A legion of hip-hop vloggers, streamers, influencers, and promo accounts—some bankrolled by report labels—desires you to imagine in a New Underground of web rap. Its commander-in-chief, a white, keffiyeh-wearing man from Portland named Yeat, has over seven million month-to-month listeners on Spotify. In his wake, a military of RapTok-famous teenagers trot out their makes an attempt at pluggnb, digicore, rage rap, and every part in between. Platform dynamics threaten to erase musical lineages; youngsters ditch class for studio periods in L.A. Are we out of contact, or has the long run by some means been determined for us? The way to separate the sign from the noise?
cheRomani+’s viral single “euphoria,” that includes Specxfic, presents one answer: Minimize away all of the noise. Drumless loops aren’t only for steely New Yorkers with snow of their beards. When digicore producers SEBii and kimj match a bouncy bassline (and little else) to cheRomani+ and Specxfic’s breakneck flows, it prompts you to expertise the tune via their rubbery voices, tuning in to each namedrop and foolish risk. Their nearly cartoonish velocity atop the sparse instrumental looks like slamming two cans of Monster, or if Do or Die had a hyperpop arc. Quick rap hasn’t sounded so recent and alive shortly.
Like numerous newly minted TikTok rappers, probably the most notable factor about cheRomani+ may be simply how little there may be to know. Early within the pandemic, the excessive schooler from Georgia give up basketball and casually began toying round on FL Studio. Final summer season, he obtained consideration on TikTok for his remix of Yeat’s tune “Off the Lot.” He scored a pair extra web hits with “euphoria” and a feathery tune referred to as “agenda,” and…that’s about it.
In comparison with his large singles, cheRomani+’s debut EP 3 opts for a extra historically arduous sound to diminishing returns. A disciple of rapper-producer Lil Tecca, he’ll sometimes land on an concept that marries voice to music in a novel means, like when he sings urgently over the triumphant brass of “Hugo.” On opener “Metropolis” and nearer “9,” che does a serviceable Yeat impression; his newest collaboration with Specxfic, “007,” is okay however doesn’t contact “euphoria” or their ridiculous TisaKorean-meets-Tay-Okay second “Faculty okay pt 2.” cheRomani+ isn’t a very compelling author (few rappers on this scene actually are; it is a producer-driven setting), so when his beat choice is common, too, there isn’t a lot left to chew on.
