Authenticity is often something that artists often struggle with. It’s nerve wracking to put yourself out there with no buffer. It can make the praise from critics and fans feel even better, as you can connect with people on a deeper level than if you were making everything up. Kid Cudi’s dives into his struggles with depression and drug use wouldn’t have connected with as many people if he made it all up. But it can also make the criticisms hit harder, as evident in the new Lana Del Rey controversy. She put out a statement going at critics using other artists as examples, and she’s been getting lots of hate online for it. Her responses to the hate have made it obvious that the hate is getting to her. If she was making up all these relationship stories in her music that she’s getting criticized for, she likely wouldn’t have needed to lash out as much as she did, as they would just be attacking some made up story. But when they attack her music, it feels like they are attacking her as a person.
Both of these artists mentioned above are already big artists, so they can afford to be themselves. Up-and-coming artists have to try and get noticed by any means necessary. If that means following trends, so be it. Making music that’s true to you may not fit into a big Spotify playlist that could help launch your career, but making a melodic trap banger with a Dababy feature might. Releasing a single that starts off as an aggressive rap song, but then ends with a punk rock breakdown might not grab the crowd of either side, but making a dance for TikTok could help launch your career into stardom like it has many artists.
Finding a young artist that’s true to themselves is pretty rare. That feeling of “Wow, I haven’t heard anything quite like this before” is something that only happens maybe once a year. Hearing J.I.D’s debut album, The Never Story, in 2017 is one of those times. Hearing him mention Mumford & Sons, maybe the music act whose music I ever really loved, in a rap song a minute into the first song was so surprising. His flow was unlike anything I had heard from someone who was unknown at the time. JPEGMAFIA’s Veteran in 2018 is another example, where the glitchy and off the wall production was something I had never heard before. For him to flow that well over a pen clicking, or an OBD throat sample just shows how insane of an artist he is. Listening to Kenny Mason’s Angelic Hoodrat is one of those albums.
Many people, myself included, found Kenny Mason through his song “Hit”. It’s a traditional hip hop track about that feeling of the paycheck finally being deposited, with Kenny blazing through a myriad of different flows during the two verses. He even includes a bridge that shows off his singing ability and nack for melodies. But the most impressive thing about the track is how perfect the incorporation of the skit fits in the song. There are more interludes on the track than there are verses, but yet it feels like an actual part of the song instead of something that people use as transitions between songs. Even with all of these things, it still feels like you could hear this song on the Spotify Rap Caviar playlist and not even blink an eye.
But as Kenny himself told Clash Music, “If people were basing their idea of me off ‘Hit’, then really they were about to get a new artist.” Even the other single for the album immediately switches paths of what people thought Kenny could do. “Metal Wings” starts off as an aggressive hip hop banger about his experiences living in Atlanta, but then seamlessly transitions into an outro that sounds like it could be an early 2000s alt rock song. Kenny even told Complex that the ending to that track was inspired by some of his favorite alternative rock groups, mainly The Pixies. The heavy guitar chords are blasted throughout the entire soundscape, with Kenny singing some melodies in the background through some heavy vocal processing that reminds me of the outro on Kanye’s masterpiece, “Runaway”. This song really lets you know that this isn’t your average artist, but even this song doesn’t paint the full picture of what Kenny Mason can do.
Angelic Hoodrat was released as a surprise on April 14th. There was a music video for the title track that was premiering at that time, but the album dropped along with the music video. For an up and coming artist to drop their debut album with no promotion whatsoever is something very unique. Normally, smaller artists hype up their upcoming projects for a long time in order to get as many people excited for the project as possible. Depending on their label and budget, they can even have some more high profile features that’ll bring people to the project. Kenny did neither of those things. He just dropped his album as a surprise and with no features, purposely letting the music speak for itself. And sure enough, it does.
The album was picked up by most hip hop news sites, including Complex, HotNewHipHop, DJ Booth, HypeBeast, Lyrical Lemonade, and many more. Many larger artists have also cosigned the project and told their fans to check it out; including J.I.D., Denzel Curry, Young Nudy, Guapdad 4000, Deante’ Hitchcock, and more. This didn’t happen by labels buying people to promote their artists stuff, this is all authentic appreciation for great art made by an innovative artist.
Even though his music is centered around hip hop, Kenny doesn’t want to be labeled as a rapper. He told Complex, “I’m an artist. I think at the core of it is definitely rap. I love rap. So I’m always going to be that. That’s what I started doing. But I love music, too.” He even cites his biggest influences as The Pixies, Smashing Pumpkins, Weezer, and the Foo Fighters; instead of what people would expect him to say like Andre 3000 or Tupac. Not many rap artists, if any, have rock bands like that as their biggest influences.
To simplify the music on this album by a lot, it brings together rock and hip hop into one cohesive sound. Songs like the single “Hit”, “PTSD”, “Chevron”, and “Angelic Hoodrat” are more traditional hip hop songs that could fit in with any normal hip hop listener. The production and choruses on these songs are hard and catchy enough for the trap listeners to gravitate towards them, but they’re also just bursting at the seams with talent, creativity, and lyrics that a lot of the more conscious and artful hip hop fans will appreciate.
Where this project gets special is when the rock elements come in. “Lean” is the first time in the tracklist where rock comes in as a prominent influence. The song is a heartbreaking tale of Kenny’s upbringing, but told through the Angelic perspective. The atmosphere of the track is dark, but Kenny comes in with these layered vocals saying, “I’d give up all of this, to fly with you again. And I hold back tears, everytime I think of you.” The sonics help represent the darkness that Kenny had to grow up with and around, but meanwhile the vocals and lyrics provide some powerful imagery of angels floating through the sky showing that Kenny still has hope upon his terrible situation.
“Handles” is an almost interlude track with just Kenny, his guitar, and some slow drums the entire song. The song is a metaphor with Kenny comparing himself to a bicycle, as the song starts with, “Bend my handles and I start to lean. Too unbalanced to get down the street.” He’s having trouble staying on track with his music while enduring his livelihood of where he grew up. Themes of loneliness are also prevalent in the track. The track ends with somewhat of a refrain, “Trying hard not to try anything, cause you’ll make me face it lonely. Strength from aloneness.” It’s arguably the most emotional song on the entire album with his emotional melodies.
“Pretty Thoughts” shows how he can combine both of these sounds at the same time. He’s done both of them previously on the album, and even in the same song, but never at the same time. “Pretty Thoughts” has Kenny using some more heavy, fuzzed out guitar chords, except this time there’s a driving trap beat that drives the song along from one part to the next. There’s also another example of Kenny using autotune on his voice, almost to make his voice an instrument instead of something overtop of the instrumental.
The two part centerpiece of the album, “Angels Calling // My Dad”, is arguably the most heartfelt song out of all these heartfelt songs. Both parts talk about Kenny’s relationship with his father and how he was never there, even when Kenny was shot and almost died. After his moving chorus with some of his best singing on the entire album, he starts out his verse with, “I know you not gon’ check on me ‘til the check on me.” He’s pretty straightforward that his father only wants to be with him when he has money. After his dad not picking up the phone in the chorus, Kenny ends the verse by getting to the place where he doesn’t pick up the phone when his father calls. He’s now independent and ready to move on instead of being continually let down by his father.
The second half of the song show’s Kenny’s desire to make enough money to get himself and his family out of the hood, and he ends the verse with a realization of how hard his father had to work to try and raise his family, “Don’t be greedy, just to build a home for needy ones since no one built a home for me. And my dad, my dad, my dad did a whole lot of shit that was bad, just to rent a home to sleep in.” He empathizes with how his father must’ve felt trying to provide for him and how money can become almost like a god when you have to fiend for it day in and day out for decades.
It’s personal stories and excerpts like this that also help show what’s special about Kenny Mason’s music. The same way that Kendrick Lamar can transport you to Compton with his album Good Kid, Maad City, Kenny Mason transports the listener to Atlanta. Whether he’s riding along in his “Chevron” or recounting the near death experiences he’s had on “PTSD”, you are right there along with him. His music is instantly relatable and accessible, but still helping to perfect a sound that many have attempted before. It’s straightforward, but still complex enough that I’m catching new lines and overarching meanings after dozens of listens.
Kenny Mason is a name that people need to be familiar with sooner rather than later. Everything about this album shows that he’s only going to get better from here. He can go anywhere he wants after this album. He could make a full rock album from here, and I wouldn’t be surprised. He could go back to what you could call his early stuff, where he was just rapping and wasn’t making rock influenced music. But hopefully, he goes further into this direction where it’s a combination of both sounds, because that can really be something special. This project is one of the best debut projects I’ve heard in years, and deserves all the acclaim that it’s going to get.
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