Roy Kinsey is an emcee/librarian from Chicago who has been releasing music for over a decade now. He had a real breakthrough with the release of two albums, Blackie: A Story by Roy Kinsey, in 2018, and KINSEY: A Memoir, in 2020. They were deeply personal works of art about finding his place in the world as a Black queer man in Chicago and dealing with past trauma. After putting so much into these albums, it could be tough to follow that up, but Kinsey returned last year with the EP Juke Skywalker Vol. 1. Now he’s right back with Vol. 2: Soft Life.

While the name “Juke Skywalker” is obviously meant to pay homage to the unique subgenre of Chicago music, Soft Life shifts directions and takes us to more of an intimate R&B/hip hop vibe, one where Kinsey can get personal and vulnerable with it. Three of the four tracks are produced by Mike Jones, with the fourth coming from Lazerbeak, but they all share this slow jam vibe. Over the course of these four tracks, Kinsey is doing a great job of weaving between different subject material, such as navigating his own journey through hip hop as a queer artist, or talking about his love life, or just pumping himself up. Whatever it is, you can rest assured that Kinsey is doing so with a lot of honesty about his lived-in experiences, but also he’s doing it with a lot of beautiful poetry and an ear for hooks as well. The result is that for what on paper looks like a four-song filler release actually turns out to be a really substantial listen that you can keep coming back to.

Vol. 2: Soft Life is a great EP from Roy Kinsey, one that keeps revealing itself to you the more you listen to it. As always, he puts a lot of himself into the music, and this slow jam EP really suits him in terms of making this really intimate hip hop.