Mixed emotions

When S. Reidy recorded 2024’s I Think I Feel a Little Different, the Norman hip-hop artist was in an emotional state he didn’t necessarily want to return to. On Sept. 19, he’s scheduled to release I Think I Feel a Little Different (Part 1 & 2), which adds six new tracks to the original five-song EP, offering listeners an update and a new perspective, but the original EP wasn’t meant to have a sequel.

“Man, dude, genuinely, like, I didn’t plan on it that way,” Reidy said. “I went through a lot last year, mentally. It was the hardest year of my life, just as far as my mental health goes. When I wrote the EP last year …  and just got it all out there, it was a healing process for me. It was really good for me to put it out. And then this year … through different stuff, praying and meditating and journaling and just learning to be more present and stuff, I really got in a better headspace.

“I just started to feel like 2024 and 2025 were really sister years to me, because I was living practically the same life, but with just a completely different mental outlook. … And then early, around July, it really hit me. …  I feel like the story of I Think I Feel a Little Different isn’t done, and I just picked the six songs that I think best represent where I am now.”

Reidy plans to celebrate the release of I Think I Feel a Little Different (Part 1 & 2) with a show 7 p.m., Friday, Sept. 26  at his house, which he calls Mt. Reidy. Message him on Instagram (@sdotreidy) for the address.

On Part 1 opener “Coffin Practice,” Reidy says, “And if I hate me, can you blame me? All this pain can tear your senses right apart.” 

Subsequent tracks from last year’s EP seem to come from a more positive perspective, like “Watch Me Dance,” on which Reidy says, “Yes, I took off the mask, said give me the light / Puffed out my chest and started breathing right / Yes, I pulled my head up out the sand.” But Reidy said this calmness and clarity describes the way he wanted to feel, not the way he felt at the time.

“When I was writing that song, I remember stopping in the middle of it,” Reidy said. “I’m like, ‘Why is this even coming out of me right now? Like, literally, I’ve never been worse, and I’m writing this music.’ … I think just something was coming out of me was purely aspirational.

“It was what I needed to hear. Part 1 is kind of like the idealistic version of healing from something, and I feel like Part 2 is like the actual healed version of me and how they’re different.”

“Ain’t That the Way”?

In April 2025, Reidy’s laptop was stolen.

“I had a bunch of music on it,” Reidy said. “It all got lost. I had to get a new one. Yada yada, it sucked. … I don’t even remember any of those songs anymore.”

Since April, Reidy estimates he’s written between 35 and 40 songs. These include demos for two unreleased albums and the “loosey tracks” that make up I Think I Feel a Little Different Part 2.

“I’ve just had a lot of energy this year to the point where I kind of have to, like, pull it back,” Reidy said. “Typically, in my life, for every high I have, I have an equally low low and vice versa. So since last year was kind of the lowest of lows, I’ve been almost hyper-stimulated this year. Especially after I got my laptop stolen and I got my new one, I was like, ‘OK. I have to catch up.’”

On Part 2’s “Ain’t That the Way,” released as a single in July, Reidy says, “Last night I mapped out every step to fix my life / Forgot it by the time the morning came / I took a walk, but nothing came back to my mind / I guess that I’ll be fine / Ain’t that the way?”

“At the end of the day, it’s easy to be romantic about pulling yourself out of a dark place, because when you do anything productive, it feels like a victory,” Reidy said. “At one point, getting out of bed at a decent time was like, ‘OK. I pretty much conquered everything I possibly could today.’ 

“I don’t wanna go back to that place, because it was terrible, but I don’t know; it’s just easy to just always want what you don’t have. Because now that I’m just day to day doing very well and mentally in a very good place and have these good exercises that I’m doing that keep me kinda grounded, it’s less romantic, it’s less exciting. I’ll admit it, but I think that that’s just a symptom of me just always wanting what I don’t have.”

For his set at Norman Music Fest in 2024, Reidy brought his bed onstage with him.

“I was having a lot of panic attacks last year,” Reidy said. “A lot of them happened in my bed right before I would go to sleep. I knew the panic attacks were probably going to continue as I was continuing to work on myself, and I wanted when I was asleep at night to have at least one good memory laying in that bed. … It was powerful for myself to kind of reclaim the bed-laying-down action in a way that whatever that dark energy was that would try to consume me at night, I’m like, ‘Well, at least you couldn’t get me there. I know that there is a context where I can be happy here.’”

For both of his sets at Norman Music Fest in 2025, Reidy brought friends, including Kat Lock, Limp Wizurdz and Baileyboy onstage for songs and skits.

“The big theme was togetherness and presentness and stuff,” Reidy said. “2024 and 2025 are two years in the same life, but different sides of the coin. This year was a lot more about my friends and less isolated.”

While Reidy hasn’t listened to Part 1 much recently, he frequently revisits it onstage.  

“I play pretty much all of these songs live a lot,” Reidy said. “When I’m doing that, I’m oftentimes thinking of the mental space that I was in when I was there. And so maybe that goes into why I was thinking so much about this project and why it stuck with me in a way that I thought it needed a sequel.

“They’re both very positive, and they both come from a place of healing, but when I was writing the first one, I just wasn’t there yet. When I wrote Part 2’s songs, I was actually there.  It might not make a lot of sense without that context, but it makes sense to me. Hopefully people get it or they’ll feel the difference whenever they listen to it.”

Visit sreidywebsite.com.

This article appears in Fall Guide 2025.