If you’ve been keeping tabs on outstanding Nashville rhymesmith FU Stan over the past couple of years, you’re probably used to him digging in hard. Many of the best moments on his 2020 solo EP Lockdown and his 2021 BeHoward collab Claude & Ray are built on a foundation Stan creates by absolutely dominating the beat with his athletic bars. On his latest single, however, he shifts into another gear entirely.
If you didn’t happen to catch “What’s the Vibes” before Valentine’s Day, think of it as the bittersweet truffle you happened to miss in the Whitman’s Sampler. The track is a new-school slow jam about navigating the twists and turns of a romantic relationship that’s been going on a while. In fact, it’s been long enough that the involved parties know they need to take it to the next level or decide it was fun while it lasted.
You wouldn’t be totally wrong if you called it “Stan’s Drake song,” but that doesn’t capture all the nuances. Once he’s set the scene with some melancholy bars, Stan picks up the pace and lays out some aspects of his personality that he thinks might be contributing to the situation. “I can't front / When I'm scrolling my feed / And I see you out with someone else I get jealous,” he raps. “If you're purposely doing it, waiting for me to react / You'll be waiting forever / And that's not being spiteful at all / I'd just rather be careful than careless.”
Check it out on your favorite streaming service via FU Stan’s linktree and follow him on Instagram for the latest info. You’ve also got a chance to catch him in person next Thursday, Feb. 24. He’ll join fellow Nashville hip-hop aces Petty and Namir Blade atop a packed, can’t-miss bill that includes SeddyMac (check out the recent music vid for his thoughtful single "Observe"), CamFerg and VibeOut and host AC Noel. GA tickets start at $15, though a $20 VIP ticket gets you into a pre-show hang with Stan, Petty and Blade — not a bad place to get some solid perspective on the state of hip-hop in Music City.
