boasts guest spots from Drake, 6LACK, A Boogie wit da Hoodie, and long-dormant moody-R&B hero PARTYNEXTDOOR.

The vantage point of Over It, though, is wholly the singer’s own. The exchanges in Walker’s verses sound like they could have been grafted directly from text messages or pulled from a FaceTime conversation. “Am I really that much to handle?” she opines on the title track. “You wanna be a good friend to me/Why don’t you pour up that Hennessy/Light up a few blunts so we can get high,” she sings on “Tonight.” “Too much Patrón will have you calling his phone/Have you wanting some more,” she advises on “Drunk Dialing…LODT.” Walker’s words are so relatable they seem destined to become social media captions. Over It, then, is a project whose title betrays its maker’s constitution, one certain only to leave fans wanting more.