Hi, everyone. Esthony Deetano here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review of this EsDeeKid album, Rebel.

EsDeeKid is said to be a Liverpool rapper, but who really knows? Not me and not a lot of people. This guy is a rapper who operates with a mostly anonymous presentation, which has very much been to the benefit of his hype. It's even somehow fueled rumors that he is Timothée Chalamet. He also currently sits at millions of monthly listeners across all streaming platforms.

And his debut album over here has been climbing up the official UK albums chart, and I think is just above number 20 as of me shooting this video. And fans seem to genuinely be connecting with this guy's accent, with his stories of growing up in the harder sections of Liverpool, all of the drug-fuel hedonistic flexes in his bars, too. Occasionally, peppering in references to Lord of the Rings, the Despicable Me movie franchise, as well as bands like Deftones.

And I would say there's definitely a dark, edgy sound to a majority of the tracks on this record, too. Stylistically speaking, though, EsDeeKid brings together elements of trap and rage and 2010 SoundCloud rap in his songs. I mean, look no further than this bar where he shouts out Lil Uzi Vert ["Need a tour life Uzi, lad, me life's kinda feeling like a movie"]. And occasionally in the tracklist here, you do get some tracks that have a jerk style groove with a lot of snare.

In many ways, EsDeeKid music sounds like the logical conclusion of hip hop music's progression over the past decade, culturally, and serves as a reminder that rap music has always been pretty quick to react to and reflect whatever world or culture it's born out of.

Because this record is more than simply just bars and beats. Its success is a result of an increased presence of the international scene in hip hop today, especially the UK. Also the algorithmic echo chambers that have led to more niche music consumption patterns, which has created an underground that has less sonic diversity, less tracklist variety on their respective projects. We also have artists who put more of an emphasis on standalone tracks and singular moments versus a whole realistic album craft.

The significance of replay value is replacing song structure as nearly everybody and anybody is struggling to put out that hot 90 minute to 120 second song that will get spun over and over and over and over on streaming platforms. Again, that is reflected in the build of this album as it is 11 tracks long and just 20 minutes in length, with a majority of its tracks just not even cracking two minutes. And a lot of the underground sounds and trends I was referring to earlier, their dominance has turned a lot of new artists away from the idea of developing anything in their music that might be the least bit chart friendly, at least in the traditional sense.

Can we really be surprised when youth culture's access to music these days comes mostly through, again, streaming platforms like Spotify and the tools they are given to access it, be it either ear buds or phone speakers or laptop speakers. I mean, after listening to this record repeatedly in a couple of different contexts, nowhere has it sounded better, or to my ears, made more sense than at top volume coming out of this [cellphone].

But with all of that, I will also say, I do think when it comes to flow and pen game, EsDeeKid most definitely has something here. His performances across this record are aggressive, are attention-grabbing, while he's not the most technically impressive rapper on the planet, and his reference points can feel limited to what he's smoking or snorting. I'm also not fully convinced that rocking leather and designer makes you avant-garde. But not for a single second on this record did EsDeeKid sound like he was phoning it in or putting in too little effort. He sounds like a real natural on the mic, and his vocals come across huge and fuzzy nestled into these overblown beats.

There's an undeniable swagger from him and also his collaborators on this record, all of whom are pretty smooth with it in their own way, which again is honestly refreshing in an era where it feels like a lot of newbies just don't give a fuck.

Now, on top of this, it's hard to give any super in-depth analysis to much of what EsDeeKid is doing on this record because it's truly not that deep and it's not trying to be. The tracklist on this thing operates like a series of fast moving thrills that change and transition at the exact moment that they might start to begin to overstay their welcome. And while there's nothing inherently wrong with a bunch of quick punky songs, the issue is it results in a lot of tracks that end up blending together pretty forgettably. It's a little risk, little reward thing.

Because when this album does eventually come to a very unceremonious end with "Tartan," my final thoughts are pretty much summed up with the little vocal snippet drop that not only takes up the last few milliseconds of this album, but is also played throughout the entirety of the record at various points, and that's the sound of this person going, "Okay." Yeah, it's a very breathy, apathetic "okay." That's mostly how I feel in reaction to this series of very hype moments that for sure did not offend, but also didn't really go above and beyond to impress either.

While I do think Rebel is an okay start to what EsDeeKid is doing here, I guess the question is, where does he progress to past this point? Does he actually flirt with the idea of creating serious hooks and song development, maybe start doing some cleaner production, expand his storytelling abilities or the pictures he paints with his lyrics, or maybe even pop the anonymity bubble?

I don't know. While all of these outcomes are definitely possible. None of them really feel all that probable. I fear that what will actually end up happening is that he'll stagnate and just do the same thing until everyone either gets sick of it or grows out of it, which is why I'm feeling a strong 5 to a light 6 on this project.

Anthony Fantano, EsDeeKid, forever.