Lil Chicken
Milwaukee's rap scene has been in overdrive for the last few years, but we do our best to keep up with it. Once again we've rounded up our favorite recent singles, mixtapes, videos and odds and ends for our periodic Milwaukee Hip-Hop Round-Up.
SHAAM - Casper EP
Some of the most memorable rap music is born of pain. To judge from his debut EP Casper, that certainly seems to be the case for the 20-year-old Milwaukee rapper SHAAM. Over the course of these five brief, chilling songs, he raps repeatedly about open wounds and pervasive numbness, often likening himself to the EP's titular ghost. He doesn't brood, but there's real hurt here. His music is quite the hodgepodge: On various tracks there are shades of A$AP Mob's audacious production, the raw emotional vulnerability of classic Rhymesayers shit, the gruffness of the Gravediggaz, as well as quite possibly a dash of Ruby Yacht in the EP's poetry-over-beats dream logic. But SHAAM's flow, half-punk, half-traumatized, is all his own. This is music that hits you in the gut.
Lil Chicken - "Make Em Say Ugh"
I lost entirely too much time trying to figure out which Lil Chicken track to feature this month, in part because he releases so many of them (he puts out a new video every week or so) and in part because they're so ridiculously fun it's easy to go down a rabbit hole with them. He shakes his style up from track to track, but I think this one sums up the Milwaukee Master P enthusiast's act pretty well, a combustible cocktail of dirty south, Atlanta bubblegum and Midwestern drill. It's easy to see why this guy is racking up massive streams on YouTube right now.
Rockz - Still in Gold City EP
If major labels make a run on sharp, funny-as-fuck female MCs in the wake of Cardi B's success—and they should—then let's hope Milwaukee's Rockz lands on the radar. The South Side spitter is a battle rapper with an old-school heart. Her beats aren't straight throwbacks, but they build on the sharp, braying sounds of late-'80s and early-'90s hip-hop, and she's one of a shrinking minority of rappers who still makes DJ scratches a big part of their sound. The real draw, though, is her outsize personality and her gift for sharp, economical putdowns. "What I do before 4 a.m. will put your ass to shame," she raps on "Southside Queen."
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Zed Kenzo - "Descension"
Nearly every new Zed Kenzo single feels like a bigger event than the last one. "Descension" is one of her most breathless yet. Kenzo's witchy, lobotomized take on trap music is enough to distinguish her alone, but she's one of those rappers who just seems to pull from an entirely different vocabulary than anything else. It's a small thing, but when was the last time you heard someone rap the word "gurney?" Have you ever heard somebody rap the word "gurney?" And even when Kenzo defaults to more common wordplay, her delivery is so sarcastic and animated that she still doesn't sound like anybody else.“Really wanna get this, put it on my wish list," she spits on the song's overheated final verse, "Wrist, wrist, wrist, got money on my necklace/ I’m a wreck this, got money in my breakfast, drugs in my dresser, thugs on my guest list…” She's got no off switch.
Maal Himself and Genesis Renji - WNTR EP
Over the years Maal Himself and Genesis Renji have both established themselves as rappers' rappers, the kind of artists who don't always rack up the streams of some of the city's bigger names but make up for it with the respect of their peers. On their joint EP WNTR, a relationship-minded affair that from its moody opening track takes some surprisingly playful turns, the duo capitalize on that good will, recruiting memorable contributions from Jayne Joyce, Renz Young, Camb, Klassik and Monique Ross of SistaStrings. It's a short but endearing outing.
marratedr - "DEAD***"/"R*R*R* MAN"
I'm not sure if marratedr is as into Lil Wop as I am, but if I had to hazard a guess based on his most recent output I'd say he's got to be. That Atlanta rapper specializes in short, radical blasts of sadism that sound as if they've been recorded in a crypt, and he raps in a nasty, parched rasp. marratedr has fallen into a similar lane, though his groggy voice has a texture and edge that's all his own. This is dark stuff, but there's humor below the surface, and the minute or so run time for each track seems listeners meant to make listeners ask themselves, 'What the hell did I just listen to?"
Reggie Bonds - "I'm The Man"
Reggie Bonds is a rapper with a lot of lanes, but one of his strongest is also one of his least flashy. Bonds does no-gimmicks hip-hop with the best of them, and his latest video is one of the best things he's done in a while. Filmed in Chicago's subway stations, it captures Bonds in pure Big L mode, spitting effortless rhymes over some great drums. That the song shares a name with one of the great Gang Starr deep cuts may or may not have been deliberate, but if it was intentional this serves as a fine tribute.
Jay Yung - CLVRITY EP
There's something oddly timeless about Jay Yung's debut project CLVRITY, a mellow, soul-bearing 10 songs better fitted for late nights than clubs and car rides. In the internet mixtape age debut projects don't carry the same weight they used to—rappers are too busy releasing constant new music to bother attempting to make their own Illmatic—but Yung clearly took his time on this one, and it shows. The tape also features a true tear-jerker of a ballad, "Open Letter."
King Myles - "All I Know" ft. BMORN
Milwaukee's Hii Tribe crew is trying to corner the local market on blunted, lurid, house-party rap. King Myles is one of its most distinctive voices, a testy rapper with an unusual, almost serpentine voice. He's preparing to release a full-length project called "Horizons," and last week he released a new video for one of the project's tracks, "All I Know," which with its loose, half-sung delivery feels almost like a regional response to the similarly druggy rap of Soundcloud rappers like Lil Skies.
Gerald Walker - "Peace of Mine" ft. Rockie Fresh & Stalley
There was a time a half decade or so ago when Gerald Walker looked likely to break out as one of the big stars of the Milwaukee rap scene. And then he left for greener pastures and sort of fell off the radar a bit, at least locally. It's a cautionary tale: Leaving Milwaukee in no way guarantees instant success. That being said, it's too soon to count Walker out completely. As he demonstrates on his latest single "Peace of Mine," he's still got a smooth, suave sound unlike anybody else, and the fact that he's paired with a couple of moderately well-known names suggests he's not completely off the industry's radar. Always nice to hear new music from this guy.
Airo Kwil - "Snow"
Rappers try so hard to provoke a visceral reaction, but as a Wisconsinite Will Rose understands few words stir quite the same dread in Midwesterners as this simple statement: "I think it's going to snow." That's the jumping off point for the rapper/drummer/producer's latest single as Airo Kwil, a scorcher that hits like a blizzard. He likes the snow, he insists, but he rubs it in the face of everybody who doesn't, reminding them of shovels, icicles and slipping hazards while packing the track with great lines. "Make a snow angel with a crown of thorns," he raps, "Somehow my snow angel always have horns."
Quron Payne - "You're A Star"
Remember B.o.B? For a while that guy absolutely owned Top 40 radio with a run of happy, shamelessly poppy feel-good singles. Nobody's completely claimed that throne since he fell from the charts, but Milwaukee's Quron Payne sure seems to be giving it a go. His latest is a syrupy, electronic-shaded courtship overture that plays like an updated take on the singles from T.I.'s "Paper Trail." Let's end this month's round-up on an upbeat note:
