When Daniel Aminé Avery was a teenager, he dreamed of being a basketball star. He fuelled this passion into an early musical output of diss tracks taking aim at rival high school teams. Getting dropped from the team in sophomore year put paid to the Portland, Oregon native’s ambitions, but what the sport represented for him still finds its way into his music more than a decade down the line. On Aminé’s second studio album, Limbo, the death of basketball megastar Kobe Bryant in January 2020 hangs heavy. On second track “Woodlawn,” the artist claims the Lakers guard “was like a dad” to him. Generally known for his buoyant and irreverent delivery, Aminé appears more sombre and steady than before, with his style demonstrably affected by this tragedy and any number of other personal and cultural shifts.

Bryant and his untimely death become emblematic of Aminé’s broader contemplation in Limbo over the loss of foundational icons. On the skit “Kobe,” comedian Jak Knight articulates this idea explicitly by proclaiming that his “innocence died” with the NBA icon’s passing. For 26-year-old Aminé and the cohort of young collaborators who appear on this record, the disappearance of these aspirational touchstones which helped them form their identities and dreams in youth signals a difficult step into adulthood. Without those guiding lights, the next step can feel impossible to navigate, justifying the album’s title. This is expressed in Limbo’s decidedly moodier sound, which stands in contrast to the playfulness and whimsy of Aminé’s 2017 debut Good for You. Here, he uses of a toolkit rather than a toy box to build tracks. It’s an obvious shift in both the music and in the rapper’s vocal delivery throughout.

Whereas Good for You is springy and scattershot — bouncing between hyperactive bangers with juvenile abandon — Limbo is sturdier, slower and generally more consistent. First track “Burnden” opens with a howling vocal loop and slinky guitar on the instrumental, with Aminé spitting forthrightly “when your skin darker, shit gets harder.” His delivery is steadier and more traditional than before, as he reflects on how it feels to grow up in a harsh and uncertain world. The track’s soulful chorus adds a note of melancholy persists across the record. Many cuts are undeniably chilled-out and summery, harking to hip hop’s hazy 90s heyday, but they are decidedly not party-oriented hits. There’s swagger, sure, as the braggadocio kicks into Aminé’s flow over a wavy trap beat on “Woodlawn,” but the rapper can’t escape that urge to reflect. Neatly utilising the dual meaning of its title, “Roots” sees him mining collective Black ancestry and legacy while promising to “bring my flowers to the world” as an ascendant gospel choir brings the track to a massive, ostentatious climax.

A more muted approach doesn’t dilute Aminé’s sonic creativity, as can be heard in the intertwining of a mournful Spanish guitar with a snappy 808 beat on “Can’t Decide” or the chopped up choral samples that give “Shimmy” its backbone. It’s a more pared-back affair, with most embellishments quietly reinforcing the steady quality of these early songs rather than taking over entirely. This change of tack does mean that a number of the tracks aren’t quite as immediate as some of Aminé’s previous highlights, but there are still obvious standouts. Ruminating on failed and difficult relationships (a recurring theme on the album), “Compensating” sees a gritty beat playing off against tropical steel pans — Aminé himself leans into his new, sadder delivery but cedes keenly to a more aggressive verse from guest Young Thug at the track’s apex.

Perhaps the most thrilling track on Limbo is its most propulsive, but also the most impressive articulation of the mid-20s nether-space Aminé and his contemporaries find themselves navigating. A frantic, low, shifting bass beat opens “Pressure in my Palms” with a notably more energetic Aminé nimbly weaving together touchstones of mainstream white culture to tap into the friction that comes when Black artists are forced to justify their place amid a hostile cultural establishment. A duel between acerbic lyrical acrobat Vince Staples and English conscious rapper Slowthai forms the stripped-back tune’s centrepiece before Aminé returns to bookend the piece over a blissed-out vocal from Bree Runway that recalls the ethereal sound of FKA Twigs or Björk.

The album’s second half is less distinctive but more coherent, with a consistently slow-funk, live-instrumental sound and an intent focus on the personal rather than the social. It allows Aminé to exercise his admirable singing voice, as on the lusty, sun-drenched duet “Easy,” which he shares with Summer Walker, or on the yearning chorus of lethargic breakup trap number “Riri.” Aminé is at his most earnest on the piano-led “Mama,” in which he pays tribute (as many rappers tend to) to the support and patience of his mother, or contemplative closer “My Reality,” in which he attempts to reconcile the inertia that comes with success and the realisation of childhood dreams. A lot of the work here is unsubtle, but slickly-realised. This slightly fuzzier approach clears up on a track like “Becky” which uses a relationship with a white woman to navigate ideas of unconscious racism, or on “Fetus” as Aminé tries to justify bringing a child into a world as broken as this one.

The death of a personal hero is a potent moment in a young person’s life — left alone in an uncertain world without a role model for reassurance. For Aminé, this moment has brought a sobriety that wasn’t necessarily apparent in his earlier work. With this, Limbo lacks some of the irreverent charm that drew listeners to the rapper in the first place, but there’s still plenty of perceptiveness and creativity at the heart of his approach even in this less certain, more contemplative next phase.

Rhys Handley (@RhysHandley2113) is a journalist and film writer from Yorkshire in England. Now based in London, he is the biggest Talking Heads fan who still hasn’t seen Stop Making Sense.