You ever seen that video of LAZER DIM enjoying the identical Glokk40 track again and again? You ever felt the identical method as him earlier than? Once in a while, there’s a document that comes round and scratches a deep-seated itch in my mind for weeks on finish. That’s the place I’m at proper now with Zel’s Nonetheless Proper Right here, an 18-track manifesto of stateless, mercurial entice music.
Extra particularly, the observe “Flrrt / Drink Water” did my head in so loopy that I’m nonetheless making an attempt to make sense of it. It’s brooding and hypnotic in ways in which really feel native to the Maryland rapper’s music, however its sense of endurance makes it stand out: Hello-hats and snares seem in fragmentary bursts, icy synths precipitate and evaporate, and Zel slithers wryly within the minimize. It jogs my memory of LUCKI on “Greater than Ever” the way in which he makes a playground out of adverse house, leaving acres between his bars in order that they land like missiles. Nonetheless Proper Right here is exclusive sufficient to forged avenue rap in a brand new gentle: Over freakishly lucid, cybernetic manufacturing, Zel pens dope boy anecdotes and takes a scalpel to them, splicing, re-shaping, and overlapping his punch-ins as he suits them in wayward pockets. After years of SoundCloud-only singles, his first solo full-length is straight away up there as one of the vital singular rap debuts of the last decade up to now.
No rating but, be the primary so as to add.
After I let you know Zel has been silently constructing towards this mixtape for some time now, I don’t say that as a formality. He doesn’t actually say shit until it’s on wax. Whether or not it’s via DPM, the shadowy avant-rap collective he’s helmed with Xang since 2023, or the cabal of deft producers affiliated with it, Zel has churned out cavalier, boots-on-the-ground avenue rap with zero social media presence. (At the least till now—with the discharge of Nonetheless Proper Right here, he’s lastly gone public on X and YouTube.) His misanthropic ethos informs the music’s gritty, desolate scene-setting, and it’s partly why you gained’t discover this tape exterior SoundCloud. “I’m creepy as shit, I don’t know the right way to act,” he bellows repeatedly on “Not a Opp.”
On Nonetheless Proper Right here, we discover Zel posted up in dilapidated backrooms and on moonlit avenue corners, testing completely different straps with completely different attachments, throwing again Percs and serving the remainder for revenue. All of it feels deathly fast: His stony, disaffected vocals use dialogue and blunt concision to point out precisely the place he’s at. There’s virtually nothing in the way in which of metaphor or trickery. “Bruh, open the aspect door, shit get gory,” he raps on “Charms.” “Bruh, open the aspect door, let auntie in.” He deconstructs Goonew’s punch-in stream with a uniquely nimble sense of timing, however in spirit, Zel’s music jogs my memory of what drew me to 21 Savage’s early materials: uncooked and riveting depictions of an atmosphere as wicked and unforgiving because the storytellers themselves. Generally it looks like Zel isn’t performing for anybody however his mirror. “Don’t ask why I transfer like that, you ain’t see what I did,” he spits on “Mutual Pals.”
Zel’s free, devil-may-care disposition, mixed with what looks like a dream group of SoundCloud’s coolest avant-garde stylists, make Nonetheless Proper Right here really feel like required listening. The beat curation is as exact as it’s risky. It’s probably the most absolutely realized document to adapt the skittish, off-kilter stepTeam rhythms which have infiltrated the digital underground as of late; “Flrrt / Drink Water,” courtesy of myrlu and stepTeam’s personal aghast, is a chief instance. The mesmeric haze of chinapoet’s “Rear View” and whatever51’s “Know The place I’m At” is a welcome addition to Zel’s sullen ambiance, however the vitality strikes in waves. From the fidgety electronica of kuru’s “Child Okay” and vibey buoyancy of magazine’s “Shopping for Her Shit” to the sentimental, Xiu Xiu-like distortion of remghost and g0bln’s “Japanese Denim,” the sound palette refracts colours from each angle.
