The acclaimed singer-songwriter tells Rolling Stone the songs are about ’embracing duality’
Brent Faiyaz is back with two singles named for two very different, very famous fictional characters, but the singer tells Rolling Stone an important throughline connects them. “Everything I’m creating right now is about showing [a] range of concepts, principles, emotions, and experiences,” he said via email. “Innocence versus Indecency. Vulnerability versus guardedness. These tracks capture the core of that.”
One, called “Peter Pan,” is a dreamy love song, where Faiyaz coos, “Darling open up your window and take my hand ‘cause there ain’t nowhere we can’t go.” Meanwhile, “Tony Soprano” is a melancholy slow burn where Faiyaz laments the perils of his fame and success like a tortured mob boss. “These hoes mad funny/Bitch I’m not that funny,” he says, thinking of the women who indulge him for their own gain. “Go ‘head, laugh for me/Know you want that bag from me.” Through the track, he also takes comfort in what he can provide for himself.
“I’m embracing duality,” Faiyaz tells Rolling Stone about the two-pack. “‘Tony Soprano’” is about tapping into that leader mentality – handling real-life pressure, running my own label, building a team. ‘Peter Pan” is outside of all that, free from limits. Full of wonder. They might seem like opposites, but that’s what I’m living.”
Faiyaz’s last solo single was 2023’s “WY@,” a single from his mixtape Larger Than Life. At the time, he told Rolling Stone’s Larisha Paul that the record, “reflects having access and opportunity, and having to say no to certain shit — or the inability to say no to certain shit. That record is about addiction in a way, shape, or form, but more from the perspective of submitting to it versus fighting against it. It touches on addiction in a way that makes it a little more seductive.”