Photo via Facebook / RTystic
RTystic
Those familiar with local hip hop have likely at least heard the name SAFS Crew floating around for some time. The collective was formed more than a decade ago, containing a myriad of lyrical emcees, some of which are continuing to put out music to this day. One of the crew’s early members, RTystic, recently put out his latest project, Deadly, and there’s no playing around with a title like that. In just over a half hour of total runtime, there’s enough bars and lyrical wordplay to overdose on. Combined with some backpack-esque production, there’s enough replay value here to keep any hip hop head nodding along to their final days.
The real magic of Deadly, though, is that it is the second half of a long-term one-two punch from RTystic. The album is the follow up to 2017’s Silent EP, and originally was intended to just be a sequel, combining the two projects to form a full-length called Silent But Deadly. As is the case with many releases this year, quarantine played a factor in calling the audible.
“The longer that I sat on the record, the more I marinated on it. I just kept adding records” said RTystic. “I’d say it was about a 60-40 split, with 60% of the record written during quarantine. Being stuck in the house, I didn’t have much to do other than writing music and listen to some of my older stuff. My pen felt a lot better being able to sit and reflect on my thoughts and the year I was having.”
Adding to the flavor of the project are features from fellow SAFS Crew members Seismosis, Dukalion, Defcee, and Cheat Code DeBarge. While still just making up a fraction of the crew’s impressive roster, each artist has their own style and delivery that varies things just enough to make the tracks their respectively featured on compelling. It’s an unexpected reminder of the depth of the collective, and the potential that any member of SAFS Crew has at just about any time.
|
|
“It’s still all love amongst all of us” said RTystic. “When we were coming together, Blizz McFly reached out and basically said ‘the people that are in this room are some of the best lyricists in the city’, and it just took off from there.”
In many ways, the additional records help make the impact of Deadly much more substantial. Any combination of four or five tracks from this project being released as an EP would have left listeners wanting more, and RTystic is known to keep strong verses in much more than short supply. In retrospect, it also makes Silent feel like a shorter windup for a big payoff. Like a precision strike from a well-trained fighter, the true impact of the album comes to terms with the listener in the aftershock, rather than the initial hit. If you’re looking for lyricism that will resonate for some time, Deadly is the move, and it’s not to be missed.
