BNXN’s short-form is here, and most of it belongs to him alone. Still In Charge, six tracks on T.Y.E. / EMPIRE, lands after a stretch where his loudest moments kept arriving with another name in the frame.
Captain is still earning its keep a year on. The Sarz partnership on The Game Needs Us made that louder: “Back Outside” was one of the year’s easy summer records. Then came “Eja Meja” with Asake, already parked as this EP’s opener, and “Online,” the solo cut that said the project still needed his alone time. In a July talk with Native Mag, he mentioned a third album and shorter projects on the side. This morning is one of those shorter ones.
Four of the six cuts keep the guest list blank. After the Asake open and “Online,” the new middle runs on his voice: “16” turns discipline into a chant (“I just move like robots… since I was 16”), and “Deliberate Work” stays denser and talkier before the romance stretch. “Shamaya” brings FOLA back into the pull-up lane they already proved on “Very Soon.” “If You Like” closes the set alone, conditional romance with no second name on the door.
The title is a quiet flex. After a year of shared stages, Still In Charge is BNXN taking the short room and keeping most of it.