GrandAce is a young artist from Dayton that’s made some noise in the past couple of years, with a few EPs and singles under his belt. His latest effort is an EP called Colors in the Office.

GrandAce might be just 20 years old, but listening to this EP, you might someone a lot more experienced and mature. The youngster is producing, singing, and rhyming at a high level that sounds really polished and developed. This particular EP was born out a difficult 2017 for GrandAce, and this project is meant to shake out all of the frustration and start 2018 on a positive note. While the music on the EP gets intimate and part of GrandAce’s appeal is his honest lyricism, he makes sure to never get too self-indulgent, angry, or sad. Not that any one of those things is bad, but sometimes, and especially with younger artists, there is a tendency to lean into one particular feeling so that the EP just sounds like “2017 sucked,” and you don’t get beyond that. However, GrandAce is such a well-rounded artist, he has delivered an EP in Colors in the Office that is so fully-realized, complex, and hits on so many different emotions, you can listen to it over and over and not get tired of it. GrandAce’s production is keyboard-based, with touches of trap and drill to his drums, but he balances that with an R&B influence that brings in layers of warmth, ala Stevie Wonder or Earth, Wind and Fire. He also fills out his sound with some incredibly warm bass lines that will sound fantastic coming through your speakers. On top of all of this, GrandAce has a great pop-sensibility to his compositions, and you’ll find yourself singing along in no time. He’s got a really great delivery on the mic, with a beautiful singing voice and a great ear for harmonies, which then transitions into some great melodic flows that exists somewhere between Chance the Rapper and Slimkid3. As mentioned earlier, his lyricism is incredibly thoughtful and personal, and for someone who is working through some frustration and depression, he manages to let plenty of light and hope into the proceedings, which again just leads to this incredibly well-balanced EP.

I don’t know all the details of what happened with GrandAce in 2017, but this young man has started out 2018 on an incredibly strong note with Colors in the Office EP. I can’t wait to see what else this promising musician is capable of, because I get the impression that he’s just getting started.