Fatboi Sharif and Child Actor Release Crayola Circles

Fatboi Sharif’s voice on the opener to his latest project doesn’t offer much in the way of actual comfort. “Dry your eeeeeeyes,” he sing-speaks near the start of “Assassination Tapes,” stretching the word until it sounds less like a reassurance and more like a taunt. Behind him, producer Child Actor keeps things stripped to a drone loop, minimal and creeping. The effect lands somewhere between a lullaby and a warning.

This is familiar territory for Sharif, but the textures have shifted. His 2023 record Decay, built around Steel Tipped Dove’s phantasmagoric production, moved through rooms that felt like dim asylum corridors. Earlier this year, Let Me Out paired his dystopian visions with Driveby’s dissonant static. Comfort has never been the point. Still, Crayola Circles arrives with a different kind of tension. Where past collaborators leaned into density and distortion, Child Actor pulls back, leaving negative space Sharif fills with the same off-kilter presence that’s defined his catalog.

The project continues a run of releases where each producer pulls a different register from his delivery. There’s something unnerving about the contrast here. The beats hold still while Sharif shifts shapes across them, playful one moment and quietly threatening the next. Crayola Circles doesn’t announce itself loudly. It doesn’t need to.