ARTIST: 99TOYO
SOUNDCLOUD
TWITTER
INSTAGRAM
99toyo is another artist whose output is less than prolific, but there’s no denying that each of his currently released songs is of extremely high quality. His most recent venture ‘illbefine’ is a hazy journey through a distorted palmpre-produced labyrinth, his raps largely indecipherable aside from fitting references to double cups and generally getting fucked up. He’s a strong presence on the song, immediately taking command of the beat and remaining a shadowy, murky presence for its duration.
‘say it’, which dropped earlier this month, is a much cleaner-sounding song. toyo’s vocals remain gruff and inebriated, but his flow is more upbeat and animated to match the louder percussion. ‘I break up then drink up, there’s pain in my drank cup’ he laments on the sluggish hook. The song is chopped up towards its end, suggesting the rapper’s vested interest in the culture that inspired his song topics.
If you dig further back into toyo’s Soundcloud, two older tracks pop up. ‘newports’ features a faster, more viscous delivery while ‘grand$’ contains a bouncing, youthful flow. It appears that toyo has finally found a sound he’s comfortable with on these newer songs, but that doesn’t make this material any less impressive. He’s gifted with a great voice and the ability to rap with immense skill, so I’m hoping that his future work will contain a greater balance between these differing styles. In the meantime he’s an artist you should definitely be checking for, as he consistently delivers engagingly moody hip hop through a drug-addled lens.
108MICS 