2Chang Explore Growing Pains and Inner Demons in ‘The Weather Inside’

Welcome to Pass the Aux, where KQED Arts & Culture brings you our favorite new tracks by Bay Area artists. Check out past entries and submit a song for future coverage.

The summer I turned 20, I entered a tumultuous period of transition: rejoicing in new freedoms one moment and mourning the loss of my childhood the next. In the years that followed, I fumbled in the dark, trying to figure out what it meant to be a real adult. It’s an ongoing, confusing process I saw mirrored in 2Chang’s The Weather Inside, a new EP and five-part music video series the Berkeley-raised duo released in May.

2Chang, composed of brothers Jonny and Solomon Chang, experiment with dreamy, hypnotic visuals and melodic rap to explore themes of mental health, race, identity and the pressures of growing up.

Their music video “Normal” opens with a close-up shot of Jonny’s hands bound by thick, green rope as a quick, rhythmic tapping plays. As he unfurls the rope bit by bit, the tapping continues relentlessly, like the thump of an anxious heart. Soon after, he releases himself and bolts from a pair of masked captors, fleeing through liminal landscapes drenched in muted shades of green and purple.

“Not new, not normal, no news / I be in my brain, no clue,” Jonny raps in a voice as subdued as his surroundings. The song is slow and syrupy, delivered as if in a daze.

In contrast to “Normal,” the third episode, “Plant,” features upbeat instrumentals reminiscent of a Pokémon game with a highly saturated color palette of yellows, oranges and greens. Jonny’s voice is nostalgic as he longs for the past—for summers filled with heat, play and innocence.

“No clocking hours / No vacays / Let me fall into something else that ain’t payday.”

Then, as a collage of videos and photos of the brothers as children flit across the screen, Jonny raps:

“Remind myself I am a body / Remind myself I am somebody.”

The deeply personal and reflective project is a culmination of years of writing, introspection and collaboration. For the brothers, looking backward is their way of moving forward—and their art is a means to navigate the uncertainty of this journey.