Photo Credit: Zach Ellis

Earlier this year, Boston rapper Maeko dropped his EP Good Grief, a record that charted his experiences with “loss, acceptance, and finding hope” over five songs. To follow that up, he’s released the standalone single “Lifelike,” a track that builds on the narrative of Good Grief to offer a glimpse into the future of Maeko’s work. Timed for release on his birthday, “Lifelike” is a song about “being reinvigorated and coming out the other end a different person & artist,” and shows promising insight into what “the start of that journey” ahead of Maeko looks like.

Maeko intends for “Lifelike” to represent the next steps for him after the “extremely heavy, transformative time period [of] a lot of loss” that inspired Good Grief. The song accomplishes this tone with hazy synths that evoke a melancholic and reflective mood, as if considering what brought Maeko to this point to set the scene. Structurally, the song’s relatively quiet ending feels like a reflection of Maeko’s own act of “really set[ting] firm intentions” after putting Good Grief out into the world. Though the song stays in the same emotional space for its entire length, the track’s culmination in its mellow hook after two harried verses makes “Lifelike” feel like a calm exhale after a bout of anxiety.

Lyrically, Maeko puts that intentionality and focus at the forefront in every line of the song. Featuring guest vocals from Malden-based R&B singer Sleeping Bela, “Lifelike” quickly establishes its relation to Good Grief with her repeated refrain, “What’s your life like?” Moving from the bereavement-centered lyrics of Good Grief, “Lifelike” takes a more forward-looking progression at the life Maeko aims to lead after the losses he’s faced and how he got to where he is with his music today. All this comes with the acknowledgement that there are still difficulties to work through to get to this point. Maeko captures this angle through a frantically-paced flow on the second verse as Maeko rattles off his fears of feeling like he’s “running out of time” and that “a part of [him] that kind of wants to die,” before expressing gratitude that “luckily, the majority does want to stay alive.” But, as on Good Grief, the persistence through these adversities wins out, as Maeko uses a line about his spark of life never going out to build in an interpolation of The Smiths’ “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out.” Like the outro on Good Grief track “Weep,” Maeko doesn’t shy away from the trials of processing and grieving, but nonetheless emerges with an optimistic outlook on where he’s heading.

Stream Maeko’s “Lifelike” below, and visit his website http://www.frommaekowith.love/ to keep up with his releases.