Nothing Cosmetic About oakland and Stacy NKR EP ‘smooth fm’ Dropping Tomorrow

Clock hits midnight, but the record doesn’t feel like nightcap music. “Intro” creeps in with low static, a voice in half-shadow, setting a pulse you can’t quite place yet. Then Stacy NKR cuts through. Not a soft entry. A step onto the floorboards. The air tightens, and suddenly smooth fm isn’t a title it’s a frequency you’ve been tuned into without knowing.

By the second track, “your eyes,” oakland’s production opens up like cracked neon light. Keys ripple, bass hums low, drums keep their distance but stay sharp. Stacy rides it like she’s talking straight at someone across a small room, not a microphone. Cadence clipped, words leaving just enough space for silence to sting. The kind of delivery that makes you think she’s done and then she doubles back with another line before you can breathe.

The EP never stays in one shape. “love is real” doesn’t posture with sentimentality it lands heavy, like she’s looking in the mirror with the lights too bright. oakland laces in chords that wobble between comfort and tension, leaving Stacy’s voice to decide which way it tips. When she raps about worth, it’s not concept, it’s currency. Every bar feels like it costs something to say.

“cosmetic” is where their chemistry feels most exposed. A beat stripped to bone, rhythm dry enough that every word scuffs against it. Stacy drags the vowels, forces them to linger like smoke curling too close. You can almost picture the studio air thick, faders nudged milli meter by milli meter until the track sat exactly where they needed it close, unflinching, bare.

Then “relapse.” Temptation written into the rhythm itself: drums stagger, bass line lurches, a loop that sounds like it wants to pull you back even when you’re trying to step out. Stacy raps in a way that makes the cycle feel endless the bar comes around again, the story repeats, the trap is in the loop. oakland doesn’t decorate the beat; he makes it ache.

By the closer, “goodnight,” you realize the project has been running like one long conversation interruptions, flashes of warmth, sharp edges of regret. oakland pushes the production wide open here, almost cinematic, but Stacy cuts straight through the mist. No soft fade, no lullaby. Just a voice making sure you’re still awake when the last note drops.

The weight of smooth fm is that it feels lived in. South East stairwells where lyrics bounced off brick. Ghanaian hi-life spilling from home speakers. Mary J. and Jill Scott teaching texture before Stacy ever touched a mic. And now, oakland, who’s built soundscapes sturdy enough to hold her voice without softening it. Their worlds lock together not by smoothing edges but by letting them scrape.

Nothing here plays for the algorithm. The sequencing, the sonic choices, the restraint they’re not angling for slots, they’re building a catalogue that demands replay in real rooms. The EP doesn’t ask for belief. It trusts you’ll hear it and know.

And when the last track cuts, it doesn’t close the story. It leaves you with the hiss of speakers cooling down, like someone’s still in the room, waiting for you to say the next word.