Giveon GIVE OR TAKE Concert Live Tour Nashville Sold Out

“The whole concept of the album is me having a conversation with my mom, and we’re just catching up,” GIVĒON tells Apple Music of his debut album. Hers is the first voice we hear, as she tells the singer how proud she is of him. Then comes the nocturnal breakup jam “Let Me Go.” “Decide if I am worth the time I cause you/Let me know or let me go,” he declares on the hook, before Mom closes it out with a reminder: “People make mistakes/People don’t always agree with each other/Keep that in mind.”

Give or Take unfolds like the pages of a journal, detailing the romantic escapades of a twentysomething who loves love but isn’t always prepared to have it. Between wandering eyes, bad timing, and a desire to heal always at odds with the weakness of the flesh, there’s a bit of everything here conceptually. The songs are experiences he recounts to his mom, in search of advice or perhaps absolution. “That’s why the stories kind of feel like a roller coaster and not just one smooth story—because it was more sporadic,” he explains. “I really wanted to give people a look behind the curtains of a 26-year-old man growing up today.”