Don’t look now, but there’s a whole raft of up-and-coming hip hop artists on the New Orleans scene, most of them making a significant break from the 504’s legendary bounce scene to blaze their own trail nationally. Chief among them is Alfred Banks, now going by his given name; as Lyriqs Da Lyriciss, he got notice for solid joints like D.A.I.Y.L.F. (Dream As If You’ll Live Forever) and The Nobody’s Monologues 2, which were long on flow but a little short on originality—just another young buck hyping himself for his big moment.

But while undergoing his rebranding, he’s also had to suffer personal tragedy: His brother, who suffered from schizophrenia, took his own life in 2014. This three-song EP is the result, a fitting tribute and simultaneous bid for artistic maturity. It’s not often you get to hear an artist become a man in real time, but that’s just what’s happening here: By forcing himself to look inward, Banks shakes off the generic bravado of the debut and invests in a new, philosophical flow, heavy on the classic chipmunk soul, that ups his game immediately. Hard to tell whether this tragedy will transform Banks like Scott La Rock’s death did KRS-One, for example, but it’s definitely made him stop and think. He’s not just “a monkey on these bars” anymore.