The dreamy possibility of making it in Los Angeles still hasn’t lost its luster—but, for some, the city’s very present and unconscionable wealth disparity takes you out of the woozy haze of fame and into reality. R&B upstart Brent Faiyaz went out west from his hometown of Baltimore to pursue a singing career and found that, while wealth manifests in mansions and expensive cars, poverty is more present in L.A. than most East coast cities. It is an odd juxtaposition that becomes even more striking as Downtown Los Angeles develops, as condos are built alongside Skid Row. This kind of truth reigns on Faiyaz’s debut full-length Sonder Son, an album that is heartfelt when the prevailing genre trends still celebrate the bacchanal and the disposability of parties, lovers, and, really, the self.

Sonder Son is forthright about the fact that we need each other to survive. Early on the album is “First World Problemz/Nobody Carez,” where Faiyaz sings, “As long as I pay rent/I don’t even whine ’bout my paycheck/I know it is short, but I’ll make ends/’tCause it could be a worse situation.” Over a boom-bap-influenced drum machine and thick, distinct bass, he sings about finding joy with friends in the midst of struggle.

But there are layers here. Camaraderie isn’t enough without deeper emotional connections, or if materialism supersedes treating each other like real people. He begins “Nobody Carez” with fiery spoken word: “Shit is deeper than Neiman Marcus or your Hollywood starlets/Underneath there’s niggas starving, impoverished/People don’t give no fucks, nigga/Trump don’t give a fuck/Your niggas don’t give a fuck/Your favorite artists don’t give a motherfucking fuck.” The song then breaks into something lighter, hinging on Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds-style acoustic guitar but with fewer of his lyrical platitudes. The interior explored on “First World Problemz” becomes an exterior on “Nobody Carez,” as he sings about the pain and uselessly cruel gossip that can come from being down and out.

This is the album’s high point and what should guide Faiyaz as he develops as a writer. Sonder Son has the same highly intimate, nothing-to-lose quality of Frank Ocean’s Nostalgia, Ultra. but could use more of its experimental spirit. What is refreshing, however, is that it does not kowtow to radio trends, the dejected filth of a Ty Dolla $ign or PARTYNEXTDOOR, whose partying is often a coverup for pain. Here, current pain is lived in and past pain is just one small recollection away.

Sonder Son opens with a spoken sketch about bad grades. A mother yells at her son—“Please explain to me how the fuck you go to school every single day and then bring home all Fs?”—before the track flows into Faiyaz singing about how writing has always been a cure all for his mental anguish. If this is autobiography, then what unfolds on the album indicates that Faiyaz may have had other things on his mind at school—that generating stock of emotional literacy and a mastery of pop and R&B history may have been more important. The album is well-studied in the tones and textures of the past (tracks like “Stay Down” recall the yearnings of artists like 112 and Chico DeBarge, whose catalogs are are often uncited, but whose influence endures) and a Tumblr-like earnestness that is so rarely come by in popular music. The songs here may not be so sticky, but the promise of his potential is undeniable.