It took Brandon Callender 11 months to make it through Season 1 of True Detective, but it was worth it.
Caal Vo â âHOMESICKâ
âShe just wanna live the life Iâm living for the thrillâI ainât even been back home for a year,â Caal Vo dejectedly opens âHOMESICK.â Thereâs little excitement in his voice as he talks about his fast-paced lifestyle over the warm electronic hums. EERA and EvilGianeâs production moderates Caal Voâs ennui and world weariness, shrouding the song in a nostalgic haze that adds color to the grayness of his voice. âI canât even feel, nah, forreal/Man, Iâm busting off this molly but I donât even fuck with pills,â he sighs. âHOMESICKâ is full of bittersweet reflections, but it goes down as easily as a spoonful of honey.
Yung Kayo â âcause + effectâ
Yung Kayo feels like heâs secretly signed to Playboi Cartiâs OPIUM, rather than Young Thugâs YSL. Art Dealerâs brain-vaporizing synths make âcause + effectâ feel like a night in a cybernetic club where robots have all but replaced humans. âPromethazine and the X/We call âem the cause and effect,â Kayo chants. With his go-to producer Warpstr, Kayoâs built himself up on a foundation of electronic production: rapping over soothing lullabies and frenzied rage fests that are more in-line with whatâs going on on SoundCloud than anything else. Continuing to get weirder and weirder with Warpstr instead of chasing hits has made Kayo one of the only interesting things about current-day YSL.
Bobby 6ix â âGuide My Steps Oh Lordâ
Every few weeks I go on YouTube to catch up on singles from Bobby 6ix. Itâs easy to miss a string of singles from him and the rest of the Montego Bay-based 6ix collective. âGuide My Steps Oh Lordâ is more of a prayer than it is a song. The soothing voices of the choir singing back-up on the hook relieves the songâs tension as he asks God for protection. âMi know uno see the shine, but uno nah know the fight,â he soberly raps. The close-ups of his face reveal so much hidden pain. Two weeks from now, thereâll probably be another Bobby 6ix loosie just as worthy of your attention.
BIGMUTHA feat. ZelooperZ â âWRIST.â
BIGMUTHA (fka bbymutha) and ZelooperZ take us back to the heyday of tall tees and ill-fitting denim on âWrist.â ZelooperZ raps about seeing a girl so bad that he lost his voice while BIGMUTHA lays down one of her most irresistible hooks. âHe say he donât love them hoes like he donât know he the hoes/He gonna try to pay the bills and he gonâ buy me some clothes,â she raps over the beat that ping pongs from ear to ear. If you listen to it for long enough, a pair of Girbauds just might appear in your closet.
d0llywood1 â âi almost puked at the mallâ
Iâm convinced that dltzk could produce whatever kind of music they set their mind to. From the fragile chiptune purrs of Teen Week to the internet melting, sample-heavy breakbeat chaos of dariacore, the digicore producer continues to push themselvesâas well as the rest of the communityâinto new directions. âi almost puked at the mall,â d0llywood1âs latest single, is 2 minutes of anxiety-inducing terror. In the first half of the song, dltzkâs brooding production collapses in on itself, boxing in dollyâs vocals. She breaks free in the songâs back half, swapping to an eerie sing-song to talk tough. âAnd I feel like Playboi Carti, bitch, I got a brand new tank/If he talkinâ all that shit, Imma hit âem with that shank,â she raps. d0llywood1 and dltzk are pure magic together.