Singer-songwriter Moses Sumney charts a defiantly singular path through the music industry of today. A true maverick and bona fide genre chameleon, Sumney bucks expectations at every turn. He remains – seemingly by choice – one small degree removed from the center of the public eye despite a prolific career dating back to 2014, and numerous high-profile collaborations with the likes of Sufjan Stevens, Skrillex, and Chance the Rapper. In all that time he has released just two full-length albums, delivering the rest of his sizable catalog via a steady stream of EPs and singles. Paramore frontwoman Hayley Williams, on the other hand, has been (with or without her band) dead-center in the limelight for decades, these days being considered something of an icon in her own right. On a purely superficial level these two might seem like an unlikely pairing, but their collaboration on the recently released single “I Like It I Like It” is beyond synergistic, with each artist elevating the other’s performance in ways that might surprise the casual fan of either.
“I Like It I Like It” is a soulful, almost sinister little helping of R&B built on a roiling, slinky beat and a positively seductive bassline, topped with luscious, chime-like keys and the occasional clarion-call synth. Both singers join in reverb-drenched harmony throughout, splitting the song’s two primary verses between them before ending once more in perfect tandem. Sumney’s entry on the first verse is rich and evocative, dripping with fervent expression and amorous tension. The overall effect recalls Prince in his later years, or any of his various collaborators and inheritors – Thundercat, in particular, comes to mind. And if Sumney is here playing the role of “The Artist,” then Williams is his Sheena Easton, delivering the song’s second verse in a cadence somewhere between sultry and seraphic. Those possessed of only a passing familiarity with Williams’ vocal chops might be taken aback by how deftly she navigates these lush intonations, but as any Paramore fan would tell you, “Miss Hayley” is a talent not to be underestimated. In short, “I Like It I Like It” is an unabashedly sexy affair, ribald lyricism and all, ultimately lifted above mere licentiousness by the power of its groove and the passion of its virtuoso performers.
The video created to accompany “I Like It I Like It” is something of an hybrid between a standard music video and the “Lyric Video” it labels itself as. It certainly does just what it says on the tin – the song’s risqué poetry is spelled out front and center just as one might expect, but for the fact that it’s superimposed over various shots of Sumney and Williams, at times stoic and staring, and at times miming the words like in a music video proper. It’s a unique take on the idea of a “lyric video,” providing something of a middle ground between the more utilitarian creations typically billed as such, and the film-craft in brief that makes music videos stand alone as an artform unto themselves. One wonders if this concise hybrid of form and function might be adopted by other artists in the future – short yet high-concept visual snapshots that function as both an independent work, and as a kind of baked-in B-roll seemingly tailor-made to be spliced to Instagram Reels or Spotify Canvas.