Enter CASTLE. North Carolina-raised. Mello Music Group signed. Mission statement: I don’t give a fuck music for people who don’t give a fuck. Lest you think this is all ski-mask seriousness, his biography touts this resume of achievement: once killed the entire Marvel universe, made Chuck Norris say uncle, cut through hot knives with butter, lost his virginity before his father. I’m not sure if he’s the most interesting man in the world, but he raps like he could decapitate that genial old man and serve cerveza out of his skull. Not bad.
“GasFace” is the first single from the forthcoming (7/23) album, Gasface. All the bases are covered. The drums sound well-drugged. Minor chords on the keyboard whine with homicidal menace. He has one of those raspy nosebone-shattering voices that you thought they stopped pumping out in the 90s. The hook pitches it down an octave so it almost sounds like Tyler the Creator if his first job was a stick-up kid not at a Starbucks. The lyrics are street-smart, but still aware of consequences, able to condense vast amounts of information into only a few bars.
“How could we NOT chance the cuffs when poverty’s provokin’ us. fuck a diploma, bruh, we’re just gonna die and return to dust?” These are the sort of questions he asks, expecting no answers. There is a Wu-Tang like vibe to both the mood and the themes, without coming off as a seed trying to live up to the older Gods. This is insular doom-rap. He’s praying on homies to make it out and “shake the devils off, before they shake him out.” Morning radio con men and crackheads exist side by side. Pills, no frills, and bellyaches, for those who never have happy Mondays. This is how you start things off.
