Kyle Ellison needs Cigarillos from the corner store.
It’s sometimes hard to tell whether Atlanta’s latest crop of eccentrics are bored or exhilarated by rap. Half of the time it sounds as though the city’s young rappers might actually pass out from excitement, either buzzing off of some loopy synth beat or a lean-induced sugar rush. Whether it’s Migos’ stumbling staccato flows or the sickly-sweet hooks of Rich Kidz and Rich Homie Quan, ATL is a world away from the composed, downtrodden monotones that you might associate with New York.
But therein also lies the boredom. Listening to a rapper like Young Thug, it’s difficult to ignore his yearning for transcendence. Even the words that we use to describe his delivery – yelping, squealing, squawking and shrieking as he does – point to an artist grasping for something by pushing his voice to its very limits. Often he loses control of it all together; his vocals trembling with intensity, but those are the good takes not the discarded ones.
Also falling into this shapeless mould is Lil Silk, a young Chicago-born rapper raised in Atlanta’s Zone 3 – one foot in each of street rap’s two most vital cities. Like Young Thug, Silk grew up idolizing Lil Wayne, and you get the sense that that’s about where his timeline begins. His style is too raw to belong to traditional ancestry, and it serves him well not to be a scholar of the hip hop canon. Atlanta’s new generation of kids weren’t handed down the rapper’s guidebook, but thankfully they’re a writing a new version of it and it sounds insane.
Take Silk’s ‘OG Bobby Johnson’ freestyle, which transforms Que’s original with breathless energy and piercingly-pitched adlibs. “Dive in the sea like a dolphin – splaaaaaash / make a nigga dive in his coffin – paaoooww,” he raps, in a cadence more suited to a minor character from Despicable Me than a kid threatening to take a life.
Lil Silk carries this hysterical energy into his latest mixtape, Son of a Hustler. For the most part, it’s a collection of new songs, although standouts “Rapper” and “Know Money” are among the older cuts included. The former is a particular highlight, marrying a twinkling “I Don’t Like”-like beat with a hook that simultaneously nods to his dad’s life of drug dealing and the legacy he hopes to leave behind – “Lil Silk’s a rapper – I’m a rapper! / Big Silk’s a wrapper – he’s a trapper!” If he makes it – top of the shopping list is a fleet of luxury jets and enough jewellery to blind his own mother.
Elsewhere, Silk makes a suitably hyper host on the peppy “Party Anthem,” while “Still Geeked” is the still delirious-sounding sequel to last year’s single “I’m Geeked”. The surprise package though is “Eternity Love,” which is exactly as its title suggests – a sweet tribute to undying love set to a screwed vocal and a snapping snare. Nestled towards the end the tape the song is perhaps unexpected, but like his peers Lil Silk is proving satisfyingly difficult to second guess.
Download:
ZIP: Lil Silk – Son of a Hustler (Left-Click)
