The current landscape of hip-hop is constantly expanding, and thanks to the likes of SoundCloud now dominating the genre as arguably the biggest 'breakthrough' platform for artists, new rappers are constantly being unearthed and being granted their time in the limelight, whether deservedly or not.
One name rapidly becoming more well known is that of Icy Narco, a 20-year-old from South Florida - a region of the US which has become notorious for producing some of the biggest names in hip-hop in the last couple of years. Artists from the area include Lil Pump, Smokepurpp, Ski Mask the Slump God, Denzel Curry, Kodak Black and of course the late XXXTENTACION, so Icy is in good company.
Icy, born Rolando Gomez, as of writing, has approximately 58,259 followers on SoundCloud, on top of 140,909 monthly listeners on Spotify, although this number is on the rise. This is somewhat unsurprising though, as one can tell that Icy's music does centre around fairly popular themes. A common trademark of Florida artists, such as XXXTENTACION, Smokepurpp and Lil Pump, is a bass-heavy, distorted track, layered with loud, 'in-your-face' lyrics (see 'Audi.' by Smokepurpp or 'Look at Me!' by X).
And this is a technique that Icy has also incorporated into his sound, as his biggest hit to date is 'LINK', which has garnered approximately 7.6 million views on YouTube, as well as 2.98 million SoundCloud streams and just over 3 million hits on Spotify. 'LINK', produced by Flexatelli, features a bass-heavy beat, the classic 'triplets' style of flow which has dominated rap since 'Versace' by Migos back in 2013, and reverb hitting the eardrums upon almost every third word. The lyrics, as is the case with most stereotypical 'SoundCloud rappers' aren't the most intricate, with some of the more notable lines being "Choker it feel like a noose, fish her filet feeling loose, ducking the bullets they fly and you might be the goose", and "My snipers freeze up the room, shoot at your Uber we shoot at your coupe".
A point I like to stick by though is that in the current climate of hip-hop, technical lyrics sometimes aren't needed - especially in SoundCloud rap - a lot of which relies on and centres mostly around its 'hype value' - the idea that as long as the song goes hard enough, the intricacy of the lyrical content can be mostly overlooked.
And this is why I believe Icy is on the rise. Yes, he may look like another rebrand of Lil Pump, and critics all across his social media pages constantly refer to him as an 'industry plant', but Icy seems determined to try and set himself apart from the rest of his compatriots. As his Spotify bio reads, Icy is "furthering and fine tuning his sound each and every day, aspiring to be one of the most consistent yet versatile artists on the market."
Anyway, as trends go, hip-hop has always had fashion and trends to follow. Back in the late-80s/early-90s, the jheri curl was the hairstyle in fashion, with some of the more notable artists sporting the style being Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Compton's Most Wanted, DJ Quik and Snoop Dogg. Come the 2000's, the trend was for oversized tee's and immensely sagging trousers and even up until now, rappers have adopted the original idea of Nas in which he put his baby picture on the cover of Illmatic in 1994. Rappers such as Lil Wayne, Common, Kendrick Lamar and Drake have all followed in the footsteps of Nas with photos of their younger selves adorning the front covers of their albums.
And so, as it just so happens, the current trend for rappers is to sport various colours of hair - usually in the dreadlock style - and face tattoos. So Icy isn't just copying Lil Pump - he's simply following a trend that he knows contains the proven algorithm for success. It worked for XXXTENTACION, Lil Pump, Lil Uzi Vert, Lil Yachty and 6ix9ine, and Icy is well within his rights to believe that it will work for him.
So, I do believe that Icy Narco is on the rise and is close to breaking through into the mainstream. His songs such as 'LINK' and '#RONNYJKILLEDTHIS' have all the makings for a classic underground SoundCloud hit, whereas his release 'Numb and Frozen' sounds much more like realistic charting music thanks to a calmer tone, with a bit more effort into his delivery. In recent months he has mentioned forthcoming projects titled 'Frozen Fable' and 'Winter Can Be Murder', although it is unknown whether the latter is now a renaming of 'Frozen Fable'. On top of this, he announced on his Instagram profile that a long-teased song, 'Hypocrites', would be releasing soon - probably as the lead single from the aforementioned project. So it looks like Icy is truly looking to make 2019 his own, and whether people choose to accept it or not, the young rapper seems to be on the road to stardom.
If you want to check Icy's music out at all, you can find his Spotify account and his SoundCloud page below.
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