Ecstatic but hardened, urgent but expertly weathered, sparkling with the grit of a desert geode. Shamir’s first full-length LP “Ratchet” is a disco-house-R & B marvel. It’s a record about growing up in Vegas, though not the Vegas you think you know. Shamir grew up near a pig farm – the pigs were slaughtered and fed to the casinos. The casinos’ slop kept the swine fed. This is where he grew up, in the margins of vice and excess. Never has the idiom “diamond in the rough” applied so literally.

“If this is the city of sin, are we already living in hell?” That’s Shamir’s “Vegas.” So what do you do? You “Make a Scene.” He’s not cocky, jaded, or an ingenue. But neither is he the opposite of those things. There’s an obvious fluidity to Shamir. He transcends boundaries – genre, gender, age, geography. He feels solitary because there is literally no one else like him. “Demon” expresses a hard-to-articulate melancholy – this kid is so pure he knows when you’re toxic. He rejects the “Darker” side, and reminds us happiness is a choice. When things get bad, you usually can, in fact, “Call It Off.”