Standard cover art for the album, deluxe edition features a green tint as opposed to red and yellow. In addition, the word “deluxe” is featured horizontally on both sides of the cover.
Bad Habits is the second
studio album by Canadian rapper
Nav. It was released through
XO Records and
Republic Records on March 22, 2019.[3] The album features
guest appearances from
The Weeknd,
Meek Mill,
Young Thug,
Gunna, and
Lil Durk.[4] The deluxe edition was released four days later on March 26, 2019. It features additional guest appearances from
Future and then-XO labelmate duo
88Glam. It follows his previous album, Reckless (2018), as well as his unofficial Brown Boy EP, released a week and a day before Bad Habits. The album debuted at number one on the BillboardCanadian Albums chart as well as the US
Billboard 200, becoming Nav's first chart-topper on both.
Background
On March 17, 2019, CashXO released NAV's Brown Boy EP which consisted of 5 tracks exclusively on Audiomack announced the album's title and release date.[3]
The cover art was revealed via
Instagram on March 19, 2019, with the tracklist on March 21, 2019.[5]
A track titled "Habits" featuring
Lil Uzi Vert was supposed to be released on the album.[6] According to Nav, the heads of Lil Uzi Vert's label,
DJ Drama and
Don Cannon, would not legally clear Lil Uzi Vert's verse.[7] In a statement to Complex, DJ Drama said, "It's not about the money because we turned down $100k."[8]
On March 26, 2019, the deluxe version of Bad Habits was released, which features new guest appearances from
Future and
88Glam, alongside all the songs from the Brown Boy EP.[9] The originally unreleased track "Habits" which was supposed to feature Lil Uzi Vert, was also released as a solo version.[10] According to Nav, he recorded Lil Uzi Vert's verse himself and put it on the song.
Singles
The album's
lead single, "
Know Me", was released for
digital download on November 2, 2018. The song was produced by Pro Logic and Austin Powerz.[11] The music video was released on November 8, 2018. The music video was directed by David Camarena.[12] The song peaked at number sixty-three on the Billboard Canadian Hot 100.[13] "
Price on My Head", featuring Canadian singer-songwriter
the Weeknd, was released as the second single on March 26, 2019, the same day that Nav released the deluxe edition of the album.[14] "
Tap", featuring American rapper
Meek Mill, was released as the third single on May 7, 2019.[15]
Bad Habits received mixed reviews from music critics, citing a lack of boldness and originality. At
Metacritic, which assigns a
normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an
average score of 52, based on 4 reviews, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[16]
Reed Jackson of Pitchfork wrote, "At its best, [the album's] songs are serviceable bangers to nod off in the club to; at its worst, it's a collection of strange admissions that, thanks to Nav's affinity for taking himself too seriously, come off cringe-worthy."[21] Reviewer Riley Wallace of Exclaim! praised specific tracks such as "Tension" and "Why You Crying Mama", though he felt that the album ultimately "fails to either navigate into new territory long enough to hold attention or do anything to further NAV as an artist."[18]AllMusic criticized Nav's lack of originality, uninspired lyrical content, and the repetitive nature of the beats on the album, describing it as going from "generic fun to mind-numbing tedium."[17]
Commercial performance
Bad Habits debuted at number one on the US
Billboard 200 with 82,000
album-equivalent units, of which 24,000 were pure album sales in its first week. The reason for its high sales was mostly due to merchandise bundles which resulted in about 20,000 extra sales.[22] It became Nav's first US number-one album.[22] The album also accumulated a total of 79.08 million on-demand audio streams for the album's songs, making it the most streamed album of the week.[22] In its second week, the album dropped to number six on the chart, earning an additional 35,000 units that week.[23] On May 20, 2020, the album was certified
gold by the
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for combined sales and album-equivalent units of over 500,000 units.[24]
In Nav's home country of Canada, Bad Habits debuted at number one on the
Canadian Albums Chart, selling 10,000 album-equivalent units in its first week.[25] On June 26, 2019, the album was certified gold by
Music Canada (MC) for sales of over 40,000 copies in Canada.[26]
"Go to Hell", "8 to a 4", "Never Know", "OK" (featuring
Lil Durk), and "Athlete" were originally from Nav's Brown Boy EP, that his manager
Cash leaked eight days before the album's release.
Personnel
All programming and keyboards are credited to the producers of each track, except where noted.[27]