When $ean Wire needed to “run for cover,” he took shelter in his industrious nature and sprinted directly into the studio. Following the release of December’s One Nour Chapter 1, the Boston rapper dropped a tape titled Reflections last week (April 15), a 10-track project that he pieced together during “one of [his] darkest times.”
“God testin’ just to see if I break / Love ain’t enough sometimes,” he raps on “God Testing You,” a deep-toned, reverberating number that thumps like the pulse of the record. But despite the hardship that looms in the background, Wire reaches for refuge throughout Reflections, translating pain into a new project. When he retorts “You’ll never catch me with my feet up” on “L.O.A.,” you know he’s not fibbing; Wire’s released an EP or full-length album every year since 2019.
“I am forever grateful, I curated this project going through one of my darkest times and turned it into light,” he reflected on Instagram. “This is just me being a product of my environment. I got back to my roots and just had fun w it entirely. Overthinking is completely absent from my psyche.”
Reflections isn’t a simply mirror image of Wire’s past — it’s an enlightened version of it. The tape shares echo of Boston’s musical present, too, boasting production from Massachusetts artists like Clark D, Latrell James, GIBDJ, Tony Royal, and DeevoDaGenius (plus a verse from Saint Lyor on “All We Need” that cleverly references Bad For Press).
As for the future? At this rate, there’s likely another $ean Wire project in the works. But for now, Reflections is “all we need.” Get an up-close look at the new project below.