Khalid released his first EP, exhibiting his musical versatility while still staying true to his roots.

Khalid took the R&B/Pop world by storm with his American Teen album last year. Hit songs such as “Location” and “Coaster” established his music to be quite mellow, perfect for driving around at midnight with your windows down. The 20 year old just dropped his first EP this year after featuring in multiple songs, like “Love Lies”, throughout the year.

Suncity shone upon the music industry October 19th, 2018. The EP offers seven tracks with a sole feature from Empress Of.  The track, “Suncity”, took listeners by surprise due to the unexpected latin pop influence. Latin American artist Empress Of sang in Spanish alongside Khalid. “Llévame a ciudad del sol” translates to “Take me to Sun City,” Sun City refers to Khalid’s hometown El Paso, Texas. The EP has been dubbed as a homage to his hometown by Apple Music. “9.13” emphasizes this claim with 57 seconds of Khalid humming and a voice recording of Khalid being awarded the key to the city of El Paso.

“Better” proved to be the most successful on the charts, which peaked at number 34 after eight weeks on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. The song reinforces Khalid’s original sound from American Teen with it’s calm beats and lyrics detailing his feelings about a relationship. The other person insists that they’re merely friends but when they’re alone together, her actions suggests otherwise. Khalid doesn’t mind keeping it a secret if that’s what she wants since he feels the best when he’s with her.

Suncity is reminiscent of Khalid’s R&B sound, but it also showcases different sides of him; just enough to intrigue, but not too much that it would scare away his existing fanbase. “Better”, “Motion”, and “Saturday Nights” are there to satisfy his devoted R&B fans. “Vertigo” provides a similar vibe to Coldplay’s music while “Suncity” lures Latin Pop listeners to his music.