The most surprising collaboration on 13 Months of Sunshine is not the one with The Streets or the one with 454. It is this one: Aminé and Katie Crutchfield, who records as Waxahatchee. Crutchfield is from Birmingham, Alabama, made her name in lo-fi folk-punk, and spent the last several years stepping into a more polished Americana lane with albums like Saint Cloud and Tigers Blood . What she is doing on a Portland rapper's album requires a moment of processing before it clicks completely. Then it clicks completely. "History" works because Aminé has always had an ear for melody that runs closer to singer-songwriter territory than most of his peers. Crutchfield's voice and his coexist naturally here, like two people who have been writing in adjacent rooms for years without knowing it. The production holds space for both of them without flattening either. We are always paying attention when genre fences get knocked down this casually. "History" is not a stunt. It is just a good song built by two people who trusted each other enough to make it.
Aminé, Waxahatchee