Browsing Tag

Shoegaze Hip Hop

NTHN versed vulnerability for Mental Health Day in his shoegaze-hip-hop mash-up, The Meaning

For Mental Health Day, the UK songwriter, cloud sampler, and producer NTHN debuted his most introspective shoegaze and hip-hop-influenced track to date, The Meaning, on October 10 and subsequently delivered the most compellingly dark single of the year.

It has been a while since a rap track hit so hard it made an impact on my tear ducts, but NTHN’s command over evocative ambient melodies and the intimate vulnerability within the lyrics and delivery proved that there’s power in dragging your demons out of the closet and vanquishing them for all to hear.

Rather than keeping his sound solely in the hip-hop arena, NTHN uses hip-hop composition, sampling, and percussion around his influence from emo, shoegaze and metal genres to keep his sonic signature scribing authentically absorbing and always emotion-driven atmospheric alchemy.

“I started writing it when I was at my lowest and I am now releasing it when I’m much more in control of how I feel, and I am in a much better place. It’s my journey to accepting my own mental health issues and learning to live with them, not just exist, by looking for the meaning in the everyday. I would like to raise awareness of the need to speak out and, by sharing my vulnerability, hopefully, connect with listeners who might be able to use the track as a way of relating to how I feel and not feeling so alone in dealing with things.”

The Meaning is now available to stream on SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Get high with P.F’s electrifying trap track Opium

Up and coming hip hop artist P.F’s latest 3-track release, ULTRA OMEGA RUBY ZERO POINT FIVE, is as avant-garde as hip hop gets. The lead track, Opium, kicks off with bruising lashings of bass reverberating around scuzzy and harsh instrumentals, which merge trap, shoegaze and chiptune.

The use of sonic walls of noise to achieve the same level of disquietedness that is in the tormented lyrics was nothing short of genius on P.F’s side. He has all the potential to go viral with his electrifying releases that are visceral enough to act as a sign of the times. If this is the future of hip hop, we are here for it.

Check out Opium and the rest of P.F’s tracks via SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast