Tired of the same trap beats and lack of creative vocals, I was itching for some new content to listen to. That was when I came upon Lil Darkie, who had just dropped a new album called THIS DOES NOT EXIST. As soon as I hit play on the album, the long guitar buildup on “rap music” had me ready for some hard trap drop. Instead, I was treated to a punk track with raging vocals and 808s from Darkie, and found myself headbanging like no tomorrow. This was a welcome addition to the vernacular of rappers embracing their punk beginnings/influences, with artists such as Rico Nasty, Zillakami, Ghostemane, bringing a refreshing new fusion to the world of hip hop.

Joshua Hamilton, aka Lil Darkie, is 21 years old, hailing from Long Beach, California, and is the founding member of rap collective Spider Gang. Darkie has a signature high-pitched voice, instantly distinguishing himself from any other rapper. With his plethora of musical credits and features, this voice can be said to be vital to his success.

I was first introduced to Lil Darkie through my love of Keith Ape, and my heavy use of Soundcloud. I found Keith Ape making new one-track-throwaways with the likes of Wendigo, Christ Dillinger, AFourteen, and of course, Lil Darkie. I had heard none of these other artists before, but apparently they were a part of something called Spider Gang. All of these tracks featured incredibly hard-hitting, aggressive vocals and I was pleasantly surprised to hear Keith’s insane chopper flow over such experimental yet bangin’ production.

As THIS DOES NOT EXIST played on, I was discovering that Darkie had much versatility, using a plethora of inventive flows and tones, over great production by Wendigo and Darkie himself. This cemented that there is much more to Darkie than rageful screaming and shock value. This project is well-formatted and organized as a whole, with the first half featuring pugnacious rap and punk tracks, until we reach the exact midpoint with “where is darkie”. This moment in the album made me realize that his energy and anger was not inauthentic. It was coming from a place of pain and hurt. This is when I realized I was connecting with this album on a deeper level than the music; I was connecting on an emotional level too. The last half of the album eases us into a more relaxed state of Darkie’s mind, with more chill but brooding tracks like “THE SANDS OF TIME” and “EGO DEATH”. Darkie has been cited to say in an interview that when he took shrooms in middle school, his ego died, and therefore he died too. Darkie struggles with mental health just as many of us do, and it is a pleasure to hear an album where someone can vent, reflect, and make it resonate with an audience on a musical level. Many artists such as myself aim to encapsulate our emotions in the form of our art, and Lil Darkie exemplifies how this can be accomplished.

I picked my top 3 favorites with the variety this album provides in mind. “COMPOSITION III IN RED, WHITE AND BLACK” is a chaotic rap banger with a beat that constantly transitions back and forth from a slow, darker section with distorted, droning drums, to a fast, high energy section. I had never heard anything like it before in my life. “THE SANDS OF TIME” is truly a unique song on this tracklist. It features a more relaxed yet eerie instrumental, with its reversed piano melody, and minimal drums, and with Darkie reflecting on death, and wallowing in his painful past. Finally, “MOVE BECAUSE YOU CAN” represents the third kind of mood or atmosphere that you will hear on this project. Pure, raw, unadulterated punk. You can’t help but fucking move when you hear this song, and I could just imagine myself moshing to this song at a live show while I listened to Darkie’s unfiltered screams. A reminder that the term “least favorite” suggests that out of all the options, while the thing was still good, it was simply not the very best out of all the options. So this does not mean that I hated “I AM GONNA STOP DOING DRUGS”, I just thought it the weakest track on the album. It served the same purpose as “MOVE BECAUSE YOU CAN” but was just a tad bit more disorganized and effective as the former punk track.

Many listeners would be turned off by the aggression and vulgarity Lil Darkie uses in his music, but I truly believe that Darkie is a artist you need to be aware of, and this album is the perfect introduction. Darkie is not afraid to say whatever the fuck he wants, and seeks to take the power out of hurtful words as a person of color and bisexuality. This kind of attitude speaks volumes in an age of repetitive pop, and in a society full of people that are afraid to be themselves. If you have many internal struggles, or just love to headbang, THIS DOES NOT EXIST is a must-listen album for you.

TOP 3 SONGS:

1. COMPOSITION III IN RED, WHITE, AND BLACK

2. THE SANDS OF TIME

3. MOVE BECAUSE YOU CAN

LEAST FAV TRACK: I AM GONNA STOP DOING DRUGS

FINAL SCORE: 9/10