As RAAHiiM tells it, he’s not so much making records as continuing conversations. With BUT IF iiM HONEST, the Toronto singer/producer picks up thematic threads that stretch back all the way to his breakout 2019 single “Peak (Fed Up)” and his proper 2020 debut, ii KNEW BETTER, as he continues to construct a 360-degree, 3D portrait of his life and chart his transformation from teenage dvsn associate to a full-fledged R&B auteur in his own right. BUT IF iiM HONEST captures him in the midst of a quarter-life crisis: the career pressures have gotten more intense, the romantic entanglements have gotten messier, and the dialogue has turned more brutally honest. “Your twenties are a really awkward time, because you’re really still a teenager, but you’re a teenager with complete freedom,” RAAHiiM tells Apple Music. “And unless you have some form of rigid structure, you’re going to have more mistakes than successes. With this project, I wanted to work on my ability to be as truthful in the music as possible. The greatest writers—like Future or Drake or Frank Ocean—will say things that make you go, ‘Oh, shit—I didn’t think you could say something like that. I don’t think any other artist would be comfortable saying something that vulnerable out loud.’ So, I strived to just say the uncomfortable thing.” However, thanks to RAAHiiM’s preternatural smooth croon and a kaleidoscopic production palette of foggy synth textures, chill boom-bap beats, and subliminal guitar solos, BUT IF iiM HONEST makes all the drama feel like a dream. Here, RAAHiiM reveals the truths behind some of the album’s tracks. “No More Drugs” “‘No More Drugs’ is like a prayer. During COVID, I had a lot of free time and a lot of young energy, and nowhere to put it. And so, things got really chaotic. There wasn’t one specific moment where I was like, ‘I should probably shift my day-to-day lifestyle.’ The song itself isn’t necessarily just about drugs in the literal sense—it’s about things that I was consuming at the time, whether it was being completely involved in my relationship or completely involved with the world around my relationship. All those forms of consumption ended up being grouped in with whatever substances we were using. As much as I’m talking to [my partner] in the song, I’m also speaking to myself. In the chorus, I’m saying, ‘I don’t want no more drugs. I don’t want to be consumed by all these things that I’ve allowed to affect my life for the better part of two years.” “Too Good” “I noticed, in previous works, a lot of them would be me down-talking myself, in a sense, as if I’m the issue, because a lot of my music does come from a place of looking within. And this song was the one time where I was like, ‘No, I’m not the problem—this is not my issue.’ I found that, for a period of time, I was dating a lot of women that had this Cinderella complex. That’s why I start the song with the line ‘You got all dressed up’—because vanity was such a big part of our relationship and our dynamics.” “Friend Zone”/“Lonely” “My last project, ii KNEW BETTER, was about my love life, where I was saying, ‘I knew better, but these are all the mistakes I made.’ And this next album is a continuation of that. It’s like, ‘Yeah, I knew better, but here I am again, confronting these complex issues that I’ve been faced with.’ So, in ‘Friend Zone,’ I’m holding the cards in the relationship, and I’m saying, ‘This is your problem, and this is your fault,’ but by the time you get to the next song, ‘Lonely,’ it comes full circle, and I’m saying, ‘These are the things that have bothered me about this dynamic, but I’ve still played my own role in this and done the full dance due to my own inequities or things that I feel like I lack in life.’ I crave to be understood, and at the time of writing ‘Lonely,’ I really wanted to feel like I was at eye-level with somebody.” “Spin the Block” “I wanted something that felt like church growing up, because I was very much a church kid. I have this sort of trilogy of songs that are all in the same time signature: [2019’s] ‘Peak,’ [2020’s] ‘Red Light,’ and ‘Spin the Block,’ and they’re all one story. So, I just wanted to end that tale I was telling and have one final moment. I’ve become the artist that’s known for songs in 3/4 time, and I know my listeners like when I do them, so here you go!” “Energy” “I knew I wanted something that had—no pun intended—some energy. I wanted something that just felt a little different. I feel like a lot of my music is very clean in terms of the sonics, and the bassline on ‘Energy’ is very gritty, and I loved that about it, so we tried to match that with the drum selection.” “Fable” “This song is pure, raw honesty. There was no pen and paper, there was no me sitting down and methodically thinking about it—it was true to the essence of the word ‘freestyle.’ I sat in front of the mic, and it probably took me like 20 minutes to come up with this. I wasn’t necessarily writing; it was almost like a text message that I really wanted to send, and I knew I couldn’t send it, so I just said it here at that moment.” “Famous (Lost to LA)” “I actually think I manifested this song because [the situation I describe] ended up happening exactly how I wrote it, after the fact. I actually made this song in New York, funnily enough!” “1000 Lives” “This is definitely a bit more leftfield, which is why I made it. I love that song Drake has on So Far Gone, ‘Little Bit,’ or SZA’s ‘Prom’—I love those sounds and textures. That alternative-pop sound fits so well into R&B, but a lot of R&B artists are afraid to go there. I personally love it, so I try to blend it in as much as I possibly can.” “Outside Freestyle” “COVID had just ended, and I was frustrated with somebody that I was seeing at the time because we were in that weird on-and-off stage. It was like 3 in the morning, and I was working on a bunch of records, but nothing was sounding the way I wanted it to. And so ‘Outside Freestyle’ was kind of like a Hail Mary. Again, a lot of the songs on this album are like text messages that I wanted to send, and I just never did. And this was one of them. Similar to making ‘Spin the Block,’ I had just come home, and I was very disconnected from the world around me. And I just had a certain level of aggression that I had to get out somehow.” “2007” “This song is about family. Almost everything else on this album is about overconsumption, whether it’s through me with multiple women or through substances or just the life that I live because everything’s pretty quick-paced. I’m always on the road, and it’s very hard to connect. And when everything was said and done, I still didn’t feel fulfilled in the ways that I wanted. And the last time I had this sense of wholeness was 2007, when I was like 12, 13 with my family. The song is just this understanding of how I can’t go backwards. Records like ‘Spin the Block’ or ‘Fable’ or ‘Friend Zone’ really play off nostalgia and what once was. And I think ‘2007’ is me accepting that I can’t have what once was anymore because who I was then is not who I am now.”