Last year, Kendrick Lamar and Dave Free announced the launch of their media company PgLang after leaving TDE. While Kendrick has one last album left under the label, he got his own company off the ground the right way, releasing his cousin Baby Keem’s debut album The Melodic Blue. As the rollout for The Melodic Blue wound down early this year, fans were excited to see what PgLang would do next. They weren’t disappointed; the label quickly introduced its next signee, Los Angeles rapper Tanna Leone.
Tanna quickly established himself as a fitting addition to the label’s roster with tracks like “With The Villains,” “Lucky,” “Picasso,” and “Death N’ Taxes.” Now, he’s followed up with his debut album, Sleepy Soldier, which dropped today. Consisting of 14 tracks, the album finds Tanna going solo throughout, despite ostensibly having access to big-name collaborators like Kendrick and Keem. Instead, he works to establish himself as a charismatic rapper and a burgeoning star in his own right, addressing his chaotic upbringing and insecurities.
In a new interview on Complex, Tanna explained what he wanted from Sleepy Soldier. “Honestly, my goal was just to put my best foot forward and show people my range and my diversity,” he said. “I’m not interested in being put in a box or people attempting to categorize me as one thing or another. In reality, it’s pretty normal for a person to be able to change their faces depending on what room they’re going into. We all do it. So as an artist, I just wanted to be that. I wanted everybody to recognize my creativity and my ability to move around and change clothes and change hairstyles, and everybody knows it’s still me being authentic to me.”
You can listen to Sleepy Soldier below.