Hey, everyone. Hatethony Hatetano here, the internet's busiest music nerd.

It's time for some hating, some actual hating. Because I've been going on the internet and I've been seeing a lot of negative reactions to some music, specifically a song, a new song from YouTuber, streamer, boxer, entrepreneur, influencer, Mr. KSI. Who, in addition to all of that, is also a rapper, singer, songwriter, as many of you already know, because, for years now, he has been really pushing into his music career.

I have reviewed his music on my main channel a couple of times. I know KSI hasn't been jazzed to hear all of my commentary and critiques of his music in the past, but it all still came from a real and genuine place. One where I'm genuinely trying to judge his music for what it is and what it's trying to be. If you want a basic assessment of how I feel about KSI's music, he happens to make a lot of very mainstream pop and rap music, sometimes with a bit of a dance flavor, depending on the track. And look, he writes and crafts his music for a very mainstream audience. He makes it so that it has a very easy, approachable sound.

Personally, I don't find it to be particularly inspired, but at the end of the day, what I can say is that he makes music that is, at the very least, listenable. KSI's tracks generally sound as clean and as well put together as any other big-budget single. I feel like a lot of the haters who go out of their way to shit on his music neglect to mention that fact a lot of the time and act as if what he comes out with is on the level of a RiceGum or a Jake Paul or something like that when I wouldn't really agree with that assessment at all.

I mean, while I'm not crazy about a lot of KSI's tracks, I think much of the time it boils down to these songs not really being for me. It's funny because a lot of people are shocked that when I cover his work, I'm not saying it's the worst thing to ever happen to music, when it's genuinely not. Is KSI guilty of dropping tracks that are generic or uninspired to some degree? Yes. But the worst music that's ever been released and recorded? A little overly dramatic. Seeing that same reaction crop up in the face of his latest single, "Thick of It", confirms for me that a lot of this hate is done for attention, either in comment sections or on Instagram or on TikTok.

I know this in my heart of hearts for a few different reasons. One, KSI has come out with far worse music than this, which didn't elicit even close to this level of reaction that we're seeing on "Thick of It". We don't even need to go into the distant past to find these songs. Like that "Voices" track with Oliver Tree. I'm sorry, that is trash. I know that given it's Oliver Tree, it's not necessarily meant to be the most self-serious track or anything like that. But still, comparatively, "Voices", is far worse than "Thick of It".

There's also "Not Over Yet" featuring Tom Grennan, which comparatively is way more annoying and melodramatic, and again, didn't elicit anywhere near this level of reaction. There's also "Really Love", where KSI tries to do more of a clubby dance, pop, rap thing, where his voice is just an awkward fit, and I just feel like is far less listenable than "Thick of It".

There's also "Summer is Over", which is just this grossly pandering, sweet, sentimental attempt at a summer jam. Yeah, all of these tracks are much worse and much more annoying than "Thick of It", which to me is just like listenable. It's not great. I don't like it, but it's not offensive to the degree where it should warrant everybody stumbling over themselves to desperately prove how much they hate the song to the point where they're literally plagiarizing YouTube comments over and over and over and acting as if these are their own original thoughts. 'Oh, man, this track would be great if it had a different beat and a different melody and a different artist and different lyrics.'

In fact, KSI made a YouTube video reacting to a lot of these videos...

Honestly, as cringe as he and his music can be sometimes, as humans, we all have the capacity for cringe. Nothing KSI did in this song or in the music video attached to it is even nearly as cringe as these fuckers pretending like this is the worst thing they've ever heard. When in fact, if you took this same goddamn song, I guarantee you, took the same goddamn song and put a generic Juice WRLD world verse on it and then pitched it as a posthumous Juice WRLD single, so many of these fuckers would come through like, 'Oh, man, R.I.P. Juice. Oh, man, he was the GOAT. I love this track. This is so good.'

When you boil things down, that's the vibe of the song. It's this little trappy, guitar-backed emo-pop rap blend that's melodic, it's a little melodrama, but also righteous and inspiring, too. Again, it has some of those basic emo trap elements, but reduced down and sugar-coated to the point where it sounds like it has some genuine commercial appeal.

Those vibes are also signaled by Trippie Redd being on the back end of the track, which is something a lot of people don't really mention when assessing the song because I don't think a lot of listeners are getting deep enough into the track to hear the Trippie Redd part. I didn't even stick around for the Trippie Redd part. This is pretty dismal. But it's funny because Trippie Redd, comparatively, I think, has made far worse music than KSI ever has in his career, namely that pop punk record with freaking Travis Barker.

And yet, I don't think a single one of these TikTokers would ever publicly react to a Trippie Redd song in the way that they're reacting to this KSI track. Right now, hating his music is easy. It's popular. It's something you can do to signal to other people to show them, 'Oh, yeah, I agree with you. We're cool. We're all on the same page.' Rarely in any of the hate directed toward this track is anybody talking about what they hate about it. Which is easy to pick out as a professional hater who has to actually come up with reasons that I hate the shit that I hate. Frankly, I've heard way more detestable music released in the last year, in the last six months.

I'll tie a bow on this and just say a lot of these people going out of their way to speak negatively on this song are full of shit. They like what they're told to like, and they dislike what they're told to dislike. Now, with that being said, it's not like "Thick of It" is a great track, and KSI does genuinely seem to be rocked by the amount of negativity this song is receiving. If this song is coming from a genuine place for KSI, on some level, I do feel bad for him that all of this negativity is being centered on this song at the same time. Though, congratulations on the track debuting in the 90s on the Billboard Hot 100.

Now, I want to finish this off with some genuine criticisms that maybe down the road into the future, KSI might be able to take to heart. Not only do I feel bad that there's all this negativity being geared toward the song, but on top of it, it's not really constructive negativity. I do think KSI, being as deep into his career as he is, is maybe slightly out of touch or maybe doesn't completely understand why people perceive him and his music in a certain way. This is indicated in the reaction video he did to a lot of the hatred on the track.

One dude in particular happened to laugh at the fact that a bottle of Prime was incorporated in the music video. Which, yes, is actually genuinely funny. KSI compares this to the fact that when he grew up, he would see music videos where Rick Ross or Dr. Dre were promoting things that they're involved with outside of their music business-wise, like Beats.

"Back in the day when I would watch Rick Ross and Dr. Dre making music, they would promote beats in their music videos or Ciroq or whatever the fuck they were promoting. What the hell, man? Why is it when a YouTuber does it? It's cringe." - KSI

Okay, pause, halt, because I do feel like this is reflective of a slight lack of self-awareness here. You are not Dr. Dre. You did not give us The Chronic. And look, despite all those classics, all of those Beats integrations in various music videos over the years, yeah, they were still corny, but we just bit our tongues and looked the other way and were mostly quiet about it because he gave us those classics. You let the guy get his bag because he's made art that you hold near and dear to your heart. Whereas, I'm sorry, man, you don't have that same leeway. I mean, you can continue to promote Prime in any song or music video that you do, but just know that you're going to get roasted for it.

This issue digs further into the overall problem with this track and a lot of KSI's music, frankly. It doesn't really seem to dig into a super personal place for KSI, and it doesn't really show you a new or a different side of him in any way, shape, or form. In fact, like with the Prime drop in the music video for this song, a lot of what KSI is saying on this track, just feels like an advertisement for KSI and all the things that KSI does.

And while I know a lot of rap and hip hop-based music tends to be very promotional or braggadocious in nature, the thing is, if we wanted to see or know about any of these things that you are rapping about, there are tons of places for us to go to already see you being successful at these things. We don't really need to hear further promotion of them in a new single. We know you're on the screen. We know you're in the ring. We know you're an internet influencer, entrepreneur. Putting on a song where so much of the focus is just you bragging about that feels like voluntarily sitting through a YouTube ad and not hitting the skip button.

Honestly, I feel like if KSI is ever genuinely going to be taken seriously as a musician, he's got to make tracks and he's got to write raps and melodies that can stand on their own outside of the context of the greater KSI content sphere. If his music just merely exists to be another extension of all of that, then I'm sorry to disappoint you, but most people are just not going to see your music in a very serious light. They're just going to see it as a part of an overall branding scheme.

For as shitty and as awful and as terrible as the music industry has gotten over the past 10 years, the way music has essentially been reduced down to content in a way. Thankfully, right now in the year of our Lord 2024, and who knows how long this is going to last, but thankfully, right now, people still don't want to feel like in the music they're listening to, being advertised to, that they're being pitched something. Essentially, that's what "Thick of It" sounds like. It sounds like I'm being sold something on a musical episode of Shark Tank.

Now, beyond that, I feel like this instrumental style for popular these days is pretty dated as of right now. Maybe if you dropped this track five years ago it would be in vogue. It is stale. It is behind the curve. It is really in need of something new and extra, which I feel is also indicated in the melodies on the track, namely these big, 'whoa, whoa, whoa', refrains, which is just this stale millennia ballad pop bullshit from 2013, 2014, around that point in time.

Even when that shit was happening then, it was corny. And yet we're still trying to push it now in 2024. Please, give me a break. We don't need these stomp-clap folk-like hooks anymore. We're done. If you are going to insist on making music that is geared toward a popular music type audience, that means actually genuinely being in tune with what is popular right now in this moment, not what was popular 6-10 years ago.

So if KSI does genuinely care about writing a song at some point into the future that people care about and don't go out of their way to hate as much as they are this one, I hope he heeds what I'm throwing out on this video. Start writing from a real place. Actually develop an interesting melody that isn't stale. Give us a beat that doesn't sound half a decade old, and then maybe from there, we will be cooking.

Okay, hold up, because, in the midst of getting this video together, another KSI complaining about people hating his song video has hit YouTube. I mean, another thing that is shaking a lot of people's confidence in KSI's capabilities as a musician, is that he doesn't seem to take criticism well of his work.

Case in point, this clip of him reacting to me.

KSI's salty response to Fantano's review of 'Thick of It'
byu/Bauer_will_find_you infantanoforever

"Fantano calls JJ's new song dismal. This brother just fucking hates me, man. This guy hates me. I don't care. This song is a banger. I don't care what anyone says. Fantano is entirely to his opinion. Music is subjective. If he doesn't like it, whatever." - KSI

He just seems fully locked in on the idea that I hate him, and I don't know where he gets this idea. I mean, I know his work has not gotten glowing reviews from me in the past, but certainly, I have an understanding of where he's trying to come from as somebody breaking into the music sphere from the influencer sphere. Not only have I, again, tried to see where he's coming from in his music, but I've reacted to his reactions to my commentaries on his music.

And look, while I may think that the ideas going into a lot of his songs, even this new one, aren't amazing, KSI does put a certain level of effort into the way his music sounds and is presented. And in my opinion, again, it's at a mainstream popular music level in terms of its mixing, its sonic quality, and so on and so forth. And there are a lot of mainstream artists who fail to even reach that bar.

Look, like I said in that bit of commentary there that KSI is reacting to, he has come out with better tracks, namely on some of the deep cuts from Dissimulation as well as All Over the Place. But still, I don't see how this new track is the worst thing everybody's ever heard.

I'm going to leave it there. Have you guys heard this new KSI track? Is it the worst thing you've ever heard? Is it the best thing you've ever heard? Is it somewhere in the middle? Let me know.

Anthony Fantano. KSI. Forever.