“Better With You” by Zeke Tha Freak is not here to revolutionize music. It’s not some avant-garde deconstruction of genre. It’s not trying to save R&B from itself. No. What it is trying to do is make you feel like you’re lying on your back in the grass, staring at the sky, remembering someone you’re pretty sure you were in love with once. And maybe still are. Emotionally? It’s a sneak attack in slow motion.
Zeke slides in with the kind of dreamy Trap-Soul vibe that makes you wonder whether time has folded in on itself and spat you out in a 2004 summer romance montage. Think Mac Miller if he’d stopped by for a feature on a Childish Gambino love ballad, produced by Anderson .Paak after three espressos and a breakup. There’s a cinematic warmth to it all; like a movie scene you swear you lived, even though you absolutely didn’t.
This track is a full package. The instrumentation is smooth. The lyrics are emotionally available but not at all clingy. The beat exists in the exact tempo where you could either cry in your car or dance alone in your kitchen. Zeke’s vocal delivery has the kind of understated confidence that says, “Yes, I do have feelings, but I also moisturize and communicate them effectively.”
And no, “Better With You” isn’t out to reinvent R&B. It’s not screaming for attention. It’s just vibing. And in a world where most songs are either screaming at you or trying to sell you something, that level of calm emotional intelligence feels borderline radical.
Putting it simply: “Better With You” by Zeke Tha Freak is the musical equivalent of finding an old hoodie that still smells like the person you used to love and realizing it doesn’t hurt anymore. But it kind of does. But in a good way.
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About the Author
A tenured media critic known working as a ghost writer, freelance critic for publications in the US and former lead writer of Atop The Treehouse. Reviews music, film and TV shows for media aggregators.
