Browsing Tag

Alt Hip Hop

Sigg brought binge-worthy lyricism to the soul-heavy underground hip-hop force of ‘There It Is’

Posted on 29 August 2026

Sigg gives good reason to source the soul of old-school hip-hop from a new voice on There It Is, the standout single from his LP, Aquarius Rising, SZN 1. Formerly known as Self-O.N.E., the Columbus, Georgia rapper now works under a sharper moniker while keeping his pen locked on meaning, reference-heavy writing and bars designed to reward repeat listens.

With one of the boldest blueprints coming up from the underground of hip-hop, Sigg swings the conviction of a wit-armed juggernaut to productions larger than the streets while dwarfing the atmosphere of cinematic rap. Produced entirely alongside Reasonable, his VAR540 partner, Aquarius Rising, SZN 1 carries the weight of a catalogue already full of fan-fought favourites.

In There It Is, myriad layers of almost avant-garde soul harmonies, bruisingly cadenced bars, trickles of piano keys, fuzzy beats, trip-hop tinges and nostalgia-echoing samples sprawl around you, leaving you as a witness for a deity of hip-hop in the making. Sigg’s presence feels colossal, but the detail is where the addiction lives; the entendres sit two bars deep, waiting to detonate in your psyche on the third listen.

Fans of OutKast’s cerebral sprawl and classic boom-bap’s ink-heavy discipline will hear why the hype around Sigg is reaching a fever pitch. There is no coming away from his hits without feeling your own energy altered by his.

There It Is is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Shadow-Glazed Seduction Cuts Through Cinematic Hip-Hop in Pink Jagg’s ‘Shotgun’

Posted on 23 August 2026

Pink Jagg went deeper into the archives of old-school sample culture for their hypnotically stylised hip-hop single, Shotgun. Built around the brotherly creative partnership of Austin and Jagger Spacy, the project lets Jagg take vocal lead while Austin shapes production that challenges rap’s usual contours with a shadow-glazed, cinematic appetite.

From the intro, Shotgun unravels like a scene from a seduction-swathed espionage film from the golden age of Hollywood, all smoky brass crying out into the atmosphere only a deliciously arranged production can deliver. There is a darkness to Shotgun, one that comes without novelty macabre theatrics; it feels closer to a mind more comfortable in shadow than light.

As the single progresses, it moves further away from old-school hip-hop completely, slipping into a contemporary frame as the cadence of the rap bars sharpens and desire reaches fever pitch. Pink Jagg’s charisma carries a shadowy sense of sex appeal, exhibiting Jagger as a hip-hop heartthrob with poet-at-heart bars that reward repeat listens.

The way the duo wrap soul, RnB, jazzy old-school hip-hop and contemporary rap around one silk-lined threat is enough to spark an unhealthy level of obsession. After DONTFEELBADFORME, Pt. 1 surpassed one million streams with its trip-hoppy leftfield attack on rap monotony, Shotgun is set to fire Pink Jagg onto an even more mainstream map.

Shotgun is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

antwan_nawtna’s Experimental Hip-Hop Fever Dream, Mango Flavoured Lips, Hits with an 8-Bit Sugar Rush

Posted on 3 May 2026

The irreplaceably one and only hip-hop titan of experimentalism, antwan_nawtna, has dropped his new EP, AntwanWonka, and if you thought you heard it all with his carnivalesque, quasi-macabre 2025 LP, Cirque du Ghoul/Antwan’s Circus, the EP will force you to adjust the parameters of your perceptions of the artist and his limitless eccentricity.

Drifting into a dreamier, trappier, more psychedelically lush palette with the standout single, Mango Flavoured Lips, the independent emissary of quirky urban alchemy found himself in 8-bit territory; the tones are bathed in a celestial glow, adding a sense of fantastical scintillation to the production, which draws to a close and leaves you feeling like you’ve just awoken from the most sugary fever dream known to man.

There is a narcotic softness to the atmosphere, but antwan_nawtna keeps the track strange, playful, and unmistakably left of centre, letting the synth tones glimmer while the rhythm rolls through with a woozy late-night gait. The way he bends hip-hop into something so surreal and game-lit gives Mango Flavoured Lips its own unruly magic. Based out of the South Eastside of Chicago, antwan_nawtna continues to prove that underground rap still has plenty of room for imagination, oddity, and fearless tonal mutation when it’s in the hands of someone willing to warp the frame.

Mango Flavoured Lips is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Apple Music and Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Won’t Let You Down mapped legacy, love and lyrical weight through Sugarae’s storm-soaked production

Posted on 26 December 2025

SUGARAE knew exactly how to juxtapose luminous synth lines with caustic, bass-heavy reverberations to summon pure emotive tension in Won’t Let You Down. While ‘cinematic’ gets flung about far too freely, few tracks stake a claim to the term as convincingly as this monolithic alt-hip-hop release. From the opening shimmer to the final drop into thunderous resonance, the sound design storms through your chest like a film score written for someone fighting to become everything they promised they would be.

Leaning into the full fortitude of his production alias shdwsound, the Birmingham-based independent artist laid the groundwork at Pirate Studios, where he wrote, performed, produced, recorded, engineered and mastered the track himself.

Leaving all of the volition to the instrumental, he was free to deliver nothing but soul through his chameleonic verses and bars that blur the boundaries between hip-hop and RnB. Rather than posturing, he poured in a deep sincerity fuelled by personal stakes – channelled directly from the recent birth of his son. Every bar lands like a vow, built to be repeated in the ears of those he holds closest.

The high-octane energy hits like walk-in music for a title fight, but the lyricism folds in far more vulnerability and promise than bravado. It’s a statement of devotion. A testimony to legacy. A reckoning with responsibility. Won’t Let You Down isn’t a flex. It’s a foundation.

Won’t Let You Down is now available on all major streaming platforms via this link.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

The Venice Kid laid boom bap wisdom over mellow mic drops in Say Less

Posted on 25 December 2025
https://soundcloud.com/venicekid/say-less

THE VENICE KID pulled up with a grin and a mantra on Say Less, a Christmas Day drop from the Venice Beach-raised wordsmith, producer, and melodic mood-setter. Known by those close as Luck, the LA-based artist uses his unique tone and knack for flipping expectations to find the sweet spot between laid-back and lyrically lethal. And in Say Less, he lays out a bible’s worth of bars without breaking a sweat, packaging self-awareness in swagger and wrapping it in a ribbon of mellow boom bap.

He isn’t barking orders or posturing. He’s cruising through revelations with a zen calm that never tips into self-indulgence. The track’s bones are pure golden-era hip-hop, but the flesh is cut with irony, comedy, and the kind of emotional depth that sneaks in when you least expect it. The beats hit hard, but leave enough oxygen to let the verses breathe, giving space for the reflections on over-explaining, staying grounded, and moving through life with less noise and more impact. It’s nerdy hip-hop charisma wrapped in grown-man peace.

After losing his older brother, THE VENICE KID poured his grief into music, developing a signature sound that captured the laid-back pulse of Venice Beach without sanding down his sharper lyrical edges. Say Less doesn’t mark his arrival – with five albums already out in the world, including his cult-acclaimed Lucky EP, he’s well past that. This is more like a self-aware upgrade that flips the script on Cali hip-hop through charisma alone.

Say Less is now available on all major streaming platforms, including SoundCloud and Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

‘Amends’ carries the weight of rap reckoning as Doug Burns let the introspection rise

Posted on 16 November 2025

From the moment you press play on Amends, the seminal single from Doug Burns’ debut album Left Unread, the full force of his emotive intent slips under the skin. The track pours out as a synergistically aching meditation on self repentance, the kind that settles into you before you even realise how much you have taken on. The urgency of his cadence runs parallel with the melodically accordant indie rap instrumentals. Saturated guitar notes drift through the mix with a morose slowness, each one haunting the syncopated beats as the ethereal reverb deepens the track’s sombre timbre, creating a space where reflection feels like a current that keeps pulling you back in.

Burns switches between harmonically vulnerable versing and strident bars, and that shift mirrors the volatility of the themes he unpacks. You can hear the strain of reckoning with the self, the tug of destructive urges, the pressure of hauling yourself up when your own mind tries to drag you under. There is no attempt to gloss it over. He lets the emotional weight dictate the movement of the track, and that honesty gives Amends its raw gravity.

Raised in Beaumont, California, the artist, born Keyshawn M Williams, found his voice in hip hop as a teenager when he realised it was the only place he could tell the truth without filters. After years spent balancing the uniform as a member of the US Army with the pen and the mic, he pushed himself back into the place where his sound felt real again.

Amends is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Acidtrip took hip-hop to the hedonistic edge of surrealism in ‘Passport Paradise’ – his acid-laced highlight from his LP, ‘WALES’

Posted on 13 November 2025

Acidtrip took boom-bap to dark enough territory in the standout single, Passport Paradise, from his latest LP, WALES, he could have triggered a full-on blackout on the airwaves.

With a unique ability to convert eccentricity into dominant artistry, there’s no denying his position as one of the most innovative voices on the contemporary hip-hop scene, especially with the way he glazes all of his productions with a quasi-psychedelic haze that will leave your speakers with a contact high.

From the sheer energy in his cadences to how his broadsiding wit slices straight through them, the hype started in Acidtrip’s sound; it has only been amplified by everyone who has celebrated his sonic signature that is wavy enough to leave you feeling like you’ve just ingested a Class A.

Originally from Congo and now based in Charlotte, North Carolina, Acidtrip (also known as Tamo) has been steadily making his mark in the rap world, earning recognition from Sway Calloway and working with Mick Jenkins, AKTHESAVIOR, Chuck Strangers, and Powers Pleasant.

His ability to oscillate between introspection and wild wit has made him one of the few artists capable of bridging consciousness with carnality in equal measure. In Passport Paradise, he took that duality and drenched it in darkness, delivering something dizzying and dangerously addictive.

Passport Paradise is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Kid Vib3s built a haunted sermon for outliers in his dark trap hit, ‘WICKED HOURS’

Posted on 12 November 2025

Kid Vib3s didn’t need clichéd Halloween tropes or worn-out horror hooks to summon darkness in WICKED HOURS. The track, dropped on October 31st, carries its own sinister current through reverberating basslines, unnerving aesthetics, and a nocturnal vibe that haunts long after the beat fades. Lyrically, it hits like a confessional séance, exorcising demons born from sleepless nights, while toasting the misfits and wanderers. He might be riding solo through the trap scene, but he’s far from directionless; if anything, he’s the Albert Camus of trap, penning existential scripture to distorted rhythm.

The production is sharp, immersive, and riddled with intention, engineered by Kid Vib3s himself. His flow isn’t polished for mainstream consumption, it’s cut with a serrated edge that catches and lingers. The trap drums roll beneath like seismic unease. And while the vibe is undeniably infectious, there’s substance to latch onto; an emotional weight hidden in the cadence and charisma.

Before the laptop and late-night beats, Vib3s was just a kid struggling to squeeze sound out of a school trumpet. That same stubborn refusal to quit became the engine behind his self-made rise as a producer, rapper, and engineer. From Something in My Cup to his upcoming full-length project VIBAD3LIC, every release documents the restless alchemy of turning insomnia, introspection, and ambition into a sound that hits deeper than the surface.

WICKED HOURS is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify and YouTube. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Ride-or-die romanticism burned through Chiron Loxton’s alt-hip-hop sermon of the soul, Pure

Posted on 1 November 2025

Desire runs deep in the alt-hip-hop hit, Pure, from the rising rap artist Chiron Loxton, created in collaboration with Truent. Around syncopated trap beats, minor-key piano melodies amplify the sincerity in the genre-fluid declaration of unflinching passion. It’s a melting pot of electronica, RnB, and hyper-pop motifs, as the vocals prove to be just as chameleonic through the consistently shifting form of the track, which shows that die-hard romantics are still committed to their ride-or-die ethos.

While the moody RnB pop harmonies carry you through the choruses, the introduction of the grimey rap bars delivers a broadsiding juxtapositional contrast that leaves a lingering imprint. It’s the kind of track that will haunt you until you finally give in and add it to your playlists for repeat hits of the romanticism rendered through pure talent.

Now based in Thailand after a snowboard season in Japan, Chiron Loxton drew from a new emotional register inspired by a powerful connection made in unfamiliar terrain. Fuelled by genre-hopping, festival energy, and the impact of cultural diversity, he channelled that kinetic spark into this release.

Pure is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Fatmowf tore through the cultural pantomime with vindicating Machiavellian venom in Buckshots

Posted on 18 October 2025

Fatmowf took no prisoners in his ferociously unfiltered hit, Buckshots, the Machiavellian standout from his new EP, Please Excuse My Dope Ass Swag, Vol. 1. With a tongue sharper than a guillotine and a charisma steeped in screwball swagger, the 23-year-old San Diego-based rapper, producer, designer, and director spat through the farcicality of modernity with a verbal sledgehammer. He brought the noise from his makeshift studio closet and made the cultural decay echo louder than any major-label budget ever could.

In Buckshots, the world isn’t just dragged into the booth with him, it’s tied to a chair and dissected bar by bar. From TikTok pseudo-therapists who’ve turned narcissism into a party trick, to the white-noise hellscape of curated authenticity, Fatmowf uses his production like a pressure cooker. There’s chaos, there’s filth, and it all hits like it was ripped straight from the guts of Tyler, The Creator’s wildest early days, with the rabid hunger of a Beastie Boys deep cut chasing it down.

Sonically, it’s unapologetically unhinged. Visually, the 29-second DIY music video throws just enough bait to get caught in the algorithm, but it’s the three-minute track that does the bloodletting. Beneath the snark, Fatmowf’s sense of cultural duty and sharpened satirical awareness make him a fucking icon worth backing. In a swamp of predictable punchlines and pseudo-deep nonsense, he’s carved out a nook for those of us still angry enough to laugh.

Buckshots is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast