Enthralling with a hip-hop sound that exudes both hazy summer atmospherics and emotively gripping lyricism within memorable vocal flows, June Was Something is the latest album from Toronto-based artist Rayhan. Catching our ears already this year with the album uLove: Rayhan’s Version and EP Warming Up: Rogue Freestyles, the artist continues to impress with a prolific run of content that compels consistently in its melodic, heartfelt hip-hop productions.
The album enamors with its conveying of a particular place and time, being Toronto during the summer — where the city’s setting becomes pivotal in retracing memories of both daytime and late-night escapades. Whether in humid streetcar rides or nocturnal adventures at rooftop bars, venturing from Queen Street to Victoria Park station, Toronto’s identity influenced the album’s captivating sound — conveyed clearly on the opening track’s proclamation: “My memories are etched up in these streets.”
Opening with poetic immediacy, “G CLASS” highlights the emotional and thematic tone of the album: a reflection on duality, memory, and survival. Rayhan blends philosophical musings with street realism, layering Toronto-specific references (“mandem,” “6ix side”) into a broader meditation on identity. The beat’s airy, simmering synth ethereality bolsters evident lyrical weight. The ensuing “CLARITY” intrigues in its balancing of soulful backing vocal hooks and steady lead introspection, conveying vulnerability (“I feel everything severely”) alongside confidence in wearing one’s heart on their sleeve: “Being sensitive is not a weakness / It’s a rarity.”
A standout track both lyrically and thematically, “New Reflections 2” unveils a haunting beat crafted from ghostly synths and dreamy guitar strums, evoking the late-night stillness of a city that never fully sleeps. Rayhan lays bare the emotional aftermath of addiction, heartbreak, and disillusionment: “I was drifting / Broken hearted in the throes of addiction / My woes caught me, I was slippin.” The track captures a mind in flux — self-aware of one’s own distorted emotional state, yet sharpening into focus — embodying the album’s depictions of pain, reflection, and quiet determination.
Excelling with its stylistic switch-up into twangy country tones and rising vocal intensity, “Perfect Days (stoned)” is another example of Rayhan’s riveting songwriting. The warming melodic beckoning — “let’s go get stoned” — plays like a comforting blanket between the more fervent vocal pace, admitting “I’m living on the fringes.” The album shows a commanding sound across both intense hip-hop and pop-touched approachability.
The album concludes with enveloping qualities in “Mano Sundaresan Freestyle,” infusing an eerie, autumnal glimmering of keys as intense vocal layers ruminate on performative allyship and class-cloaked gatekeeping within Toronto’s creative ecosystem. It’s a reminder that in a city as diverse and complex as Toronto, artistic legitimacy can’t be bought or borrowed; living and experiencing is essential, instead. With June Was Something, Rayhan emits an evident appreciation and lived-in reflection of Toronto, set alongside magnetic beats and productions.
