Hip-hop’s would-be Romeo Tory Lanez came out of the gate strong with a debut album that premiered at number four on the Billboard chart and spawned two hit singles, “Say It” and “Luv,” thanks mostly to a canny marketing campaign that essentially pitched the Toronto rapper as urban radio’s next Usher. A little controversy didn’t hurt either, though his adversarial attempts to engage fellow Canadian rapper Drake never really rose to the level of a hip-hop feud. Lanez’s follow-up full-length, Memories Don’t Die, debuted at number three in March, bolstered this time by featured collaborations with A-listers like 50 Cent, Future, Wiz Khalifa, NAV, and Fabolous (though the latter’s participation was dropped from press releases circulated after a recent felony arrest for domestic violence).

Putting aside all the hype and number worship, the growth and maturity shown on the new album is comparable to the Beatles going from “She Loves You” to “She’s Leaving Home,” in that Lanez has quickly gone from simple (if sincere) love poems to fully fleshed-out operatic opuses that deal with universally relatable topics like the death of a parent, the birth of a son, and - perhaps not so relatable, but nonetheless fascinating - how such personal life experiences get turned inside out when one’s life is on public display. It’s an excellent and promising sophomore effort that should be well received when his Memories Don’t Die tour kicks off next month, hitting Observatory North Park on May 28.