Lamar Woods gives a fun, 19-track tour through hip-hop and panic in Highly Sensitive Person
By Kurt Beyers
In the first song of his new album, Highly Sensitive Person, Lamar Woods introduces the theme in the first line of his rap: “I had my first panic attack at 35. I thought I was gonna die.”
Looks dire, right? But listen to the intro about holding the world together with love, followed by a chiming, R&Bish, slightly funky build up, then get the finish to the line about dying, which is, “like Ryan at the end of Drive,” and you don’t know what’s coming next but you know it ain’t gonna be dire.
Lamar, who has had a successful career in television and movies, has continued his return to music with this fun, funny, hugely diverse, 19-track hip-hop exploration of panic and anxiety.
His album is all about mental health, but he does it in style, and many musical styles, and with humor, including three hilarious skits.
The single released to tease the album, “Don’t Give Up On Me,” featured one aspect of high sensitivity: relationship avoidance.
“I was like, ‘Oh, let me write a song about how I’m always basically breaking up with people before we even get close to starting a relationship,’ and I thought, ‘This feels like a fun song,’ maybe I’ll sing a little bit on the hook, and we got my boy Charlie to play the sax, and, yeah, it was a fun track.”
And these words don’t come easy to me
And not know I can be avoidant
And not make some bad choices
Don’t give up on me
Soon, he may want to bring out another single from the album, “Beautiful Black Boy,” a harder-edged but still funny rap track on the challenges of being a Black artist in America, ”and feeling like I’m not enough because I’m Black in America.”
The treatment is not heavy. It is set to a quick-time beat and melody and has one of his favorite lines: “I don’t wanna die before I see Trump locked up.”
The idea for the album came a few years ago when he was going through “mental health stuff.”
“I was having anxiety and panic attacks, and it was affecting my work and affecting relationships, and I couldn’t figure out what was the driving thing.”
He wanted to explore in an album the various aspects of what he was going through, and the title came to him: Highly Sensitive Person.
“I thought, ‘What a cool title,’ just being funny. Then, when I talked to my therapist about it, she was like, ‘Yeah. You qualify for that.’ I was like, ‘What? That’s a real thing?’”
And it turns out, yeah, it’s a real thing. The album deals with it in a lot of different ways.
“It’s a blend of everything of who I am. That’s probably why every song is so different. I like all styles of music, all types of hip-hop, so, I end up doing a sample taste of every version of me on the album.”
Even the only cover song on the album, Daniel Johnston’s “True Love Will Find You in the End,” is a cover embedded in an original Lamar Woods hip-hop creation.
The album has lots of rap in various styles. The music includes folk, Motown, R&B, pop, a little funk vibe in places, and features a lot of different artists — Curtis Dro, Open Mike Eagle, Phil Augusta Jackson, Onea, Tony Baker, actor Mike Mitchell and more.
“I started doing projects as a way to collab with people who I’ve been a fan of for a while — just trying to find different ways to collaborate with them.”
Years ago, he moved to Los Angeles for a career in Hollywood as a writer and filmmaker.
His writing credits include episodes of “Grand Crew,” “Brooklyn 99,” “Single Parents,” “New Girl” and “Survivor’s Remorse.” He also co-wrote and starred in the movie It’s a Party.
In Los Angeles, he has also helped form an artist collective called DSO, which includes Phil A. Jackson, Carl Tart, and Colton Dunn.
He got back into music during the pandemic. Since then he has put out several singles, two EPs and another album, Wine Bars.
Highly Sensitive Person, as fun and funny as it is, as rich as it is in the variety of musical experience it provides, has a serious purpose.
“All these different aspects of the album still tie back to that first line on the first song, ‘I had my first panic attack at 35,’ which is pretty old to have to figure out what it is.”
Lamar does not pretend to have it all figured out, nor does he claim to be an expert.
“I’m exploring it in real time,” he said.
“If people can relate to that, I think that would make me happy that the album did what it was supposed to do.”
“And if they like a couple dope bars here and there.”
You can find a lot of dope bars by connecting to Lamar Woods on all platforms for new music, videos, and social posts.
Highly Sensitive Person - Spotify
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