Image via Hurricane Wisdom/Instagram
Harley Geffner wants to know what they even do in the Met Gala.
There are moments on MAVI’s third studio album, shadowbox, where you can convince yourself he’s the best rapper alive. There’s a perfect synchronicity; it sounds like grandma’s record player crackling in the other room while grandpa tells you tales of generational trauma, healing, and the lessons there within. It tickles the nostalgia bone while being grounded in the present. We’re feeling MAVI work through his daily life and inner turmoil in real time.
There are also moments and lines that can feel slightly mawkish, where you’ll think that it’s music for people who call themselves “tortured,” and say things like “the sands of time.” That’s not to disparage it – life is hard, relationships are hard, grief is hard, and seeing all that shit play out in your 20s can leave heavy scars. MAVI’s superpower is his ability to (w)rap around those scars so deftly.
His writing is tightly wound, but his flows are meandering in a way that unravels them and makes it feel like he’s talking directly to you. You meet him in the pit of your stomach when he moans “I want you to be happy / How you happy with another guy?” seemingly falling out of breath before picking it right back up. When he says he’s the plan for his whole family, that weight sits with you, and for a moment, you’re living under the pressure he’s facing. Then there’s the Valee homage (“i did”), which doesn’t feel like it fits that well in the album but is a fun song as a standalone.
When his interludes break in talking about creativity as the “momentary reprieve from the gaping maw of despair,” you hold back an eye roll to let it play out because you know he’s working towards something. What he’s working towards with this album is the feeling of living in contradiction and how that sits with the soul. On the final song of the album, “my own way,” he almost hums, “betrayal makes me afraid to use my heart, but it’s the only tool I got.” It feels like something of a thesis statement for how he’s approaching the forward momentum of living; it’s a strong lesson if you can take it to heart.
A feature from Siri (yes, that Siri) reads like it would be terrible and gimmicky on its face, but it somehow works here. Maybe it’s because by the time Siri’s voice kicks in, you’re already fully entranced by the delicate strings and Ru’s slippery rapping. Maybe it’s just that Ru wrote a hard ass verse for Siri and made the voice punch in with it, but here we are.
To say that whole universes spawned from the first wave of melodic post-plug rap almost feels like an understatement. There’s a million directions it went, but there is a direct, but drugged and wobbly line between Keef’s swirling melodies to ATL Smook and Boofboiicy doing PluggnB in 2016 down to gamertag style rap names spazzing in 30 directions to something like this.
Most of the new directions feel overly juiced to my now old head ears, but there are a few guys who strike the right balance. Out of Atlanta, Rroxket’s raps and beat selection feel like they hit more solidly at the core of the foundation with just enough of the spazzy qualities to keep it feeling new. This is sentimental and downtempo, with synths that sound like they were pulled from a Passion Pit pack, and Rroxket floats through them in a way that feels cool and smooth, but also glitchy and just disorienting enough.
His voice drags between and connects bars, so he stays in the mix through the whole song. It’s not super punchy, but it’s not too cool for school either. The result makes a bunch of bars about the strategy behind hitting licks feel like a children’s lullaby.
Chito Rana$ was just 12 years old when he dropped out of school. A kid in Sacramento, he grew up between the Norteño and Sureño worlds, basically between loosely affiliated Mexican American gangs who’ve been at war since a notorious prison fight in the 70’s. He fell onto the Sureño side, looking up to his older cousin, and started experimenting with drugs while most kids should have still been worried about making it to baseball practice on time or about schoolyard crushes.
He’s been dealing with generational beefs, racially-motivated conflict, and trauma-riddled addictions for so long, that he raps like a deeply grizzled vet. His voice booms through the Sac-style production with the energy of a mafia boss. He raps mostly in English but dips into Spanish when he needs to make his points, and rolls his words so smoothly.
Tallahassee-based rapper Hurricane Wisdom has such a fun, melodic flow. Over a lowkey creeping beat, he raps with dismissive vocal runs. He says he’s gotta go because money’s calling, and it feels like he’s already on his way out of there.
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