Browsing Tag

Experimental Rap

‘Ghoulz 1 of 1 / Don Cheto Guzman’ Sends antwan_nawtna’s Dark Trap Signature Sound Further from Material Reality

Posted on 4 April 2026

antwan_nawtna is dominating the domain of dark, twisted trap, and Ghoulz 1 of 1 / Don Cheto Guzman, featuring Vizzy, is one of his most disarming drops to date. Hailing from Chicago’s underground, antwan_nawtna has the kind of presence that makes the fringes of trap feel far more vital than the centre, and this release only hardens that impression. Refusing to play by the arbitrary rules of urban instrumentals, the track opts for spacey synths, drifting the production into a cosmos of carnivalesque, mind-melting surrealism. From the outset, you’re thrown somewhere warped and oddly weightless, where the atmosphere carries as much force as the bars.

What gives the single its real bite is the way the vocals bleed into the production, serving as an aesthetic element in their own right, twisting the whole release into something far more immersive than a standard trap cut. antwan_nawtna asserts himself here as the ultimate rockstar of dark trap, while Vizzy locks into the mood without disturbing the hallucinated architecture of the track.

It all feels deeply deliberate, but still loose enough to keep that underground edge intact. If you’re looking for alt-rap escapism, you’d struggle to find a release capable of pushing you further away from material reality. Proper head-fry stuff.

Ghoulz 1 of 1 / Don Cheto Guzman is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Apple Music. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Oscar New Guy – T H E Y: big, bass-bruised confessionals from the darker edges of alt-trap

Posted on 23 January 2026

Duality runs deep in the veins of Oscar New Guy’s ferociously introspective single, T H E Y, a release that proves he remains one of the few trap-rooted artists willing to head straight into the bleaker, uncharted corners of the genre. Built on big bass-bruised beats and flickers of psychological vulnerability, the track gathers its voltage from the tension between control and collapse. Each line stems from a place where self-interrogation refuses to stay hidden, pulling the listener into the dark corridors of the mind where volatile emotion comes unfiltered. The rawness is deliberate, keeping the whole piece gritty enough to feel like wading through a squalid swamp of scars while the rhythm pushes everything forward with an unnerving steadiness.

The production holds that same ruthless honesty. T H E Y drags boom-bap reverberations through a grime-stained trap architecture, haunted by the dissonance that forms when authenticity clashes with the facades we build to survive. The way Oscar New Guy keeps the atmosphere sparse gives each lyric room to linger with heavy intent, heightening the feeling of watching someone pick apart their own instincts in real time. Flex, paranoia and confession sit together in an uneasy truce, making the track feel like a coded dispatch from someone trying to stay sharp in a world that rewards noise more than nuance.

Written and produced independently, T H E Y marks the third single from his upcoming project, When I Stare at the Minutez, expanding the emotional terrain introduced in w e a k and M I L L I. The project signals an artist who isn’t simply chasing spectacle but shaping a long-term identity rooted in mood, tension and intention.

T H E Y is now available on all major streaming platforms, including SoundCloud.

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

Barefoot River’s EDM Rap Hit, Blue Eyes, writhes through conflict and cadence

Posted on 5 November 2025
Blue Eyes by Barefoot River (ft. Blu)

Barefoot River exhibited the power in his white-knuckle rapid-style flow in his experimental cut, Blue Eyes, created in collaboration with Blu. EDM beats send high-octane energy coursing and sparking through the speaker-pounding production that’s polished with pure innovation and augmentation rather than gloss, leaving the core of the track raw and exposed, ready to bed down in your psyche as Barefoot River waxes lyrical on how the tides of perception can shift mercilessly.

Part club anthem, part exposition on how the mind twists against you when you’re looking for a path to only find dead ends and how conflict bares its teeth in the dissonance between true identity and how we’re seen and locked in the eyes of others as anything but what we really are, Blue Eyes is a trove of lyrical gold and aural volition.

With a dizzying cadence that locks you in as it writhes against the adrenalised beats, Blue Eyes is the kind of track that bruises when it leaves an impression. Barefoot River’s refusal to conform to sonic predictability results in something far more potent than your average urban club hit; he’s building a legacy out of raw reflections, hard truths, and even harder beats.

Blue Eyes is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Bandcamp.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

antwan_nawtna spiralled alt trap into surrealism with ‘WordsFromCircusClown / 2 Hearts’

Posted on 12 October 2025

In WordsFromCircusClown / 2 Hearts, the standout single from antwan_nawtna’s latest album Cirque du Ghoul / Antwan’s Circus, despondency bleeds through the reverb as the Chicago-based artist turns dark trap into a macabre, wavy trip through a carnival of ennui and glitch-laced emotion. Drifting beyond the parameters of cloud rap into a realm far rawer and more introspective, antwan_nawtna sets his psyche loose within a hypnotic downtempo lament, letting his voice unravel like a slow-motion confession caught in a whirl of static and whispered trauma.

There’s an aching tenderness to the track’s architecture. The synths, woozy and warped, are held together with brittle percussive threads as the beat crawls forward beneath his spectral delivery. The lyrics feel less written and more extracted; no self-censorship, no coded metaphors, just heart-on-sleeve admissions that flicker and fade like smoke signals from a disintegrating circus tent. It’s a rare kind of emotional transparency, one that doesn’t ask for understanding, only for the listener to sit with the disquiet and feel it in tandem.

For the emo-rap crowd hungry for something more textured, more experimental, and more haunted, this is the direction worth chasing.

WordsFromCircusClown / 2 Hearts is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Apple Music and Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

NeoPagan by Hessian Renegade Shreds the Borders of Rap and Industrial

Posted on 12 September 2025

The Scottish alt-rap duo Hessian Renegade brought the firepower of Prodigy in their latest single, NeoPagan. By twisting industrial electronica around the parameters of nu metal, they proved merciless in their mission to surge adrenaline through synapses and bruise speakers with bass. Their most seminal track yet courses with visceral volition, engineered to hit as hard in the chest as it does in the psyche; if rave culture was on the brink of death in the UK, it’s all the rage now, literally.

Instead of relying on brute force alone, Hessian Renegade handed the aggression over to the synths and beats. They strobe and streak across the mix with frenetic urgency, spiralling into rhythmically infectious chaos. Over the top of this synthesised cacophony, the duo lash cheeky energy into the augmentation of instrumental collision, commanding attention with raw intent and feeding the NeoPagan hype, resulting in a rhythmically punishing, yet perversely irresistible, perfect collision of heavy sound design and sharp-witted rap.

Having already become a cult fixture in Scotland’s underground, Hessian Renegade are now primed to wreak havoc on wider hip-hop circuits. With tracks like NeoPagan, domination of the UK rap scene feels less like a prediction and more like an inevitability.

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

Review by Amelia Vandergast

‘Warning’ by Davvo Bars and ZIZA Turned A Dark Urban Fever Dream into Grime-Laced Reality

Posted on 24 August 2025

Deep, dubbed, and speaker-obliterating beats act like harbingering oscillations of conviction in Davvo Bars’ latest single, Warning, featuring ZIZA. With North London stamped into his cadence, the rapper bares his teeth as he waxes lyrical, delivering unfuckwithable energy in a track that proves him fearless in production as well as performance.

Warning isn’t stitched from the expected grime templates; it is a twisted, almost carnivalesque sonic beast, darkened at the edges yet pierced by harmonies innocent enough to feel like a fevered hallucination of a school choir. That juxtaposition sharpens the menace, showing listeners the full repercussions of fucking about and finding out.

Davvo Bars has long been cutting his teeth behind the scenes, writing for pirate radio in the early 2000s and later making his mark as a sound engineer before earning attention through collaborations with Fire in the Spoof. His debut solo single, I’m Not Dave, marked the start of his rise, but Warning signals the shift from contender to serious presence.

With his wit as quick as his Machiavellian motifs, he transcends anything currently pushed by GRM, proving grime can collapse into something darker and stranger as long as there are pioneers prepared to push into the shadows of unchartered terrotory. Looking ahead, his forthcoming multi-disciplinary project, Project Alpha, will extend his narratives into film, charting masculinity, loss, and fractured identity in North London. We’re already desperate for the drop after getting hooked on Warning.

Warning is now available on all major streaming platforms, including YouTube.


Review by Amelia Vandergast

The Synergistically Ecclectic Collective, ARSN Music LLC, Stoked the Flames of Hip Hop with their debut EP ‘Fireproof’ 

Posted on 13 July 2025

The debut EP from ARSN Music LLC, Fireproof, gives the Bay Area’s independent scene an adrenaline shot. Everything from mellow olive branches of introspective gold in Win a Belt to the pulse-raising gangster hip hop in Flame and Mell to old school cinematic atmospherics mingling with trap in Streets Get Cold, and pure experimentalism in Star Struck, proves this is a versatile playlist staple with a vibe for any mood.

There’s a genuine sense that the collective draws its firepower from the energy that blazes through the synergy of its artists, and that isn’t just something to sit back and envy; it’s something you can feel as you get hyped by lyrical talent matched only by the authenticity in every delivery and beats that set a new standard for indie beatmakers ready to stake their place on the hip hop map. And that map is ever-expanding with innovative forces like ARSN Music LLC pushing the boundaries, charting new territory, and representing voices too often sidelined.

Brought together under the vision of Savaun Brown, ARSN Music LLC was built to give structure and long-term opportunity to rising artists. Fireproof brings together HS Dro, Mista Mell, Big Flame 8, PTM Hud, and Longwe, with every track doubling as both a collaborative showcase and a statement of intent.

Fireproof is now available on all major streaming platforms, via this link. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

AJ Tweek factory resets the Hip Hop game with ”Eye/Eye”

Posted on 9 June 2020

Have you ever stumbled onto a Hip Hop track with such a dope flow that it blows your mind? You admire the wild creativity and wonder how on earth they created this underground masterpiece. This is one of those times. AJ Tweek is the name and his new track ”Eye/Eye” has such a prodigiously groovy beat with galaxy-grabbing rap skills.

Summerville is a town in the U.S. state of South Carolina. This is the home of the wonderfully unique Emcee named AJ Tweek. Remember this name. He believes that he is from space and has been sent here by an old friend. I believe he has been sent back in time to refresh the Hip Hop game and factory reset this proud genre from it’s currently disappointingly stagnant time.

AJ Tweek’s flow is like no other and the way he toys with his audience with his completely unconventional way of spitting bars on a beat, that has been perfectly designed for this tricksters signature style. Summerville Storyteller Tweek’s stories of life are truly fascinating, this is a wise youngster who has lived life, attempted to teleport out of school and who has just brought much-needed freshness to the stale Rap game.

Get this song in your ears immediately on AJ’s SoundCloud.

Reviewed by Llewelyn Screen

MC KREWD proves that comedy does have a place in Hip Hop with her single “Single Mother Malady”

Posted on 12 May 2020

I’ve always been a firm believer that comedy has as much of a place in music as it does in Film. That belief is rock solid after listening to up and coming Aussie Hip Hop artist MC KREWD’s wittily satirical track Single Mother Malady.

If Kath & Kim did a Rap track, I have a feeling that it would sound a little like this. I mean, let’s be honest, we’ve heard enough Rap artist attempting to glamorise themselves and put us under the illusion that they’re baller deities. It was about time an artist shattered the illusion. MC KREWD absolutely obliterated it with her sense of humour.

MC KREWD’s approach to Hip Hop may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but artists so unapologetically bold and expressive will always have a place on the airwaves.

To fully appreciate Single Mother Malady, watching the official music video which premiered on April 30th, 2020 is a must. You can check it out for yourselves via YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast