The Rap-Up: Week of September 2, 2024

Image via Hurricane Wisdom/Instagram

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Harley Geffner wants to know what they actually do at the Met Gala.

There are moments on MAVI’s third studio album, shadow boxwhere you can convince yourself he’s the best rapper alive. There’s a perfect synchronicity; it sounds like grandma’s record player creaking in the other room as grandpa tells you stories of generational trauma, healing and the lessons that lie within. It tickles the nostalgic bone while keeping it grounded in the present. We feel MAVI processing his daily life and inner turmoil in real time.

There are also moments and lines that can feel a little sentimental, where you think it’s music for people who call themselves “tormented” and say things like “the sands of time.” That’s not to belittle it – life is hard, relationships are hard, grief is hard, and seeing all that shit play out in your 20s can leave some serious scars. MAVI’s superpower is his ability to (w)rap those scars so deftly.

His writing is tightly wound, but his streams meander in a way that unravels them and makes you feel like he’s talking directly to you. You meet him in the pit of your stomach when he groans “I want you to be happy / How you happy with another guy?” and seemingly runs out of breath before picking it up again. When he says he’s the plan for his entire family, that weight hangs over you and you live under the pressure he’s under for a moment. Then there’s the Valee homage (“i did”), which doesn’t really fit the album well but is a nice song in its own right.

When his interludes are punctuated by talk of 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 toward something. What he’s working toward on this album is the sense of life in contradiction and how that aligns with the soul. On the album’s closing track, “my own way,” he almost hums, “betrayal makes me scared to use my heart, but it’s the only tool I got.” It feels like a kind of thesis statement for how he approaches the forward motion of life; it’s a powerful lesson if you can take it to heart.

A feature of Siri (yes, that Siri) reads like it would be terrible and gimmicky at first glance, but somehow it works here. Maybe it’s because by the time Siri’s voice kicks in, you’re already captivated by the delicate strings and Ru’s smooth rap. Maybe Ru just wrote a killer verse for Siri and let the voice slam into it, but here we are.

To say that entire universes sprang from the first wave of melodic post-plug rap almost feels like an understatement. There are a million directions it went, but there’s a direct, if drugged and wobbly, line from Keef’s swirling melodies to ATL Smook and Boofboiicy doing PluggnB in 2016 to gamertag-style rap names spazzing out in 30 directions to something like this.

Most of the new directions feel too hyped up for my now-old ears, but there are a few guys who find the right balance. Coming from Atlanta, Rroxket’s raps and beat selection feel like they’re hitting the core of the foundation more firmly with just enough of a spazzy quality to make it feel new. This is sentimental and downtempo, with synths that sound like they were pulled from a Passion Pit kit, and Rroxket floats through it in a way that feels cool and smooth, but also glitchy and just disorienting enough.

His voice slides between and connects bars, keeping him in the mix throughout the song. It’s not super punchy, but it’s also not too cool for school. The result is that a few bars about the strategy behind hitting licks feel like a children’s lullaby.

Chito Rana$ was only 12 years old when he dropped out of school. As a child in Sacramento, he grew up between the Norteño and Sureño worlds—in fact, between loosely affiliated Mexican-American gangs that have been at war ever since a notorious prison fight in the 1970s. He fell over to the Sureño side, looked up to his older cousin, and began experimenting with drugs when most kids would still have to worry about being on time for baseball practice or having crushes on the schoolyard.

He’s been dealing with generational conflict, racially motivated conflict, and trauma-ridden addiction for so long that he raps like a seasoned veteran. His voice booms through the Sac-style production with the energy of a mob boss. He raps mostly in English, but dips into Spanish when he needs to make his point, and rolls his words off with ease.

Tallahassee-based rapper Hurricane Wisdom has such a fun, melodic flow. Over a subdued, creeping beat, he raps with dismissive vocal runs. He says he has to go because the money is calling, and it feels like he’s already on his way out of there.