With lines like I got a head full of mischief and a car full of hoes embedded inside a radio-ready hook, "Own Man" feels more or less like a straightforward summer party anthem. But the track by 21-year-old Chicago emcee Alex Wiley (off his just-released Village Party mixtape), is actually a little bit more emotional than that; the Odd Couple-produced beat features a prominent, pitched-down sample of Sean Paul's gooey "Hold My Hand," and Wiley utters wistful lines like: I swear to God the way the sun comes off the lake/ reminds me of the ghost. Even Mick Jenkins, another young Chicago rapper who spits out some great lines on the second half of the track, sounds a little torn up on his verse. The official video, which features footage of Jenkins and Wiley playing simultaneously on five TV screens, nicely pairs with the tone of the song: it's not straight-up celebratory but it's not entirely self-serious, either.
