Artists and bands have been incorporating their names into their albums for years: some known and some barely heard of. One artist, Hobo Johnson and The LoveMakers, is an up-and-coming star in the indie hip-hop scene.

Many great hit albums have been “Who’s Next” by The Who, “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” by Black Sabbath, “Aretha” by Aretha Franklin and “Bobby” by Bobby Brown.

“The Revenge of Hobo Johnson” is the fifth studio album in Hobo Jonson’s career.

While publicly known as Hobo Johnson, his actual name is Frank Lopes Jr.

Johnson is a California native who’s been making music since 2015. He became popular with his 2018 Tiny Desk concert, earning him quite a large following.

This new album features layers of hip-hop mixed with soulful acoustics. The album opens with a song called “Anton LaVey” and ends with “Outro.”

“Anton LaVey,” tells a steamy story about the author himself. The song tells an in-depth sinuous story; However, “Outro” sounds like an infomercial for the next album to be released. While still telling a story, it is not as deep as the opening song.

These two songs speak to the ultimate theme of the overall album, deep but humorous. Each song tells its own story alluding to this theme. One song on the album, “Jordans House” repetitively says “Jordan’s house” as the main chorus rather than adding any extra stories.

However, some other songs on the album tell intricate stories telling us of real-world issues such as: “I Want to See The World,” which tells the story of a man wishing to see the world but only seeing the bad things that have happened there.

The theme of the album could be described as a joyful sadness. With lyrics going from “I made a million bucks!” to “. . . but I had to spend it all on therapy.” This album is not for everyone, with dark undertone lyrics and sudden loud noises throughout the songs. However, if you want slam poetry meets hip-hop, this is the album for you.

Written by Evie Webb, staff writer. Photo courtesy of Flickr.