Picked to Click 2024 No. 1: Papa Mbye

Full disclosure: Papa Mbye bought me a chicken sandwich at Mortimer’s.

In my defense—and in defense of the integrity of Picked to Click—he picked up the tab without my knowing. And yes, this was before he knew that he’d won, or even that we were bringing the poll back. Guess he’s just a generous guy.

A humble one too, and not in a false, show-offy way.

“I started making music and learning how to make music at the same time,” he tells me between bites of a club sandwich, a multicolored knit hat atop his head. “I saw all these crazy musicians, I was like, ‘Damn, I don't know how to do this shit.’ But then I felt affirmed because they respected what I did.”

The 25-year-old’s latest album, Parcelles 16, balances some irreconcilable musical contrasts. It’s experimental and melodic, smooth and craggy, DIY and difficult. Marked by Mbye’s self-taught guitar work, it recalls at times the instrumental murkiness yet emotional clarity of D’Angelo, at others the fluidity of West African guitar pop. Rarely does a track finish where it began.

This project was more than two years in the making, and Mbye sums up the delay in two words: imposter syndrome.

Just four years ago, Mbye’s energies went into visual arts. He designed flyers for shows he was throwing with Bob Kabeya of Miloe and Julian Green, who now runs The Current’s Carbon Sound. But then Mbye started goofing in the studio with producer Zak Khan and Christian Johnson, aka Bloomington rapper FruitPunchLoverBoy.

And then… he wasn’t goofing. He got an Albleton and began creating his own sound. The well-received 2021 EP Mang Fi soon had him headlining the First Avenue Mainroom.

Sounds fun, right?

“I was discouraged,” Mbye says. “All of a sudden everybody likes you and I’m like, ‘I'm not that fucking good. I don't know what I'm doing.' But then I realized not knowing what I'm doing is probably the best part about my music. It gives you these unexpected results—something new, you know?”

Getting out of the country helped Mbye refocus. He made “weird ambient music” for a few months in Italy.

“I needed to prove to myself that I could survive in another country without anybody’s help,” he says. “I’m kind of clumsy and I'm kind of disorganized. So I thought, ‘If I come back alive, I'll be good.’”

He next visited his family in Senegal, where Mbye was born, and where he someday hopes to return—or at least put on a big show. (“They think I’m famous,” he jokes about the relatives who learned about his music on social media.) Parcelles 16 is named for his uncle’s address in Dakar. The placid tone of the closing track, “Senegambia,” brings it all back home.

Mbye has lived in the U.S. since he was two. His family won a green card lottery, which is statistically the immigration equivalent of being struck by lightning: Out of 9.5 million applicants each year, 55,000 are granted legal permanent residence in the U.S. Raised on the North Side, he just recently moved to south Minneapolis.

The new album also displays Mbye’s newfound skills as a guitarist. Eager to expand his creative range, he traded some white Air Force 1s for a guitar and an amp and began following Khan’s lead. “I was so frustrated, because my taste was so ahead of what my skill level was,” he says.

But there’s nothing amateurish about the bluesy break on “Cannonball,” the first track that Mbye played guitar on, or the sprinkling of guitar that allows the clattering rhythms to cohere on “Ultraviolence,” Parcelles 16’s opening track.

Vocally, Mbye has developed as well. He sings far more than he raps on Parcelles 16, and whether he’s pleading “Kiss me where it hurts, babe/You can make it better” or admitting “I don’t know what the fuck to say,” his voice is the connector that allows each track’s disparate elements to hold together.

Though he’s proud of Paracelles 16, Mbye is more eager to talk about what he’s working on next, some of which he’s already debuted live. At his album release show at Uptown’s Green Room last month, he performed a new track that interpolates “Li Ma Wessu” from the legendary Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour. He also performed some rap tracks he’s recorded as Smiley with Lips.

And lately he’s been partnering up with older, more established Minneapolis musicians. Ryan Olson of Totally Gross National Product “is one of the first people who like really got on my fucking ass and criticized my music and was like ‘This shit sucks,’” Mbye says. “I feel like I was kind of seeking that and it made me a better musician.” And veteran scene-connector Andrew Broder is currently creating a track that brings Mbye together with Alan Sparhawk.

“I used to have a lot of actual self-esteem shit to deal with but now I feel like now I feel like it's almost more egotistical to not acknowledge how good it is,” Mbye says. “I just try to get better, you know?”

Explore the entire Picked to Click class of 2024 below.