I remember the rage, skater, blog era where crews like Odd Future and vintage A$AP Mob (RIP A$AP Yams) were at the helm of a new creative direction for our generation of hip-hop.
Of all the breath of creative fresh air we had from the early 00s, Tyler The Creator was the brashest, outlandish and aggressively sadistic teenager who embodied the hormonal extremes and the dark aesthetic of societal outcasts which earned him an unprecedented cult following.
It was only when he shed the uncontainable teenager era and honed into his creative directing, fashion, and sonic evolution through albums like Flower Boy, IGOR, and Call Me If You Get Lost, did we breathe a sigh of relief and stood in awe of his evolution.
Accentuating the HOV sentiment "Took me twenty-six years to find my path/My only job is cuttin' the time in half" is young gentleman, 16 years of age to be precise who has mastered the vintage/contemporary fashion forward, melodically and lyrically polished prowess of the late 20s/early 30s Tyler piquing my curiosity of where his conceptual nature will take him if his approach to his art is anything to go by.
Lesotho stand up for Hxpe! (pronounced Hope, not Hype), stylized saveHxpe, a walking masterclass of musicality and witty lyricism I’m paranoid about whether he will catch the Willow Smith (and SZA, arguably) curse. You know, when you break into the music scene with such an alternative and esoteric beauty dilutes into Willow's abrasive sonic discourse change which isolates her hippie core audience or SZA's commercial success where although we grew into the “Go Gina’s” and “20 Somethings” we lost the esoteric cult edge of “Teen Spirit” and ”Omega” in the process.
I digress, Soundcloud is in a very odd space, it carries the cross of being the home for struggling artists and equally houses the rawest undiscovered talent and Hxpe, has given me a reason to load up my app and start searching for progressive thinkers such as himself. Reviving my hope (literally) in songwriting and a multidisciplinary approach to storytelling, his Still Deciding [The Visual EP] Directed by Brutal Saint & Nkopane has blended a replay value experience that forces you to engage with every scene, every bar, and every backing vocal, murky lighting and the fashion-forward wardrobe that positions him for a potentially lucrative career in modelling.
Themed primarily through a vintage aesthetic, Hxpe and his creative directors strike a perfect balance between modern pop and retro chic, reminiscent of the Sophia town 60s, a theme unfortunately he loses sight of in the visual EP closer, “I Don’t Know x 2”, personally the storyline peaked at “Herbal Tea”, the closer comes across as “I’ve taken you into my world long enough, let me enter yours” and the matrix warps us from the blue pill fantasy into the red pill reality of the lacklustre trap culture that has set the status quo of what defines authentic hip-hop.
Whether it’s the “I was head boy and I was getting all that neck neck” quirk from “Bloodspots” or the ”I know your ex hurt you and I wanna be better/Maybe I can be your “Y” you could pick a different letter” from "Distance", the “I’m 16 and you rap like you 16” from “Breathe”, or “Said I’m virgin/ but I fucked the game up/underground n**** might wanna come to the surface” from “Edlis” and the countless quotable gems littered on what I can only call the theme music to a timeless short film, every second day I have a new favourite song.
The older I grow the more I appreciate an excruciatingly dense puzzle due to the much-needed mental exercise and means to hone in and focus for a long period and Hxpe? Is it just that a puzzle that you want to unbox in every discourse of its talent! It's one thing to make someone a fan of music, but an entirely different chat when you change how they consume music and "Still Deciding" has convinced me, Visual EPs might just become my new status quo for measuring a musician's calibre of artistry.
Watch “Still Deciding” The Visual EP Here:
"Still Deciding." OUT NOW: https://push.fm/fl/pvavz5dh
Connect With Hxpe
Instagram: @savehxpe
Twitter: @savehxpe
SoundCloud: