Boxed Ookami celebrates birthday, reflects on life with storytelling album 25

26-year-old self-taught musician Boxed Ookami released the new album 25 on December 3 to celebrate his birthday and reflect on the exploration of getting older. 

25 is a riveting, one-of-a-kind body of work analogous to Tierra Whack’s Whack World and Melanie Martinez’s K-12 in terms of imagination and tale with delivery stylings similar to Vince Staples and Tyler, The Creator. But, the eccentric, distinctive flow of the album is in a world of its own.  

“Today I turn 26 and to celebrate my birthday I released an album…” Boxed Ookami said in a post on Instagram. “I wanted to make a project that I enjoyed for myself again and take a snapshot of the quarter life I just had.” 

Boxed Ookami uniquely bends genre, playing with references and sound bytes to depict a novelistic, urban legend-like story. The album starts with a spoken-word interlude, “0-Begin-1,” depicting a man, Mr. Rubberhead, reading a book to a boy in a cabin. The introduction seamlessly transitions to the first track, “Friend,” which is quick and haunting with heavy vocal distortion.

Interlude “2” continues as the child rekindles with his lost bike. “Home” begins with a ‘90s Hip-Hop style and distorts with Nickelodeon sitcom-sounding beats and giggles, staying true to the childish nature of the album’s protagonist. 

The child grows tired of his toy in “3,” complaining about his boredom. The focus then shifts to the perspective of Mr. Rubberhead for the songs “Travel” and “Bench.” “Travel” has dark jazz influences with trap metal lyric delivery. The pain in Boxed Ookami’s voice is bone-chilling as he lays heavy emotions on a quick, 2-minute-and-40-second song. “Bench” completely switches genre to a light production and whimsical vocal. 

A tantrum breaks out in “4” as the stories upset the child. This then causes a disagreement between the two, resulting in the child breaking a toy. The accident leads to the track “Stress” with minimal lyrics and a riveting dubstep outro. 

With horror-movie sounds and bone-chilling descriptions, Mr. Rubberhead becomes enraged in “5,” causing the child to hide in another room. “Trust” starts with a nursery rhyme cadence and haunting harmonies before falling into a bass-heavy trap beat. 

The kid hides in a cabinet in “6”, where he meets the new character Boddy Beetle, who tries to cheer him up. The interlude dissolves into “Bike,” which continues with the album’s cartoony, video game sound motif. This time, the track is more danceable and upbeat than the previous ones, before it ends with endangered screams and sirens. 

Mr. Rubberhead then finds the child in “7” and scares him so badly that he faints into a deep sleep, which carries over into “Sick.” The instrumental sounds like a meditation podcast with rain noises, small chatter, and xylophone hits. 

Five days pass in “8,” and the child is still shaken up and sickly from the scare. Mr. Rubberhead takes on the task of nurturing and feeding him. He stares at his reflection but can only see the back of his head looking back at him, like a Carmen Maria Machado horror story. 

Leading to the album’s standout track, “Art.” The Sophie-like song is busy in both the production and lyricism, congruent to the thematic nature of the story weaved throughout. Contrary to the previous songs, the outro of “Art” mentions Mr. Rubberhead’s artistic coping with the child’s sickness. 

In “9,” the child is found dead. Mr. Rubberhead sobs, leading into “Death.” The track melds choral hymns with trap metal beautifully to encapsulate the difficult feelings of mourning. The progression of “Death” is comparable to Ethel Cain’s “Ptolemaea” in terms of emotion. 

The album and the narrative of the child and Mr. Rubberhead come to a close with “1+The End+0” and “Quarter-Life Credits.” To know how the intense folkloric story comes to a close, check out the album here or below.