Shape Up

Shape Up is both an ending and a beginning. Quite literally, it is the finale of the trilogy she’s been working on since her career took off. It began in 2017 with her debut album, Wash & Set. The second of the three-album run, Acrylic, was released just a year later. But between that project and Shape Up, Leikeli took her foot off the gas and instead focused on personal growth, health, and refining a positive mental makeup. The result is her strongest album to date, a stunning proclamation of individual self-love and general Black love, an exclamation point on one of the strongest three-album runs in modern rap. It’s bound to usher in a new era for the cerebral, whimsical artist.

“Shape Up truly feels like my first album. It’s the craziest feeling,” says Leikeli on the new project. “I feel like this is my first time out and no one knows me. I’m finally about to embark on a journey where I’m diving into my fans and they’re diving into me. It’s a fun process.” This is the origin story that serves as an antithesis to wrapping up her trilogy. With Shape Up, Leikeli is bursting at the seams with creativity, like a newly unfrozen faucet beginning to flow with water. Sure, Shape Up is the last album in Leikeli’s Beauty series, one fans have come to know and love as an intimate document of a girl growing up, but it’s also a brand new beginning. It’s sparkling, shining, and fresh, which is something Leikeli brings to everything she makes.

Shape Up is a reflection of Leikeli47 becoming great. She’s proud of the work and has no problem celebrating the grind. Confidence isn’t egoism. Leikeli is loud about her success because she knows what it took to get there. “I wanted to be better than anything you saw me do, anything you heard me do. I just wanted to be better. I wanted to be better sonically. I wanted to be a better human being,” she says. Shape Up is better, yes, but it’s also her best. Lyrically, musically, rhythmically, and more, Shape Up is Leikeli47 at an absolute peak. There are bound to be more summits on the horizon.