Regardless of being labeled by followers as “underground,” rage rap has turn into a multi-million greenback enterprise, filling out arenas with younger males who consider Playboi Carti is god and moshpits are communion. (I consider this may make 42CEO one of many 4 Evangelists.) But it surely’s not fairly mainstream but. Not within the sense of pop radio, Grammys season, or dinner desk dialog. You gained’t have a lot luck operating up on somebody within the park and asking them in the event that they know who Yeat or Ken Carson is.
Nicely, if rage rap ever makes its method onto a Goal retailer playlist, it would sound a bit of like Slayr. His November album Half Blood, lately re-released because the expanded BloodLuxe, checks all of the containers of the style—roller-rink synths by the use of F1LTHY, barreling flows by the use of Uzi—then tears up the guidelines each jiffy to strive one thing new: a wub-wub EDM drop, a shower bomb of synth streaks. Slayr raps, sings, and screams throughout this factor, producing most of it himself with frequent contributions from the producer wa. If it have been sweet, BloodLuxe could be bitter and candy taffy that turns your tongue blue.
No rating but, be the primary so as to add.
Past all of the stomach-turning breakdowns, Slayr prioritizes the fundamentals: tight track construction, hovering hooks, and expertly rapped verses. There are songs like “Racks” which are completely constructed style fare however nonetheless exhibit a way of play. Method usually supersedes feeling, although. Slayr’s dexterous, extremely processed vocal runs on “Model New” skip and skate and flutter round kangarooing 808s, taking cues from Harlem rapper Lunchbox. However you may really feel the ache and pressure in Lunchbox’s voice each time. Slayr sounds nice, however it could possibly typically look like pure craft with out the artwork; he doesn’t all the time give form to feeling when he sings.
BloodLuxe sounds big and goes down straightforward even whereas it’s nonetheless firmly rooted within the scene’s instincts. Extra, extra, extra appears to be the route of the underground proper now. Louder, noisier, extra chaotic. Slayr’s “extra” sounds just like the association of “Mind Fog”: 30 seconds of 8-bit snow globe music, then 40 seconds of rage rap, then 30 seconds of underscores-style pop EDM, then a cloud of synths that transition seamlessly into the following observe. I can’t get with the entire breakdowns on BloodLuxe, particularly the metallic switch-ups that sound like he typed “Playboi Carti tour vibes” into Suno, however I respect the audacity to throw the whole lot on the wall.
Scanning his album titles over time—Chaos [B4 Gaia], Gaia, Gaia 2, Half Blood—you’ll discover that Slayr is closely into Greek mythology. He amassed his data of the pantheon, demigods, and the creation of the world by means of studying Percy Jackson books and enjoying God of Struggle. All all through his adolescence in Philadelphia, he received misplaced within the worlds of video video games like Sonic Colours and Kingdom Hearts. And in an interview with Youngsters Take Over, he credit online game OSTs for getting him into making music. Gaming is inseparable from what Slayr does on BloodLuxe. The Half Blood album artwork is impressed by the Japanese horror sport Corpse Celebration. And you may hear the affect on songs like “Love Blur,” when the melodies flip additional syrupy, and “Demigod,” the place he approximates side-scrolling insanity by means of sound.
