The World of ‘Concubania,’ According to Isaia Huron

Isaia Huron may not be a playwright, but his three-act album CONCUBANIA could pack out a theater. The alt-R&B auteur’s first full-length project, released Aug. 8 via Slang Music, was accompanied by a visualizer dubbed CONCUBANIA (The Play).

The 43-minute presentation, directed by Elliott Muscat, is set in a vacant music venue, with Huron at his offstage keyboard rig, which is equipped with a mic and reel-to-reel tape machine. As he performs each song in sequence, dancers, in matching suits, are onstage, channeling the lyrics through interpretive movements.

Though the visualizer is framed as a play, CONCUBANIA extends beyond a stage. It’s an entire world created by Huron, where the album’s 12 tracks exist. “I look at this as not a stage play, but a chronological story that is able to communicate all the things I feel in dealing with a breakup, falling in love, or being reckless and not really thinking much about your actions and consequences,” Huron explains to Rated R&B over a video call. “That’s what CONCUBANIA was; it’s a fictional story.”

It’s a late afternoon in August, and Huron is in a New York office overlooking the city, fittingly dressed in a white button-down shirt, a skinny tie and a baseball cap. “It’s like meta true,” he continues of the album’s storyline. “It’s things I’ve dealt with, but told from the perspective of a dude dealing with somebody, not me per se.”

Born and raised in Greenville, South Carolina, Huron’s musical story begins in church, where his father was a pastor and his mother was head of the choir. Around age eight, he made his debut as a Christian rapper in a trio with two of his best friends at the time. “It was like Alvin and the Chipmunks,” he chuckles. As time passed, their interest faded. “We started to grow up, and it wasn’t cute anymore, so we stopped doing that.”

It wasn’t long before Huron found a new musical outlet. At the age of 13, he developed an interest in drums and began playing professionally by the time he was 14. “I was doing that up until the pandemic,” he notes. “But the thing is, at 17 or 18 years old, I was making music on the side, putting it on SoundCloud and not caring about the results,” the self-taught producer adds.

He uploaded his first track, “Real,” on July 29, 2016 – and yes, it’s still available to stream like many of his early works. Huron’s SoundCloud is a world of its own. He’s always been intentional about sharing songs – including many unfinished drafts and covers — on the platform like a musical diary.

When the pandemic halted his drumming gigs, he shifted his focus to sharing his music beyond SoundCloud. “We started dropping music on DSPs, and I’ve been this Isaia Huron guy ever since. It was something that met me where I was.”

Following the release of his self-produced Three EP in January 2020, Huron returned in the spring with Libbie, a seven-track collection of songs lifted from his SoundCloud. After dropping two EPs in 2021, Bound and Cerulean Tapes, Huron took time away to reflect on his musical output, which inspired him to rework Libbie and reissue it as Libbie 02 in 2023.

Whether reworking his own songs or reimagining other works, as he did on Cerulean Tapes, which included his viral cover of Drake’s “Teenage Fever,” Huron fully embraces his ability to “reduce, reuse and recycle,” as he puts it. “I produce my own music, so I know what it is that I would flip,” he states. “I would listen to Libbie, and it’s like I hated so much because it was all of the first attempts at me trying to do anything. It was not mixed. I wanted to fix that, and I knew what to fix.”

Huron’s 2024 EP, I’ll Finish The Lyrics Later, is another unfinished project that he plans to update at some point. Huron previously told Rated R&B, “I’ll Finish the Lyrics Later captures the idea that sometimes, music is a journey in progress, and it’s okay to leave some things unfinished as you find your way through.”

For Huron’s debut album, CONCUBANIA, the intention was to tell a complete story. The album’s title is his twist on ‘concubine’ that also transforms it into a fictional world, much like OutKast did with Stankonia (2000). In essence, CONCUBANIA chronicles the story of a shallow man who falls for a sex worker until it unravels.

Act I opens with the title track, which sets the scene and eases listeners into CONCUBANIA. “Fiddy,” guided by warm acoustics and soft finger snaps, gradually swells into a full production. “So I took a project girl off the heat of the streets / And I placed her right in my passenger seat / ‘Cause I’m good for,” he sings. There’s some ego embedded in the track, but it’s balanced with charm and generosity. He takes her where she wants to shop without judgment (“she pointed right to the thot store, but I liked it”) and showers her with praise (“Girl, you look good in them 50 dollar heels”).

Heartfelt ballads like standouts “I Chose You” and “See Right Through Me,” featuring Kehlani, capture intensifying feelings. Could it be love? He believes so, using the interlude “I Think So?” which is essentially a reprise of the latter track, to give him space to contemplate it. “I think I’m in love with you,” he repeats, with choir-backed harmonies that are a nod to his church roots.

The second act is where Huron is the most introspective. “Unsure” acknowledges that his feelings are real in the moment but questions how long that will last. “You talking ‘forever’ are you crazy?” he sings, despite being the one who pursued the romance. His hushed vocals float over the delicate guitar on “HOML,” where he reminisces about the good times and grapples with what he practically asked for: “Now that it’s done, I’ve only got myself to blame.” “The Everything Song” is a mind dump of all the thoughts that have been weighing on him – in love and in life.

In the final act, Huron tries to move on from heartbreak by filling the void with more lustful adventures. On “Thotful,” he hooks up with another woman of the night but still can’t shake off his ex partner (“I don’t really know how to ever feel since I lost my bitch”). He asks her if she has any other “hoe friends,” but the one she’s cool with isn’t available, so she sends him a link to an adult hookup site where he can further his pursuit (“List Crawler”). He concludes the album with “Anyway,” a steamy bedroom banger.

Below, Isaia Huron reflects on his musical journey, discusses his philosophy for sharing unfinished work, talks about CONCUBANIA in depth and more.

Your foundation as an artist begins in church. Who are some artists you studied or were influenced by coming up?

From a young age, it was always this gospel artist named Tonéx. He had Out The Box, this really long album, but the most eclectic gospel album you’ll ever hear in your life. I solely attribute my ability to touch certain genres because of what was ingested into my ears. I used to listen to that every single night. It shaped how I hear music. I think that’s why my ear is so broad, as far as what can inspire me.

Your SoundCloud has a lot of unfinished demos, as well as full tracks, dating back to 2016. What’s your philosophy behind sharing demos?

I don’t believe in having a bunch of songs and keeping them. I’d rather put it all out there, finished or unfinished. I look at SoundCloud as a music diary. I’ve always thought of it as whatever I put on Apple or Spotify as the finished result of drafts, and SoundCloud gets those in-between buildups to the official product. I love being able to show that. I think it keeps whoever my core fan base is, they know more of my sonic landscape because of all the unfinished attempts I’m able to show on SoundCloud. I don’t believe in keeping anything — let it all go.

On your Cerulean Tapes EP, you reimagined songs like Aaliyah’s “One in a Million” and Drake’s “Teenage Forever.” If you could reimagine any album in full, whose would it be? 

Probably the MUSIC album by Playboi Carti. I covered two songs off of that: “Good Credit” and “Evil Jordan.” I can’t really cover a song unless it has a lot of space. The way Playboi Carti raps, it’s spacious, but intentional and melodic, even if he’s not being melodic. It’s a lot of room for me to imagine.

Let’s talk about your debut album, CONCUBANIA. What was your mindset when you first started working on it?

If you look at Libbie 02 or I’ll Finish The Lyrics Later, these are not projects that are supposed to be digestible by mass consumption. I’m an Aquarius, so I really focus on things that are very different, nuanced and don’t sound like anything. A lot of my time was so focused on trying to be that person that it blocked me from what other people looked at as growth. So it’s like, “Let’s try to create something more digestible, but pays homage to the people I have in my Mount Rushmore, like D’Angelo, Marvin Gaye or Earth, Wind and Fire, and be able to tell a story.”

If you look at the [CONCUBANIA] videos, you’ll see this thing that says, “The play is about to start.” I look at this as not a stage play, but a chronological story to communicate all the things I feel in dealing with a breakup, falling in love, or being reckless and not really thinking much about consequences. That’s what CONCUBANIA was; it’s a fictional story, but it’s meta-true. It’s all these things I’ve dealt with, but told from the perspective of a dude dealing with somebody and not me, per se.

I wanted to take my forward-thinking ideas and properly place them in not being so musical, to where the storyline is really complicated to get a track to sound like it sonically works after this track and this track, but it also follows the same narrative storyline-wise. This is a proper gesture at everything being aligned for the first time. That’s the world CONCUBANIA is to me.

The protagonist we follow throughout the album is a fictional character. Where do you seek inspiration to tell these stories?

I have a really complex life, and it’s rooted in juxtaposition a lot. I think it’s the only way I’m able to articulate it without having to be looked over or have an unfinished record. Something like “Circle,’ that’s a real story, but it’s so much better to be able to put it in a storyline that has its full essence. So the inspiration is drawn from what I’ve seen, what I’ve felt, what I have experienced, what I’ve listened to [and] what I’ve watched. 

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“Fiddy” was one of the singles you released ahead of the album. What’s the story behind it?

It was one of the first songs I made for the project. I listen to the Joe Budden Podcast, and there’s a co-host who always mentions when you’re outside, you see girls with $50 heels and stuff. So I was like, “Let me make a song that speaks to that.” I think it was crazy how it helped build a storyline.

It’s a very important song if you understand the subject matter of the story in totality, because you don’t really get to understand track 11 [“Through You?”] or track 12 [“Anyway”] without understanding track two, which is “Fiddy.” I think it’s a very good opener as to how the main character thinks about things and how shallow he can be. When you move on to the album, his shallowness is on full display, but that doesn’t happen without “Fiddy.” It’s a good marker to understand and give context to how the rest of the story plays out.

Kehlani, who is the album’s sole feature, appears on “See Right Through Me.” How did that collaboration come to fruition?

When we were in Hawaii working on her album, I was walking into the kitchen and she was like, “I had a dream I was on your album. You need to put me on your album.” And I did just that because I wasn’t expecting that. I was like, “Well, thank you. That would help a lot.” I think it speaks to how close me and her are. We really like the same person. We have the same type of brand, really. It was easy for her to hop onto “See Right Through Me.” She gave it life, in my opinion.

You also worked with Kehlani on her “un(Folded),” the alternative version of her rising hit “Folded.” How did you get involved with that record?

It was on a whim. She was working on it, called me and said, “Do your little weird shit you do at the end of these covers you do.” She had me singing backgrounds throughout the record, and it turned out to be really nice. I’m happy she allowed me to be so weird. That’s something that you’re not supposed to do on a viral song, but I’m glad that she trusts me enough to be able to do it. Again, it speaks to our chemistry and relationship.

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Let’s get into a few more tracks on the album. “I Chose You” is an instant standout with its nod to the classic R&B sound. What was your mindset for that song?

That’s from me hearing nonstop that people need to bring yearning back. I’m not naturally a yearner, which is why I love this fictional story. I feel like “I Chose You” is solely designed for R&B people. I wanted to lay my R&B roots down first before I started to do anything crazy in the future. I want to keep it where it’s home for me. It might be the most R&B song I have, in a traditional R&B sense, that everybody says we need to bring back. That’s my offering.

“HOML (Heaven On My Lips)” is such a hauntingly beautiful song. Where did you pull that from?

I’m a somber person, so that speaks to me. I made it a couple of months ago while I was going through a breakup. I was putting these one-minute clips up on Instagram, and I eventually put them on SoundCloud; “Heaven on My Lips” was one of them. To make it fit in the storyline, I had to extend the song a bit and highlight what’s actually happening: I’m telling the girl that I miss you. Even though it was my choice to break up, it was a good opportunity to do that. “Heaven on My Lips” is one of my favorites.

“The Everything Song” feels like a breaking point on the album, where you let out everything that’s been weighing on you. It reminds me of how one source of pain can trigger an avalanche of thoughts…

There’s confusion throughout, and it keeps building. The things I’m saying in the main vocal get a little bit more intense, but more existential, but also more universal in some sense. It’s like a mustard seed that sprouted in existentialism. I think it’s a cool execution of how thoughts pass. We feel negative emotion so deeply as human beings. It’s no wonder that when you have a negative thought, those thoughts can grow arms and fingers. That’s what this song is.

This, to me, is a natural thought process, especially today with all of us being on our phones, receiving so much information and being so susceptible to heartbreak because of how many options people have in relationships, or somebody just choosing to be like, “I don’t want to be with you anymore.” There’s so much room for depression. To me, [“The Everything Song”] is a good representation of that.

With CONCUBANIA being your first proper album, what did you take away from its creation?

There was a time before I made this, when I was in Miami watching a Kehlani show. I watched Destin [Conrad] perform live. I saw the way the crowd was interacting with them. I just thought to myself, “Dang, bro, you are too focused on trying to be innovative to the point where you won’t be able to get a large crowd to sing along to songs with you because you were dropping projects with no lyrics. How are people going to know the words?”

It sent me down a path. I lost confidence in my ability to produce something that could be accepted by a lot of people at a digestible level. I remember telling my manager, “I don’t want to produce no more. Let’s get somebody else.” We had called another producer, but I never flew out to LA to make that happen. I went back to New York, sat down and made “List Crawler” after I got out of that hump. I was like, “OK, this could fit in a story. I think we can make something happen.”

What I got from this project is the joy and fulfillment of watching people’s reactions to this, which is great. I’ve never received this amount of love so instantly. It made me happy, not that I’m looking for other people’s validation, but because I could set my mind to do something like that, and actually do it. It seems like a limitless potential in my music career.

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Stream Isaia Huron’s new album CONCUBANIA.