Image via Babyfxce E/Instagram
Donald Morrison is bringing back “much obliged,” as he believes saying “thank you” is outdated.
Skrilla would do surprisingly well in an apocalypse. I can imagine him running a forgotten city in The Walking Dead, excitedly adapting better than anyone to a new, and lawless society. The true mayor of Zombieland.
You don’t have to imagine this reality too hard, considering he’s conveying the nightmarish version of it. Most music writers can’t even admit liking Skrilla without adding a caveat about how uncomfortable his exploitational nature feels when they see him putting junkies in headlocks during hanging mic freestyles, filmed in his kingdom of Kensignton, PA, a forgotten swath of land that’s turned into what Skrilla refers to as Zombieland, an open air drug market, a hotbed of diseased human suffering.
But the sad truth is: these post-apocalyptic images and Skrill’a comfort within them, are what make him so special. He doesn’t turn away from this immense suffering like the rest of us; he can’t, because these are the circumstances and surroundings that produced him. To look away or dismiss Skrilla for these reasons is to ignore the true state of things, to ignore how dire life has become for many, including the genius rapper Skrilla himself, who proudly “geek geeks like the custie’s too.”
Skrilla is the personification of everything that’s missing in contemporary rap, an authenticity and lived experience. It’s not a secret anymore that most rappers don’t live the life they portray in their rap songs. Most of the time, they never did. They’re merely portraying a character in an ongoing soap opera, cosplaying whatever role happens to please a vampiric and insatiable fanbase. The sad part is, the art has been compromised so fully that the audience doesn’t even care anymore.
There was once a time when finding out a rapper was a phony could be a real career-killer. Authenticity was at the core of hip hop. More so than other genres. Skrilla is a character from these days. But what makes him truly special is that on top of being a drug-addled, self-proclaimed mayor of one of the most infamous drug zones in America, he’s also a Young Thug, Lil Wayne-level savant creating some of the most innovative and immediate music of our time.
Skrilla’s combination of ghost future production and intense nihilism help make him an avatar of our times. Many Americans feel as grim and hopeless as Skrilla’s music sounds. He’s the only artist capturing just how shitty things have gotten. He’s not saying it explicitly, but his music conjures something similar to the dark energy I feel in nearly every corner of social media these days. A feeling of internal rot that’s spread too much to even consider containing.
“Maison Language” is just the latest example of his mind-bending approach to rhyming. The song begins with the chorus:
“I let my jeans sag on my Maison’s, Rick jeans to be specific
Barbie bitch look like she asian, push the V like I was racin’
Drank lean real but let me taste it, uh, okay, it’s real
I signed the deal, blew rap advance on drank and pills”
He makes music that’s almost impossible to rap along too, because you can never predict exactly where he’s going. He’s the most exciting rapper in years. It reminds me of first hearing Young Thug, Kevin Gates or the late Drakeo The Ruler, all artists who made something new out of nothing, with no clear inspirations. Most days he feels like the only rapper there’s anything to say about. And his story is only just beginning.
Babyfxce E is the latest Detroit rapper to attempt a song with no profanity. The first and perhaps only other time occured on Eminem’s The Marshall Mather’s LP, when he said “I’m tryin’ to clean up my fuckin’ image/ So I promised the fuckin’ critics I wouldn’t say “fuckin”’ for six minutes.” As you might have guessed, he didn’t come close to lasting that long.
Babyfxce E is on track to become the next big act from Michigan, making some of the funnest street hits since Rio Da Yung OG’’s pre-prison run in the early COVID-19 days. The “PTP Remix” featuring the show-stopping Monaleo, should be a contender for song of the summer if times were better. Every line is a quotable, I can’t stop saying “little bitch just off work, and said ‘ok now we can drink.”
“No Profanity,” featuring the underage phenom STAR BANDZ from Chicago, begins with Babyfxce E announcing he’s making a song with no cussing simply “because I can,” as if he lost a bet or someone triple-dog-dared him. Gun violence and sexual innuendos are still free game, as Babyfxce E says at one point, “the Glock .23 was passed down so many times, that was the ‘family heat.’”
He even gets philosophical on the N word at some point, saying the word is, “not a cuss word, we been saying that since we kids, and if you think it is you probably didn’t grow up the same as me.” The whole digression feels oddly specific, as if he were recently chided by a strict family member for using the word in his music.
Chicago’s STAR BANDZ continues her hot streak of features, proving that she can also make a hit without profanity with relative ease. It’s a funny parameter to put on yourself as a rapper these days, and both artists approach the song with just enough seriousness to make it all work. I just hope Joyner Lucas doesn’t see this and consider it some sort of challenge.
Belly Gang Kushington, an Atlanta-based biracial and white-passing rapper who became infamous in April 2024 after a clip of him shutting down the I-20 freeway to perform a song went viral, has a good ear for nostalgia-tinged ATL trap and other music he presumably grew up listening to in the early aughts. I’m not entirely surprised another rapper hasn’t attempted to re-do Eminem’s “Cleaning Out My Closet,” effectively the most brutal and famous diss song against someone’s own mother. Eminem’s mom suffering from Munchausen Syndrome doesn’t exactly inspire remix vibes, but Belly’s attempt is a valiant effort in vulnerability, and definitely introduces a side of the artist many didn’t expect was possible.
It helps that Belly’s relationship with his mother is somehow just as fraught, if not more so, than Eminem and Debbie Mathers was (famously dramatized in the greatest musical ever made: 8 Mile.) Belly explains how his mom abandoned him when he was a child. He even accuses her of not being around to see her grandson, who Belly has said was born autistic with speech difficulties.
It’s a rare, ultra-personal vulnerability that’s been oddly absent in these corners of the rap megasphere, where music that isn’t “meant for the club,” merely exists for the artists own selfish, cathartic benefit, meant to “scare the hoes,” and not much else. But in this context, vulnerability becomes an immense weakness and we continue to regress because of it, our art becoming more and more pointless and commodified. It’s nice to see Belly turn down the irony pill and lean into something real, something that AI couldn’t have written.
Belly recently released The Streets Is Yours, his official debut tape after releasing singles and features since at least 2020. The album opens with “Introduction,” which comes with a video that begins with a black Youtuber explaining why Belly is invited to the proverbial barbeque. It’s a smart way of addressing the elephant in the room, as Belly definitely makes the artistic choice to use the N word in his music, even though he looks like a red haired, pale white man. If you can get past all of that, the music is definitely good. It’s much more than just ATL trap cosplay. You can tell this is a person who’s been heavily entrenched in the local scene and has been accepted. The whole tape has a rare cohesion that makes me excited to hear what comes next.
Bfb is one of the hardest working rappers of the past few years. He’s recently released excellent two tapes and leveled up in ways that his haters didn’t know were possible. However, if you’ve been paying attention since the beginning, you’ll know that BFB is much more than a gimmick rapper with fat guy bars. His latest, “Fix a Fien,” includes promise of a No Jumper diss, and BFB doesn’t disappoint. Although the song has basically nothing to do with the LA rap podcast network, he does end with a bar that makes it all worth it, saying “In No Jumper with my gun on me, because I don’t trust Adam.” Bfb is making light of a now-infamous moment where Bricc Baby, a former No Jumper host and Rollin 60’s crip, flashed a pistol in his waistband during a video-recorded podcast.
Five years after “Free Joe Exotic,” BFB still has his thumb on the pulse of rap — and podcasts?
There’s something soothing and comforting about CEO Trayle. His consistency and oddly-compelling lyrics make him something of a modern day Currensy, known for churning out car-ready tunes, perfect for background music and also just deep enough to catch you by surprise every now and then. Dubba-AA, a Grammy Award-winning producer from South Florida known for making hits with Kodak Black and NBA YoungBoy, laces CEO with some of his best work in years in their new collab project, The Collection Vol. 4 (Dubba-AA Edition). This is the tape I’ve been telling people to listen too if they ask me what’s good these days but don’t have the stomach for Skrilla. Nobody has been disappointed yet.
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