Like a web page torn from the Weeknd’s script the place neon gentle spills throughout velvet shadows, Bari McKnight’s CLOSE TO YOU bathes the alt-pop spectrum in luxe lust and late-hour warmth. The New Jersey-based artist, transferring beneath his self-made imprint Bari’s World Data, threads a honeyed vocal heat via a scratchy pseudo-trap beat, letting synth reverb bleed like liquid chrome over the rhythm. There’s a business shine to the manufacturing, but McKnight holds quick to the aesthetics and depth that set him aside in an period the place pop usually feels photocopied.
Lifted from his 2025 LP Summer season Joints, the observe simmers with a feverish compulsion, the type that hits like static via the bloodstream, demanding reference to the power of a brand new lifeblood. The hooks slip beneath the pores and skin whereas the instrumentation folds and unfolds like a sluggish exhale within the warmth.
McKnight’s sound is formed by a palette that pulls from Afrobeat pulses, synth-driven R&B textures, and pop immediacy, a fusion he has honed throughout singles reminiscent of SUMMER THINGS and FOR US (OG). With a Mondo.NYC showcase beneath his belt and business podcast spotlights framing him as an artist of stressed reinvention, CLOSE TO YOU confirms his knack for crafting tracks that stay in each the mainstream and the margins.
CLOSE TO YOU is now accessible on all main streaming platforms, together with Spotify.
Assessment by Amelia Vandergast
