PRAY FOR ME Review: RAAHiiM Turns Church Guilt Into Bedroom Music

PRAY FOR ME is RAAHiiM using prayer talk like a pickup line—sweet, messy R&B where devotion and self-sabotage keep sharing the same bed.

Courtesy of MNRK Records LP.

This album isn’t asking for help—it’s confessing in real time

RAAHiiM doesn’t make PRAY FOR ME sound like a victory lap. It sounds like somebody pacing a room, swearing they’re done with the same mistakes, then immediately describing the exact mistake they’re about to make again. If you want an album where growth is tidy and the lessons stick, you’re in the wrong place. This one’s sticky. It clings.

And yeah, it’s R&B, it’s melodic, it’s often pretty—but it’s not “pretty” in a clean way. It’s pretty like a crumpled suit jacket you wore to a wedding and an argument.

“96 Camry” is corny on paper… and then it wins anyway

Here’s the first moment where the record tells you what it’s really doing. On “96 Camry,” RAAHiiM says he wants to love a woman the way his dad loved his car—wouldn’t trade her for anything, would ride with her until she falls apart. The first time I heard that, I almost rolled my eyes. A car metaphor? Really?

But the song doesn’t stay in that obvious lane. It flips the comparison and suddenly he’s talking about love like his mom loved her cigarettes—something that pulls you close and still makes breathing harder. Then he goes even further: love like his granny loved her bible, reading every page of you. Those aren’t lazy similes; they’re a whole biography in three snapshots.

What it sketches—without begging for sympathy—is a 29-year-old from Scarborough whose idea of devotion was learned by watching other people commit to things: objects, habits, faith. It feels like he built his romantic vocabulary in somebody else’s living room, borrowing whatever “staying” looked like. You can hear the church upbringing in the way he shapes lines, and you can hear his home in Toronto’s east end in the way Caribbean music sits in his instincts like muscle memory.

The best part is how the music supports the “warm stupidity” of the hook (and I mean that as a compliment). Kevin Ekofo gives it pillowy keys, and RAAHiiM’s falsetto cracks at the edges like he’s reaching for sincerity and his voice is side-eyeing him. That crack matters. It tells you he’s not totally confident in the promise he’s making.

Every guy here admits he’s the problem—and nobody has a plan

The album’s running gag (except it’s not funny when you’ve lived it) is that the men keep confessing. Not grand confessing. Casual confessing. The kind where you say something damning about yourself and keep it moving like it’s small talk.

On “Just Like Me,” he’s thinking about last names and diamond rings—then mid-bar he admits the streets keep calling:

“Baby, I don’t wanna be a dog but woo / Who am I to change?”

He sings it with a shrug in his throat, like the confession itself is supposed to count as progress. It’s not. It’s just accurate.

“SLIDE4U (Hating)” keeps that same slippery self-awareness. He tells a woman he wants to give her love and devotion “in the worst ways”—and then admits he’s selfish. It’s a bold move to say the quiet part out loud and still expect romance to survive it, but that’s kind of the whole album: brutal honesty as a substitute for actual change.

Karri’s feature fits cleanly into this world—Bay Area smooth, unbothered, and specific. He’s out here rhyming about having sex to Curtis Mayfield, calling her a walking red flag he couldn’t stop chasing. That detail lands because it’s not generic “player talk.” It’s a real scene.

Then “Falling Off” comes around, still circling the same questions—are they even friends anymore, did he cross the line again—and Bay Swag shows up like he wandered in from a different project. The energy doesn’t match, and it yanks the song off its axis. I’m not saying the verse is worthless; I’m saying it breaks the spell. Karri belongs here. Bay Swag doesn’t.

The prayer language gets better the less “church” it becomes

The further PRAY FOR ME drifts from actual church behavior, the more interesting it gets. That might sound backwards, but listen to how he uses religious grammar as emotional structure, not moral instruction.

“PRAYERSFORMYEX” borrows the shape of an altar call and fills it with smoke. He’s “praying” guys stay away from him, praying she doesn’t lose herself, praying she makes it rain when her thoughts are clouded. It’s protective and possessive at the same time—like he wants her safe, but also wants her still tethered to him. That contradiction is the point.

Halfway through, he admits the distance between the language and the lifestyle:

“Swear I haven’t seen a church in so long / I’ve been getting way too high and laying low.”

Jordon Manswell and Marc Crimi set organ tones against a drum pattern that sits between a hymnal processional and a late-night slow jam. And RAAHiiM doesn’t choose one mood—he rides both. He sounds like someone who left the pew years ago but never stopped thinking in its sentences.

I’m not totally sure if he means it as guilt or as aesthetic. Maybe it’s both. That uncertainty is part of why it works: the album refuses to clarify whether prayer is faith, habit, or just a dramatic way to talk about desire.

“On God” blurs preacher talk and pillow talk until it’s the same language

“On God” opens with a sampled preacher warning about lustful sin and the devil’s grip, which could’ve been corny—another cheap “sermon intro” that goes nowhere. But then RAAHiiM comes in singing about a woman who feels like heaven when their love is hellish:

“I put that on God / I put that on everything.”

That’s the trick of this record: it collapses sacred and profane until you can’t tell whether he’s swearing an oath or begging forgiveness. It never resolves. It just keeps mixing the two like it’s normal. And honestly, for a lot of people, it is normal. That’s why it stings.

“WiiCKEDEST” is the album’s smartest flex: swagger that turns into pleading

If you want the cleanest example of RAAHiiM’s Caribbean ear taking over the room, it’s “WiiCKEDEST.” Supa Dups and Jordon Manswell build it on dancehall bass and patois phrasing, and BEAM goes even deeper into Jamaican vernacular—Port More references, butterfly tattoo lines, the whole thing moving with loose-limbed confidence.

The smartest decision on the album is splitting this track into two halves.

• Part I is swagger and instruction: “You haffi bend over, bend over / you haffi take over.” It’s command mode.
• Part II deflates into a guy whose partner dipped, begging: “Show me your body like I’m new or somethin’ / Hold onto me like I’ma lose somethin’.”

And there’s no obvious seam. It’s the same voice, the same relationship—just the mask slipping in real time. If you think this album is about romance, I’d argue it’s more about control: the way control shows up as confidence until it doesn’t work, and then it shows up as desperation.

“SAVE A MOMENT” keeps it simple—almost too simple

From there, “SAVE A MOMENT” coasts on the same Caribbean current: 92 degrees, Hennessy, patois-inflected hook—“Feels like tings could gwan way you pree me.” It doesn’t reach for anything deeper than being a party cut.

And that’s fine… but it’s also where the record goes a little soft in the knees. I kept waiting for a left turn—some lyric that undercuts the vibe, some tension, some bite—and it mostly just cruises. Fun, yes. Sticky, not really. It’s the kind of track that makes sense in the sequence but doesn’t haunt you afterward.

When he stops flirting, the album gets mean in the best way

The bitterest stretch hits when RAAHiiM quits the seduction and starts counting damage.

“20’s” catalogues the decade with zero mercy:

• “Twenties for a broken heart”
• “Twenties trying not to fall apart”
• “Twenty like you x’d me out”
• “Twenty like your fakest friends”
• “Twenty like the club won’t even let you in”

It’s not just a list—it’s a pressure log. And under that, he drops the bleaker story:

“We never pray / But somehow you always get on your knees sometimes.”

That’s the album in one ugly sentence: intimacy without future, pleasure without building anything, a few more moments and then nothing past that. If that line doesn’t make you wince, you’re either lying or living better than most of us.

“Don’t Believe It” twists the knife differently:

“The last text sent said we should get married / Last sex before you left went green like envy.”

That’s not “heartbreak poetry.” That’s a specific kind of whiplash—planning a life in messages, then watching it rot in real time.

Then “Too Much” drifts on the slowest beat on the record while he spirals around the question: did he do too much, turn her up too much? The closing stretch finally admits what the rest of the song circles:

“I hate the fucking distance / Feels like something’s missing / Think I just need loving / Something that’s consistent.”

It’s almost embarrassingly plain, which is why it lands. No metaphor to hide behind. Just need.

The trilogy ends without a tidy ending—and that’s the point

PRAY FOR ME is framed like the planned end of a trilogy that began with ii KNEW BETTER (and runs through BUT IF iiM HONEST). What’s blunt is that nothing gets “fixed” here. He’s still the guy who wants marriage and, in the same breath, asks who he is to change. The difference is the honesty is sharper now—less performative, more resigned.

He co-produced several tracks, and when his singing instincts and production ear lock together, the album gets genuinely potent:

• the falsetto arcing over organ on “PRAYERSFORMYEX”
• the warm, ridiculous sincerity of “96 Camry”
• the dancehall stomp and two-part emotional switch on “WiiCKEDEST”

When it misses, it misses in ways that feel avoidable. Bay Swag on “Falling Off” breaks momentum. “SAVE A MOMENT” is enjoyable but doesn’t stick to your ribs. Still, those lapses don’t define the album as much as the voice does—the specific mix of church-kid guilt and Caribbean rhythm sense. When those point in the same direction, RAAHiiM makes a sound that feels weirdly lonely and communal at once.

And on second listen, I respected it more. The first time through, I thought the prayer stuff might be a stylistic costume. By the time I looped “PRAYERSFORMYEX” again, it felt more like a reflex: he can’t stop talking in that language even when he’s far from any congregation.

My standouts and where I land

I’m not pretending this is flawless, but I’m also not pretending it’s disposable. If I had to plant a flag, I land in that “solid” zone—strong enough to replay, uneven enough to argue about.

Favorite track(s):

• “96 Camry”
• “WiiCKEDEST”
• “PRAYERSFORMYEX”

Conclusion

PRAY FOR ME doesn’t try to clean RAAHiiM up for polite company. It lets him be contradictory: devotional and selfish, tender and avoidant, horny and haunted. The album’s best moments don’t come from big hooks—they come from the uncomfortable overlap where prayer talk turns into relationship talk and nobody can tell the difference anymore.

Our verdict: People who like R&B that admits the mess—and doesn’t rush to “heal”—will love PRAY FOR ME. If you need your love songs to come with a self-improvement plan, you’ll get annoyed fast. This album is for listeners who hear “I’m the problem” and don’t expect the next line to be “so I changed.”

FAQ

• Is PRAY FOR ME a breakup album or a love album?
  It’s both, and that’s the problem it keeps poking: the love language and the damage language are basically interchangeable here.
• What’s the most essential song to start with?
  “96 Camry” gives you the emotional blueprint—family-based metaphors, cracked falsetto, sincerity that risks looking stupid.
• Do the religious elements feel authentic or just aesthetic?
  They feel like habit more than performance—especially on “PRAYERSFORMYEX,” where he admits he hasn’t been to church in a long time but still talks like he never left.
• Which feature works best?
  Karri fits the album’s tone naturally, sliding into the same messy-romance logic without derailing the song.
• What’s the weak link on the tracklist?
  “Falling Off” loses momentum when Bay Swag shows up with a mismatched energy, like a different playlist started playing mid-track.

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