Russ gets more vulnerable than ever with his latest project, Santiago. Throughout the 13-track project, the rapper explores his struggles with fame, relationships, family, and more. It features slower tempos and emo-inspired sounds. As Santiago contains no features, fans can concentrate on Russ and his journey. This would be his first project since Chomp 2.5, which he released in May.
The rapper took to Instagram a few months back to announce the project. Russ noted how much the album meant to him and how he had to do some soul-searching for it. “This album represents my mental, spiritual, physical, and emotional journey to my treasure (I talk more about what my treasure is on the album, but it’s symbolized by the pyramid). The journey at times wasn’t and isn’t pretty,” Russ wrote. “I’ve put myself through the ringer and beat myself up quite a bit along the way. The front cover depicts externally what that sort of psychological warfare looks like.”
“Santiago" Symbolizes His Emotional, Mental, and Spiritual Journey, He Says
He continued: “I’m really excited. I’m really nervous. SANTIAGO is my journey to self love & self mastery while touching on the obstacles that have provided resistance along the way…feelings of emptiness, inadequacy, imposter syndrome, doubt, anger, shame (to name a few), and ultimately issues from my childhood that have shown up in my adult life. It’s my attempt to understand, navigate, and heal."
In other related news, Russ discussed why he views Spotify's "monthly listeners" stat as misleading. "Sat down with Spotify and got to finally debunk wtf monthly listeners actually means,” he wrote on Twitter. In a subsequent post, Russ stated: “I have 10,000,000 people in my active audience out of my 14m monthly listeners. That’s people who go out of their way to listen to my music. The rest is people who heard it on a playlist or Spotify radio etc.. they weren’t actively tryna hear it. This is why I say the monthly listener number is a facade."
Santiago Tracklist:
1. See You Soon
2. Smooth
3. Fraud
4. No More
5. Empty
6. I Love You Boy
7. Enough
8. Adventure
9. Oasis
10. Fatima
11. Distracted
12. Tunnel Vision
13. The Wind