There are some records that feel polished smooth before they ever reach your ears. Every corner sanded down, every emotion neatly organized into something digestible. And then there are albums like truant, the new full-length from Minneapolis artist and producer student 1, which arrives with its showlaces untied, thoughts scattered across notebook margins, and heart beating loudly enough to hear through the speakers.

Released today, truant is student 1’s fourth studio record, a deeply personal collection that turns vulnerability into something strangely groovy. Across 12 tracks, the Ethiopian-Eritrean artist wanders through moments of avoidance, addiction, grief, distraction, and emotional absence, not as someone who has already found the answers, but as someone still searching for them. The result is a project that feels simultaneously chaotic and controlled, like trying to dance your way through an existential crisis.

Alongside the album arrives “idcicantbeherefortoolong,” one of student 1’s personal favorites from the record and perhaps the clearest glimpse into the creative freedom that defines truant. The song emerged from a challenge to create one song a day without overthinking the process, something easier said than done for an artist whose work often thrives in the space between introspection and perfectionism.

“It’s called ‘idcicantbeherefortoolong’ because this exercise was difficult for me, and I had to learn how to not care so much in order to complete the exercise,” he explains.

That sentiment quietly hangs over the entire album. Truant isn’t simply about feeling lost. It’s about what happens when you stop pretending you’re not.

Entirely written, mixed, and mastered by student 1 himself, the record documents a period of personal turbulence while simultaneously searching for optimism somewhere inside the wreckage. Throughout the album, moments of uncertainty collide with bright melodies, playful production choices, and flashes of humor. One second the songs feel like they’re unraveling; the next, they burst open into something unexpectedly joyful. Part of that duality stems from the circumstances surrounding the project itself.

It was during the making of truant that student 1 found his way out of a creative drought.

“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,” he shares. “There isn’t a substantial focus on this aspect outside of some subtle mentions, but I do mention the loss of a parent, as my father passed away during the making of the album.”

That weight never completely disappears from the record. Instead, it lingers beneath the surface, informing the songs without entirely defining them. Grief becomes another texture within the project, woven into larger conversations about growth, identity, and learning how to move forward when life refuses to slow down.

The accompanying video for “idcicantbeherefortoolong” embraces that same unpredictable spirit. Directed by Erik Astle, the visual follows student 1 through a chaotic day-in-the-life narrative filled with increasingly absurd turns and appearances from collaborators, including dog owner man as his boss.

“This is probably the video with the strongest narrative element,” student 1 explains. “Came up with it the day we started shooting. It’s basically a ‘day in the life’ style series of events, following me from morning until evening, with some shenanigans that happen by the end as a result of how I went about the day.”

The spontaneity feels fitting. student 1 has always thrived in the unexpected. Whether he’s gliding across the dreamy funk textures of “kevinkevinkevin,” spiraling through self-examination on “pissing myself,” or balancing melancholy with humor across the entirety of traunt, there is a refusal to remain in one place for too long. The songs shift constantly, moving between introspection and absurdity, confidence and uncertainty, vulnerability and joy. Perhaps that’s why the album feels so human.

student 1’s music has always existed in the space between contradictions. His catalog blends melody with experimentation, optimism with anxiety, and personal storytelling with larger reflections on addiction, grief, and mental health. Since releasing his debut project drag in 2018, followed by UPPRCLSSMN and 2022’s OFFTHEDUST!, he’s steadily built a reputation as one of the most versatile and quietly compelling voices emerging from Minneapolis.

Now, with tens of millions of streams, hundreds of live performances, and festival appearances spanning SXSW, Soundset, Afropunk, and First Avenue’s legendary 7th Street Entry, student 1 arrives at a new chapter that feels less concerned with proving himself and more interested in understanding himself.

The release of truant also arrives ahead of an extensive summer tour alongside Philadelphia rapper Ghais Guevara. Beginning with an album release show art Bookclub in Chicago before winding through Los Angeles, Brooklyn, Nashville, Seattle, Toronto, and dozens of cities in between, the run gives audiences an opportunity to step directly into the world he’s spent the last several years building.

And that’s possibly the best way to describe truant, not as an album, as a world. One filled with overthinking, daydreaming, avoidance, grief, laughter, funk grooves, existential spirals, and tiny flashes of hope breaking through the clouds. A place where nothing is entirely figured out, but the search itself becomes worthwhile.