Minneapolis-based artist and producer student 1 has officially announced his fourth full-length record, truant, due out June 19, and to mark the occasion he’s shared the first taste of the project: the laid-back, sun-warmed single “kevinkevinkevin” featuring fellow Minneapolis artist Demon Marcus. The track arrives with an accompanying music video and a record release show on June 19 at Book Club in Chicago, with punk band Champions and hip-hop artist CRASHprez rounding out the bill.

Entirely written, mixed, and mastered by student 1, truant is a twelve-track meditation on the messy in-between: feeling absent, distracted, and avoidant, while still chasing the smaller, stranger glimmers of joy, freedom, and hope. The artist describes the project as a raw and experimental document of personal moments — aimlessness, addiction, mental absence — and how those moments shaped him in both useful and uncomfortable ways. He also touches lightly on the loss of his father, who passed away during the making of the album, lending the record a quiet emotional gravity beneath its bright surfaces.

“It’s inspired by the problems these moments create and have created (as well as the desire to solve them), the headspace I was in, drugs, and not being able to articulate important feelings and thoughts,” student 1 shares.

Lead single “kevinkevinkevin” takes its name from Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker, and the spiritual fingerprints are all over it — bouncy grooves, twinkling keys, sparse and punchy percussion, and an effortless vocal pocket that drifts somewhere between rap and melody. Lyrically, it’s a study in dissociation and disillusionment, picking apart the way judgement from the outside world can warp your sense of what’s real. Demon Marcus, the album’s sole featured guest, played a key role in coaxing the track into existence.

“It started out as a beat I was too scared to record over, and then my friend Austin (Demon Marcus) helped me work up the courage to try something outside my usual pocket,” student 1 explains.

The accompanying video, directed by longtime collaborator Justus Louisiana with assistance from Erik Astle, leans into a more cinematic storytelling approach. “The creative freedom I am allowed to have I don’t take for granted,” Louisiana says. “To us, there are no bad ideas — only ones to explore. This one came together so organically, we had an entire narrative but the video came to life almost on its own.”

Watch and listen here: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=student+1+kevinkevinkevin

An Ethiopian-Eritrean artist who has spent the better part of a decade quietly stacking accolades, student 1 first emerged in 2018 with his debut project drag, followed by 2019’s UPPRCLSSMN — home to the Tierra Whack collaboration “YIN/YANG” — and 2022’s OFFTHEDUST!, mixed by Alex Tumay (Drake, Travis Scott, Metro Boomin, 21 Savage). With tens of millions of global streams, coverage from The Current, Star Tribune, and Lyrical Lemonade, and stage time at SXSW, Soundset, Afropunk, and First Avenue’s 7th St Entry, he’s earned his reputation as one of Minneapolis’s most versatile and quietly ambitious artists.

truant Tracklist:
01. fog
02. over here
03. STILL HERE
04. irish goodbye
05. predict/infer (co-prod. LEEszn)
06. kevinkevinkevin (feat. Demon Marcus)
07. urgency room
08. IMA FIX CONFINES (feat. Demon Marcus)
09. memberberries (co-prod. YUSF)
10. idcicantbeherefortoolong (co-prod. YUSF and dog owner man)
11. sitting down.hbu (co-prod. YUSF)
12. pissing myself

truant is out June 19 and available to pre-save now. Catch student 1 live on release day at Book Club in Chicago with Champions and CRASHprez — and if you only check one thing today, let it be “kevinkevinkevin.” It’s the rare song that sounds like a vacation and a small existential crisis at the same time.