As a teenager in Queens, @lexagates taught herself how to make music on her mom’s laptop, and she still likes to do everything herself—a one-woman-band who can spit poetic rap verses right next to her own soulful hooks (while occasionally self-producing her beats). She even does her own stunts, locking herself in a box and walking on a giant wheel for 10 hours each in promotion of her past two projects.⁠ ⁠ As she levels up, though, Lexa is starting to let more people into her creative orbit, like legendary record producer Emile Haynie, who helped sculpt I Am into her best work yet. After years of uploading DIY songs to SoundCloud, she had already proven herself as a remarkably efficient songwriter, capable of describing complicated topics like the existential passing of time with deceptively simple one-liners. (“The time is up, your baby got a mustache.”) But as I Am standouts like “It Goes On” and “I Don’t Even Know” show, Lexa has added a noticeable level of polish and sophistication...