Amorphous

In seventh grade, the producer-filmmaker-remixer-all-around-ball-of-creative-energy known as Amorphous was outed—a scarring experience, for sure. But for Amorphous, it was also an opportunity: If everyone already knew who he was, why not celebrate it? He’d already started messing around with rudimentary production software, eventually graduating to crossfades of classic and modern R&B: Luther Vandross and Rihanna, Aaliyah and Solange—not where other kids his age were at, maybe, but that’s the point. “I think that for me, the way that I expressed myself—even in the way of dealing with certain traumatic events—was just me, creating,” he told Apple Music in his Up Next interview. “That was my outlet.” Born Jimir Reece Davis, he started beatboxing, singing, and dancing as a toddler, absorbing a history of R&B that spanned everything from Kirk Franklin and Brandy to The Neptunes and KAYTRANADA. (When people ask him how he knows so much about older music, he laughs: “It’s like, huh,” he said, “I was just grown up with taste like that.”) Listen to 2021’s Things Take Shape and you hear a brightness and exuberance at odds with the introspection of most bedroom R&B producers, not to mention a sense of history that has earned him intergenerational respect: LL Cool J, Missy Elliott, John Legend. He’s moved forward plenty, but he still holds on to the feeling that got him started: “The joy of it. The joy of discovery as a child. Learning that you could create new sounds and, you know, create a whole story with what you do with yourself.”