Song You Need: Lil Tecca is calm, cool and collected as ever

The FADER’s “Songs You Need” are the tracks we can’t stop playing. Check back every day for new music and follow along on our Spotify playlist.

TEC by Lil Tecca is an excellent album from start to finish, complete with deliciously hermetic song transitions. But if you have to deny yourself the simple pleasure of a full listen-through, you could skip ahead to “Dead or Alive.” Wrapped around a meteoric streak of a synth, you can practically see the flailing limbs of concert moshpits as soon as you hit play.

Tecca stays calmly locked onto the drums, crescendoing from epiphanic intonations (“I realized the ho still on my mind, I guess the bitch divine”) to politely shouted bars (“I know you lose 'em how you get 'em, I won't take your bitch”). It’s like he’s expending just enough energy to make sure you can hear every word over the beat, a neon earworm courtesy of 4OUR, Taz Taylor, and Rio Levya (who also produced highlight single “500lbs”).

He brings things back down to a near-whisper on the bridge: “I was rocking BAPEs when I seen y’all n****s rockin’ Toms/When you feel like this, no you wouldn’t even change your flaws.” Lil Tecca sounds totally serene, like flexing on you was incidental. “N****s thinkin’ that they gang, they not even squad,” he cackles on the hook. When you’re winning like this, you don’t need to compete.