Isaiah 

*Shouts to first-time writer [Miles Bell](https://www.instagram.com/miley__b/) for this quick & dirty intro to the producer [WhotheHellisCarlo](https://www.instagram.com/whothehelliscarlo), who spoke to us on the phone on a recent evening while he stepped outside the bar. Thanks Miles!
-Andrew*

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jcbFDKgohZc" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Unless you're living under a rock you know Michigan has been on fire lately, as Detroit, Flint, and Grand Rapids have birthed some of the most popular rap artists and hottest tracks in the past couple of years. Funny lyrics and off-beat cadences make the Midwest style competitive and trendsetting, but who is behind the sound –– specifically all the clave hits and dark piano loops?? 

One of the big names is producer Carlo Anthony, or “WhoTheHellisCarlo," an architect of the scene along with producers like Helluva, Rocaine, Topside and Enrgy Beats. Carlo is a Grand Rapids native who, at 22, has already achieved outrageous placements with big-name artists such as 42 Dugg, Sada Baby, Kodak Black, Lil Yachty, EST Gee, and RMC Mike. And he's just getting started, with his debut solo tape "Who the Hell is Carlo Vol. 1" dropping soon. 

I noticed his @whothehelliscarlo Instagram branding and logo closely mimicked King of the Hill, and asked him about that. He said, “I always watched it growing up...it’s like the only cartoon show with a happy family.” As for his own family, Carlo said when he was a kid his household primarily listened to old blues music. While his house didn't necessarily listen to rap, he said it was a genre his father could respect, a childhood aspect I can personally relate to. 

Inspiration-wise he said from a young age he looked up to Atlanta superproducer Southside, and these days has been really into Pink Floyd and Yung Lean –– the latter of whom will be on his upcoming tape. When that drops, he says people will see “I have my own style, outside of just Detroit.” 

![carlo2.jpg](https://finals.blog/api/uploads/carlo2_ff4ea6362a.jpg)

I asked him how he was able to land placements with A-list rappers, and he stated that the key was to have hard, clean, and masterful production that stood out amongst the crowd, and to get in touch with rappers directly. “I’d never send out mass emails with my beats...my shit is different, and people see that.” Carlo added that it was crucial in this day and age for producers to have their own image and label. In addition to his Bobby Hill branding, he's got [CRACKHOUSE CARTEL](instagram.com/crackhousecartel/), his production, rap, and cultural conglomerate. 

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/soErdyFyDG0" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Carlo's most recent works are the song “DRACOINTHEPARTY,” featuring rapper Tony Shhnow, and the EP [“Who The Hell Is Brooks,"](https://open.spotify.com/album/2AaNqPV7LZx5fI4cJ9qMFd?si=XlSsZHMhQaSXtB7pt2OCyw&dl_branch=1) with Brooks, where Carlo not only produces but features as a rapper on the track “BIG CARLO." Be sure to peep those and look out for the solo tape when it drops. If his prior work is any indication, it's about to be fire. Thanks Carlo for stepping outside and saying what's up to Finals!

-Miles Bell

![carlo3.jpg](https://finals.blog/api/uploads/carlo3_f0ce92723d.jpg)

*Images courtesy Carlo*

small_carlo1.jpg

thumbnail_carlo1.jpg

carlo1.jpg

Sidewalk Talk With WhotheHellisCarlo

In SoundCloud’s ocean of narcotized, otherworldly rap, few collectives are distinguishing themselves like [cr3stfallen](https://soundcloud.com/cr3stfallen). Their mixtape *[#CF21](https://soundcloud.com/cr3stfallen)*, released in February, assembles over a dozen producers and vocalists to find the lucid moments in the depths of a comatose sound, hypnotizing you with more voices than your brain can process as their plugg-adjacent production reaches into the future. 

15-year-old [rodneyy](https://soundcloud.com/ccrodneyy) stands out in cr3st as a member with some of the most fleshed-out ideas as a solo artist. On EPs like January’s #nYnm, he sharpens the lethargic atmospheres of his peers into something new and infectious, picking punchier beats and using his alien vocal hooks to bend the cr3st sound towards more focused songs with a professional finish. The recent work of Playboi Carti, who rodneyy idolizes, looms large over his sound.

<iframe width="100%" height="300" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/playlists/1189770553&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true"></iframe><div style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/ccrodneyy" title="rodneyy" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">rodneyy</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/ccrodneyy/sets/nynm" title="#nYnM" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">#nYnM</a></div>

Much of rodneyy’s fully-formed presence can be credited to his upbringing; as I learned in our brief interview, he’s the son of 2000s R&B star Monica and Rocko, the Atlanta rapper and record executive who’s most often associated with his 2010 signee Future. Growing up at the heart of the music industry in Atlanta, rap music’s current crucible, has taught rodneyy how to professionally self-produce and mix all his music before he can even legally drive. He hopes to use his early, singular talent on SoundCloud to become a star on the level of his idols, setting the template for more young people to follow in his footsteps.

---

**You’re from Atlanta, right? You grew up there?**

I’m from Atlanta, yeah. Born and raised here.

**What was your musical upbringing like?**

You know my mom and dad make music, so like, rap and R&B. That’s really what I’ve been around, like, the real trap scene. When Future was first coming up and all that, I was heavily indulged in that, because he was signed to my dad, so I was around a lot of trap music. That’s kinda what I was brought up around.

**Did you say he was signed to your dad?**

Yeah! Future was signed to my dad. Future’s name, before he met my dad, was Meathead.

**Wait, hold up, who’s your dad?**

Rocko. R-O-C-K-O.

**Oh shit, Rocko! I didn’t know that. So you were really immersed in Atlanta music from a young age.**

Yeah. I’ve been kinda stuck into it -- late night in the studio, all that. I really was born into it, for real. I’m glad I was, ‘cause I love it so much.

**You were kind of destined for music.**

Yeah! Destined to grow up into it, yeah. 

**How did you first stumble on SoundCloud shit? Like, the shit you do now?**

Believe it or not, I had just gotten TikTok, in like 2019. And I heard this one song by notlocked and i9bonsai. Ever since that one song, I was looking into related tracks and stuff, and that’s where I met st47ic and mar and p6nk and luci and them, and the rest is history. I used to be in call with them every day, and I got better, and we all got better with each other. They’re my bros, for real. 

![rodney 2.png](https://finals.blog/api/uploads/rodney_2_2c58b5037f.png)

It’s crazy that TikTok got me where I am now.

**Especially since you were surrounded by Atlanta music when you were young, but what started you off was an i9bonsai song.**

Yeah, exactly. It’s weird, yeah.

**How did you first get linked up with the dudes in cr3stfallen?**

You know Dani Kiyoko? He used to make a lot of producer chats. Back when Instagram had a chat option, you could just hit a button and join a chat. So I would join his chats, and in those chats I met fakekickin, and he’s like co-leader of cr3st. 

I’ve always wanted to join, but one day I was like “what’s cr3st?” being, you know, nonchalant about it. And he was just like “you wanna join?” He didn’t even tell me, he just asked me if I wanted to join. And the rest of that is history too -- that was around, like, July. I didn’t start rapping until a month after I joined cr3st.

**So you grew up around rap, and with Rocko as your dad, but you didn’t start rapping yourself until then?**

I had been making beats all my life. And then I started rapping around...the beginning of the school year.

**Does your dad fuck with your music?**

Oh yeah, he does! The “TEAR IT UP” video, he paid for it for me. I appreciate him. My parents are giving me cosigns and stuff, I really appreciate it.

**In one of your recent songs, you borrow the hook from “Stop Breathing” by Playboi Carti. Is he an inspiration to you generally?**

Man, Playboi Carti is such a big inspiration. And you know, that’s after Whole Lotta Red dropped, and...You’ve seen Instagram after Whole Lotta Red.

**They weren’t giving it a chance, honestly.**

Exactly, like, they weren’t giving it a chance at first, but now it’s so widely liked. People base their clothes, the way they talk, their Instagram’s look, off that album. And it’s so cool. I want to get up there like Carti one day.

**You want to set the tone for other people.**

Yeah.

**Obviously to do that, he had to develop a really unique presence. What do you think sets you yourself apart from other people on SoundCloud, in that kind of way?**

Honestly, I think it’s the fact that I really can be in a room by myself, with just FL Studio, and I can just make an album. You know, it’s not a lot of rappers that make all their own beats, mix all their own music, and rap. Know what I’m saying? Because I really just hop on FL and make whatever I want.

There are other rappers that do make beats in my style. Like...who are some, for example? Like Yen.

**Duwap?**

Duwap Kaine’s a good example. Yen’s my bro. Kuru makes beats, I don’t know how often he hops on his own beats, but you know. I feel like the fact that I’m younger than a lot of people that are going up is important, too. I’m 15, and Duwap’s one of my biggest inspirations too, for that reason. Because when I found Duwap, he was 14, and I’ve just been listening to him all my life. 

I just want to be an inspiration to the younger people. If you’re younger, I want you to see me and be like “damn, that young boy making music! I wanna do that too,” or “I want to go up like him,” you know?

**Who else on modern SoundCloud besides those you mentioned inspires you, as far as sound?**

Modern SoundCloud...let’s see. Everybody in cr3st. Chain Gang, that’s like Yen...And 777World, that’s like Kaya and Vagex and them. And then, last but not least, Andrettimakk. Andrettimakk is a big inspiration.

**His mixtape that came out a few months ago, I’ve been playing the shit out of that.**

He’s just so different, for real.

**You’ve had two EPs drop this year. What do you have coming up the rest of the year?**

I think I’m gonna drop one or two more singles, and then it’s gonna be a tape on my birthday, May 21st. I turn 16.


small_rodney 1.png

thumbnail_rodney 1.png

rodney 1.png

The Browser #5: A Q&A with Rodneyy

![raeg1.png](https://finals.blog/api/uploads/raeg1_2cd64553a9.png)

At age 17, Raegun can already do whatever she wants. You wouldn’t know it by listening to her current output, but before she wrote confessional pop songs on SoundCloud as a member of [noheart](https://soundcloud.com/ripnoheart), she was a rapper inspired by abstract stylists like MIKE and Earl Sweatshirt. If you listen to the rap EP she released last October (which she’s asked me not to link here, so people can discover it themselves), you’ll be transfixed by her command of the genre; as she laterally navigates her insecurities and Black identity over roughed-up soul samples, you hear echoes of her younger years as an aspiring poet. Last December, she released [a song](https://soundcloud.com/raegun240/in-the-aeroplane-over-the-sea) on SoundCloud tagged “#hyperfolk” that mashes up Neutral Milk Hotel with osquinn’s “bad idea.” She’s even started exploring [self-produced garage music.](https://twitter.com/raegun010/status/1382126092325113856) What unites all of these phases of Raegun’s career is a keen sense of discovery, like she’s bringing new life into everything she attempts with fresh, curious eyes and an insatiable need to get what’s in her head out into the world.

<iframe width="100%" height="300" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/952054804&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true"></iframe><div style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/raegun240" title="raegun" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">raegun</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/raegun240/in-the-aeroplane-over-the-sea" title="in the aeroplane over the sea" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">in the aeroplane over the sea</a></div>

Her debut EP under her current moniker, *cherry blossom blooms*, is out tomorrow -- it’s a breezy, four-track project produced entirely by [coleslau](https://soundcloud.com/coleslau) to capture the inflection points in Rae’s mental health and love life as the seasons change from winter to spring. She sketches out a place in digicore’s indie pop wave with the same therapeutic detail that marks her earlier work. Lead single “talk to me” sees her grapple with communication problems between her and a girlfriend, while songs like “window washing” read more like diary entries, sourced from the poems she might write to herself.

<iframe width="100%" height="300" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/1010799859&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true"></iframe><div style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/raegun240" title="raegun" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">raegun</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/raegun240/talk-to-me" title="talk to me" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">talk to me</a></div>

When I interviewed Raegun a few weeks ago, she seemed to have more fully-formed ideas about what to do with her art than she could mention. SoundCloud has given kids like Rae an environment where, in short amounts of time, they’ve spun simple music out into a wide range of creative pursuits at a young age, and our interview makes me think she is next in line on that journey. We had a bubbly, forthright conversation about all the different places she might direct those artistic impulses, and how exploring her identity and upbringing in Bowie, MD figures into her music; our conversation is transcribed below.

---

**Tell me about where you’re from.**

I’m from Maryland. It’s called Bowie, in PG County. It’s considered one of the safest Black areas in the United States, and I think that definitely shapes who I am. I’m very strong about identity, as a trans Black woman, and I think that’s kind of what I’ve been trying to make music about — being somebody who’s not really accepted in my day-to-day life, and being able to escape on the computer with friends. In everything for the past year, that’s kind of how I’ve built myself.

**I noticed a while back on socials, you were showing off your MIKE *May God Bless Your Hustle* vinyl.**

(laughing) Yeah!

**I love that album. What about that style of music do you think appeals to you?**

Definitely the pro-Blackness. When I was young...this is gonna sound crazy, but I used to read Black Marxist theory when I was in like...elementary and middle school (laughing). When I was super young, I lived in Kansas, and I was surrounded by a bunch of white people, and it was awkward. So when I moved here and was surrounded by other Black people I dived deep into that. 

That’s kind of where I started in music. I’m like, a huge Earl Sweatshirt fan. I have an Earl tattoo. So that’s kind of how I started in the abstract rap scene, mostly because they were all about explaining complex ideas in the simplest way possible. And I think that’s how I try to incorporate that into what I do now.

**Before that one EP that you dropped that you sent me, how far back does the abstract rap phase of your career go?**

Oh, God...very, very far back. I have older siblings and they -- specifically my older brother, he’s a rapper, and he’s been doing that for a long time. He’s been doing abstract rap even before I knew MIKE and them. Very, very far back, at least 2015...it’s been a while.

**I don’t know that much about your career, but it seems like you had a bunch of musician friends online before you got big in music.**

Yeah, for sure. Gum -- Dirty Bird, the house producer -- I’ve known him for a while. He’s been huge even before I was anything. Also, a bunch of other abstract rap artists that like nobody knows, I was friends with (laughing). 

It’s kinda weird being in this scene now, because I just started making pop music in like, September, and it was very hard to try to get people to take me seriously. A lot of people are so strict on: “we have our circle, and we’re not gonna let anybody else in. This is how it’s gonna be,” and it’s only been in the past two months that things have just blew up. It started from a Masked Gorilla show with Glaive. They played my song, and Glaive was like “whoa, this is crazy! I’m gonna message them,” and then he follows me and messages me. And the next day, Ericdoa follows me and asks me to make a song with them, and the next day, noheart asks me to join! So it’s like these things were really topping onto each other in the span of a week.

And now, I guess I’m at a weird point in my career where I feel like I’ve proven myself to the community, but not to anybody outside it. I don’t know how to go about it, but it’ll be interesting. 

**What song was that, the one at the Masked Gorilla show?**

It was [“al capone.”](https://soundcloud.com/raegun240/al-capone-tsuyunoshi) I don’t know...I don’t know how I feel about that song. (laughing)

![raeg 2.png](https://finals.blog/api/uploads/raeg_2_be18819bc4.png)

**The song you did, “newgen,” is about that experience of not being considered part of the community. Is that what people were calling you -- a “newgen?”**

Yeah, exactly! Like, there’s so many times where people were like, “you’re probably not gonna be able to talk to them, because they don’t like newgens,” and stuff like that. It’s just bullshit. At the end of the day, if you make good music, you make good music.

**In your transition from making abstract rap stuff to the pop music you make now, do you think there’s anything you’ve carried over, as far as your craft or the way you think about music?**

Honestly...not really, which is so weird. It’s such a huge change-up. I just remember one day, I think the specific song I heard was “BadGirlsClub” by ericdoa, and then I was like “damn, I wanna try that,” and then I did it one time.  

Because like...okay, let me go back. When I was an abstract rapper, my producer -- he’s a kid who lives in my neighborhood, his name’s [Ria](https://soundcloud.com/ria_chuelo), he’s in worldonlockdown, sugarrush, a bunch of hyperpop collectives -- he was just an abstract rap producer. I sent him “BadGirlsClub” one day, and he was like “whoa, this is crazy,” and we just decided to do that on our own. We were just working together for a month, and we knew nothing about any of these hyperpop people, so we were kinda just developing our own sound. It was, like, refreshing. It felt like...that was probably the best month I’ve ever had making music, being able to completely switch with no direct inspirations but yourself.

**The other day, I saw you wrote this [really nice poem](https://twitter.com/raegun010/status/1377625945918611460) on Twitter -- about your girlfriend, about transness, identity...Are you the sort of person who just wants to explore as many different avenues of art as possible?**

Yes! For sure! Before anything, I wanted to grow up and be a poet. I still do want to go to school for journalism, and stuff. I’m huge into writing. That’s why when I read your juno thing, I was like “wow, this is really good!” I was surprised, because I want to do writing.

Poetry is definitely something I’ve always been into. That also connects to abstract rap, because it really tested me. Instead of vocal mixing and all that, it’s mostly just poetry onto paper, and I still preserve that with just writing. For whoever wants to see it.

**Do you think that early love of poetry informs the way you rapped, and later the way you write pop songs?**

For sure, like...It’s so much easier. I have friends who produce, and they always say they want to sing, and they always want to do this, and they can’t because they just can’t get their thoughts onto paper. Poetry definitely helped me be able to easily identify my feelings and put them into words. I can make a song about anything that I truly feel in like ten minutes, because I’m so used to understanding how I feel and being able to say it.

**Do you pre-write all your songs, or is it just a straight shot?**

It depends, honestly. “Newgen,” that was, like…

**Just angry? Like, “ugh!”**

Literally! dltzk just sent me the beat and I was like, “fuck it! I’m kinda mad,” and just went through. But songs like “talk to me,” the one I just released, that one was pre-written for sure.

**That was with coleslau, right? How’d you link with him?**

I don’t know if you know anything about the collective FourSeasons. It was an old collective, with so many talented names. cole was in it, hallow, endie, st. jimmy was in it. But nobody ever took us seriously because our leader, people thought she was a “reply guy.” So we weren’t really taken seriously.

That’s how I met cole. I remember one day, me and him were in a VC, and we were talking about our music inspirations, and they aligned so well even though we were doing completely different genres that we were like “we should just work!”

For the past month, we’ve just become best friends and worked, like, every single day. We’re always calling, always texting, always bouncing off ideas.

**I also saw you have a song with meltycanon on the way. How did that happen?**

Oh my God, I don’t know. That was like, a dream come true. I’ve been listening to meltycanon for so long. I just woke up one day and meltycanon followed me and DM’d me, and I’m like “what the fuck?” It just did not seem real. But I’m definitely taking my time with that, because I don’t know how many Meltycanon collabs I can get, so I’m making sure I get my best with that one.

**You have this new EP coming out in two weeks. What’s new for you on there?**

*Cherry Blossom Blooms*, it’s a concept, but not very straightforward. I deal with depression and depression is terrible during the winter, so the EP is about the transition period between the winter and the spring when you’re gradually feeling better, but you’re faced with all these tasks: the school year is ending, you don’t know what you’re gonna do for summer, falling in love -- just everything that happens from winter to spring.

It’s just a terrifying time for me every year, so I just wanted to see how much I can put that into sound. That’s why I got Cole to produce, because Cole’s very good at making very happy...very spring-y kinds of sounds. So I’m trying to put that sound all together and see how it works.

I’m not even gonna lie to you. That project isn’t even finished, and that’s kinda how I work best. I always, every time I drop something, I finish it right before I drop it. Not even the day before, the day of. That tends to work with me, because I can procrastinate, and if I make myself sit down for three hours straight and work on something, it’s gonna be the best damn thing I’ve worked on.

**So, you’re a poet, you’re an abstract rapper, you’re a singer, and you’re only 17. What other kinds of artistic avenues are you trying to explore, since you’ve got a lot of time?**

I want to do, like, movie sound shit. I’m also a violinist. I wanna see if I can do stuff for movies. I used to listen to, like, Hans Zimmer shit all the time. I also want to learn how to paint; my brother’s an amazing painter, and I envy him so much, because he’s so good at that. But I feel like if I put my mind to it, I could definitely do it. 

I’m open to anything, really. What I always joke about to people is that I’m not good at anything except art, so I’m just gonna keep doing it. I might as well do whatever I can!

**Has your brother had a lot of influence on you?**

For sure, for sure. He lives in California. We’ve never lived in the same house before, but as I grew older and started talking to him more, I realized that we were, like, the exact same person, and that’s really helped me come to terms with who I am today. We were both artists in our own way. If I had an experience, I’m almost positive he’d have the exact same experience, so it’s kind of cool to have that intel on how to deal with things.

**Do you have any other siblings?**

Yeah, I have so many. I currently live with one of my sisters -- she’s actually from the UK -- and I live with another brother, so I have a ton.

**Do you feel like pop, as an ecosystem, has specific aspects that connect with transness for you?**

Oh, for sure! Oh, my gosh. The trans pop community has helped me so much with my identity. I’m not even just talking about people like SOPHIE, or like Arca, I’m talking about people like osquinn. There’s so much emotion into it. It’s just so empowering.

**After this EP, where do you think you’re specifically trying to take your pop sound?**

Honestly, past the hyperpop/digicore label. I realized that no matter how many songs I can drop under that label, at this moment, it could only be listed as that. The only person who’s pushed it further than that is, like, dltzk, and I feel like I have a way better opportunity at becoming the superstar I want to be if I take a more pop route. Which is what I’ve kinda always wanted to do, looking at people like Clairo or Kevin Abstract who’ve done bedroom pop. But not even just that -- merging that with my own sound, I think that’s kinda what I want to do. 

I want to be able to conceptualize things way better than the people around me. Instead of just dropping single upon single, I want to be able to bring entire stories into it, and bring a bunch of other media aspects into it.

---

*Photos by Raegun's younger sister*




The Browser #4: An Interview with Raegun

ogge

on a real note, rosesleeves is a great artist and a great person lots of love for him fr, great album too 

christian

dylan

i am roselesvas number one fan iwant autogroah from rosjhedebndksv



Jonah

BagGetter69420

Im Real Rosesleeves NumberoneFan ROSESLEEVES SAVED MY LIFE AND MARRIAGE!!!!!

YThom127

Rosesleevesnumberonefan

therealnumberonefan aka oggeking

been a fan since i was 9 years old roseslsvebes i love u <3333333 im a day one i swear shiieessh now watch me whip whip 

![rose1.jpg](https://finals.blog/api/uploads/rose1_74555428e7.jpg)

<iframe src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/album/34PTBwZWE6ys9XJeUsvCD1" width="300" height="380" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allow="encrypted-media"></iframe>

On *9920DEADLINE*, Rosesleeves blends the many styles he's been working with over the past few years into one, cohesive album that's easy on the ears without lacking in ideas or force. So far in his career, the 17-year-old UK producer and songwriter has explored fractured art pop inspired by acts like FKA twigs, infusions of dance genres like 2-step garage, and bedroom-spun indie balladry — all in ways that are unique on his side of SoundCloud. The album sets his intimately-recorded voice in crystalline synth work that manages to encompass all of these without feeling like it's taking any detours. It's cavernous, but oddly relaxing, capturing his description of his music as “therapy” for himself as he grapples with inner turmoil and the world around him.
 
Music that feels so practiced coming from someone so young — self-taught and self-produced — is impressive, and it'll be exciting to see him develop his music in the years to come. Rosesleeves even took the promotional photos in this article himself out of a desire for full creative control.
 
In this article for The Browser, I sat down with Rosesleeves following the release of *9920DEADLINE* for his first-ever interview. We fought through my unfortunate Internet connection for a quick Zoom Q&A about his introduction to EDM as a tween, some of the collectives he’s a member of, and the life experiences and inspirations that led to the album’s creation.
 
---
 
**I wanna ask you about the Timothee Chalamet movie “Beautiful Boy.” You sample a scene from that film in almost all your songs. What about that movie, or that scene, captures your attention?**
 
I’m not sure. I watched that movie maybe a year ago, and ever since I saw it I thought it was just a really, really good movie. I think if anyone hasn’t watched it, I’d recommend it -- I think it’s quite good to watch. Been using it ever since.
 
**You just put out an album called *9920DEADLINE*. What does that title mean?**
 
That’s a date. It’s the 9th of September 2020, which is the date I came out to my parents.
 
**Was that a concept you were trying to get across within the album, as well?**
 
Somewhat, yeah. I guess the whole project was internal processing and where I was before and after, trying to sort myself out, I guess.
 
**Tell me more about that.**
 
I guess it was just difficult; keeping something in for so long, obviously it needs to come out in some form. That’s always been music for me. The “DEADLINE” part was just the idea of: “alright, this is the date, I need to get it done and start living the way I want to.” And that was through music as well: “I need to start getting myself together, not just copying other people, and start making what I want the world to see me as.”
 
**You’re working with a lot of sounds on this album that almost nobody on your side of SoundCloud is even touching besides you. I hear some garage stuff, some trance stuff. Are there any specific artists that you can credit with inspiring the way you implement some of those dance music styles?**
 
I can’t think of artists in particular — I think that’s because of what a long journey it’s been, and all the different genres I’ve been through getting to this point. I’m 17 now, and I started when I was 12, and for the first three, four years, I was going through literally every single side of EDM and learning to produce. Flume was obviously quite a big influence, because he’s just so experimental — I love his work.
 
**How did you first get into making music when you were that young?**
 
I’ve always wanted to, so even before that I was always trying to make stuff on my iPod Touch and on my phone. But at that age...I don’t know if anyone else was getting it recommended on their YouTube, but those Launchpad Light Show videos on YouTube, I thought they were so cool, and I wanted to try them out for myself.
 
So I saved up and I got one, and it came with a free trial of Ableton, and I realized: “wait, I can do so much more than just do light shows with this, I can make my own stuff,” which is what I’d always wanted to do. And for...I think my 12th birthday, my parents bought me the full version, because I’d been asking them. And that was the start!
 
**I want to ask about some of the groups and collectives you’re in. You’re one half of [Cat Paradise](https://soundcloud.com/catparadise) with [Yung Thom](https://soundcloud.com/choosenpath). How did the two of you originally link up?**
 
We met last year in January, and it was because I’d been listening to him constantly for months and months before. He had been a heavy influence for that part of time, so I wanted to make music with him. I just sent him a DM, and that’s where it all started.
 
**You’re also a member of [Sewerbratz](https://soundcloud.com/sewerbratz). How did that group come together?**
 
I founded that group. That was in November 2019. Basically, at that point I was doing some sort of exams at school, and I remember I wasn’t going to be able to keep up with music as much, so I needed some sort of support system, and some people to keep the music going even when I didn’t have the motivation, so that’s when I found most of those people.
 
**One of my favorite songs of yours is [“Help Me,”](https://soundcloud.com/rosesleeves/helpme) the one you did with osquinn. How did that collab come about?**
 
That was super random and super quick. The original demo of that song, I had made about five months before the actual song happened. That was during lockdown here, and I was really productive during that time; I’d been making a lot of stuff, and I still had a lot of drafts from that time which I never ended up finishing. With that one, by the odd chance, I decided to finish it up and send her a demo. She said she loved it, and within a week it had come back to me, I published it up, and we dropped it.
 
![rose2.jpg](https://finals.blog/api/uploads/rose2_34c56e3b61.jpg)
 
**Are there any other artists we haven’t mentioned so far that you can credit as influencing the way that you sound?**
 
I’d say FKA twigs. I love how experimental her stuff is; her latest album is insane. As of recently, Mitski has been huge -- just the emotional content in her songs is insane, and I love trying to do that in mine. Radiohead, for the past 2 years, has been quite a big influence, again in terms of being emotional. That’s who I can think of off the top of my head, but there’s definitely more.
 
**Are there any artists who you’d really like to work with in the near future?**
 
In the near future, I’ve actually decided to just try and work on my own skills and stay solo for now, just working with my close friends. Sewer, pretty much.
 
**If I had to give you a bucket list of people you’d really like to work with at some point, are there any artists there you’d like to mention?**
 
At some point...I’d say Diveliner is really cool, and I’d love to work with Diveliner. I would say Mitski -- just because she’s such a huge inspiration, and I think her music is so, so cool. I can’t even imagine what a song between us would sound like, but I would love to hear it. A song between me and dltzk would be very cool, as well. Again, I’m not sure how it would sound, but I think it would be cool.


The Browser #3: A Q&A with Rosesleeves

![juno1.png](https://finals.blog/api/uploads/juno1_468d782f8e.png)

The Browser is back for another week -- no flowery intros necessary. This time around, I interviewed 16-year-old juno about repurposing their 2000s pop inspirations with their “partner in crime” hallow, did a deep dive on the undersung discography of Ame, and wrote about a surprise collaboration between one of SoundCloud’s underground producers and one of its biggest legends.

--- 

## An interview with juno

hallow shreds the riffs on juno’s “insomnia” so well that by the end, you want them to smash their laptop on a stage in victory. The coolest thing about the song is that I can’t quite tell whether an actual guitar was used on it -- it seamlessly bridges the gap between snotty pop punk and the computerized pop of digicore. juno, a 16-year-old Bay Area native, is one of a few artists cultivating their own strains of straight-up rock music within SoundCloud’s pop ecosystem right now. Alongside AViT, who matches their energy with a feature and often draws on a similar aesthetic, juno channels the effortless hooks of snide frontmen from the 2000s: “And I think it’s my insomnia / I could write a book on everything that’s wrong with ya.”

<iframe width="100%" height="300" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/956344849&color=%23fcfd56&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true"></iframe><div style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/chiefjuno" title="juno" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">juno</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/chiefjuno/insomnia" title="insomnia w/ AViT (hallow)" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">insomnia w/ AViT (hallow)</a></div>

juno says that “insomnia” was one of the first songs within their online community to go all-in on this digital pop punk sound. “I haven’t heard almost anything, at least in this scene, that sounds too much like that,” they tell me. “Except for [‘a punk song about sobriety and paranoia’](https://soundcloud.com/p4rkr/what-static-electricity-sounds-like-volume-warning-lul) by Quinn. That’s the only other thing I could point to that sounds anything remotely like that.”

It’s not emo rap, and it’s not exactly the watery guitar loops and pop punk-inspired melodies that have infiltrated the charts via artists like Trippie Redd, either. Instead, whether it’s [kurtains doing jangle pop](https://soundcloud.com/kurtains/pessimist) or [senses doing emo](https://soundcloud.com/7senss/system-fail-ft-blackwinterwellsprod-sparr00w), artists like juno are combining digicore’s airy cloud rap textures and top-end aesthetics with compressed drums and guitars (or synths that sound like guitars) to come at these well-worn tropes from new angles.

juno is perhaps the artist best equipped to bring out the pop appeal in these experiments, and a lot of that owes to the music that influenced them. When I ask them about their inspirations, they list off a handful of tentpole alternative rock, pop punk and scene acts, most from the 2000s, as “gateway bands” to the music they make now, among them Panic at the Disco, My Chemical Romance, Rise Against, Sonic Youth, Paramore, Bring me the Horizon and Blood on the Dance Floor. As far as records, they cite Fall Out Boy’s first album *From Under the Cork Tree* as “so, so fuckin’ inspirational.” 

![transparented.png](https://finals.blog/api/uploads/transparented_919983e541.png)

Although juno’s always been singing, they weren’t raised on these bands. Instead, their parents brought them up on R&B and soul, so they had to seek out those fierce guitars online. “The first genre that I discovered on my own and got into was 2000s punk music, and pop punk music,” they remember. “And just pop music on its own. Obviously that’s what I was around, too; growing up on the Internet in like the 2000s, ‘10s, you’re gonna be around a lot of the pop music that’s blowing up.” That sense of discovery pervades juno’s songs -- each of their aloof anthems chronicling relationship struggles feels like a fresh take.

None of it would be possible without 17-year-old hallow, the producer of most of juno’s songs, whom they describe as their “partner in crime.” The pair first met through Twitter. “No one really knew who I was yet [...] I tweeted out: ‘who has pop beats, who has something that sounds different,’ or something like that, and someone tagged hallow under it.” At the time, the biggest placement to hallow’s name was twikipedia and SeBii’s [“talk down,”](https://soundcloud.com/twikipedia/talkdown) but that sweeping beat was enough to convince juno; a week later, the hallow-produced snippet for “karma” went viral.

It’s been a big transition for juno, who originally got into SoundCloud as a fan of artists like Ericdoa, and, through Twitter and Discord, now counts many of those artists among their friends. From here, they plan to make more songs with hallow, work with everyone in their collective PlanetZero, and float potential collaborations with artists like midwxst, noki, and angelus. Otherwise, they just want to keep delving deeper into their niche, fusing “the pop-punk sound” with “inspirations from this scene, like the hard bass.” 

“If I can make something that’s unique to me, and that people like, and they can hear it and think ‘wow, that’s their own shit! That’s juno’s shit!’...That’s all I really want,” they tell me. “When I made "insomnia", and I realized that’s something I don’t think people have done before, I just realized that I could go so deep into it -- there’s no, like, bounds for that. So I just want to go a lot more acoustic and a lot deeper into that area.” 

<iframe width="100%" height="300" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/994675546&color=%23535b6a&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true"></iframe><div style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/chiefjuno" title="juno" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">juno</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/chiefjuno/nowhere-to-go" title="nowhere to go w/ dltzk" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">nowhere to go w/ dltzk</a></div>

Their latest song, “nowhere to go” with dltzk, makes good on this plan. Just like on [“conflict,”](https://soundcloud.com/chiefjuno/conflict) the guitars here exist in a breathy limbo between outright pop rock and the synthetic dance/rap productions dltzk is known for. Both artists get let down by the ones they love and are left to pick up the pieces. “I don’t remember a damn thing from last week / I’m sorry I could never be the one you thought I was,” juno begins, emulating their defiant musical heroes. In the song’s most memorable line, dltzk insists, “you’re not even being mean, you’re just dishonest!” — and just like that, those 2000s pop inspirations get reimagined in a new context for a new generation just as angsty as the last one.


## The supercharged world of Ame

When you’re foraging through SoundCloud’s endless content stream, the most rewarding moments are the discoveries of under-the-radar artists who stand out just enough from the norm that each song feels full of potential, suggesting all the new directions they might take their emerging sound. That’s how I feel about Ame, who was recommended to me by friend of the blog [@1soretsu](https://twitter.com/1soretsu) in February. His approaches to melody and flow seem familiar enough at first glance, with brightly sung punch-ins that are easy to grasp if you’re tapped into what SoundCloud tends to sound like right now. But his beat choices — vivid, various, and charged up with energy — galvanize his voice and turn nearly every song into something unique.

<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/972065521&color=%23535b6a&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true"></iframe><div style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/amesworldd" title="Ame" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Ame</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/amesworldd/haha-soroyal-x-dean-x-roy-1" title="HaHa (Royal X Dean0 X Roy)" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">HaHa (Royal X Dean0 X Roy)</a></div>

“HaHa” sounds like an engineer from some sci-fi future came back in time to retrofit a plugg beat with new technology. Royal, DeanO and Ray’s piano stabs are clouded in electricity; the percussion makes you imagine a complicated sequence of buttons being pressed, and the handclaps crackle like live wires. Ame’s vocal acrobatics propel the rumbling machine forward as he harmonizes with himself and reaches for higher and higher notes. 

<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/984937546&color=%23535b6a&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true"></iframe><div style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/amesworldd" title="Ame" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Ame</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/amesworldd/bruce-wayne4" title="Heaven Sent (Royal x Omniroza)" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Heaven Sent (Royal x Omniroza)</a></div>

Some of Ame’s reverb-drenched beats capture the epic sense of scale found in soundtrack music. On “Heaven Sent,” he locks in with a massive vocal sample, and brags about how easily he’s commanding it (“they say change up your flow, I got various / Different ones!”) “As u r” spotlights one of his most stirring performances, as he belts out a passionate, AutoTuned serenade over a beat that belongs in a video game’s water level.

<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/1006377280&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true"></iframe><div style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/amesworldd" title="Ame" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Ame</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/amesworldd/boom-elijahdior-4" title="Boom (elijahdior)" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Boom (elijahdior)</a></div>

Ame works with ideas that aren’t quite as left-field, too. “Boom” is a pretty standard plugg beat on paper, but producer Elijahdior’s sound design makes every synth pop out of the mix, brighter and more in-your-face than you’d expect. Ame barrels through the instrumental with what I almost think might be a fun bit of Dora the Explorer word-association(?): “He going crazy, bananas, baboon / *vamanos*!” There are lots of soulful piano beats these days, but few can bottle up Sunday-morning joy as well as Zoro’s on [“Capeech,”](https://soundcloud.com/amesworldd/capeech-zoro) which Ame matches with motivated glory, proclaiming “bitch, I feel like it’s just been my month.”

<iframe width="100%" height="300" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/949700257&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true"></iframe><div style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/amesworldd" title="Ame" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Ame</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/amesworldd/cha-cha-elijahdior-1" title="Cha Cha (prod. @elijahdior)" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Cha Cha (prod. @elijahdior)</a></div>

My favorite Ame song is “Cha Cha,” released on New Year’s Day — it’s probably the most distinctive of the 12 tracks that he’s dropped so far, and the one where his vocals and beats most clearly jell into a new, cohesive idea. The song is structured around what sounds like a sampled chamber orchestra. Mournful strings crescendo into huge swells before leaving room for a piano on the verses. It feels like it was recorded in a dimly-lit concert hall, with the rattle of Elijahdior’s drill-adjacent beat to keep you grounded at a distance. When faced with such an opulent beat, most rappers would find some repetitive vocal idea and stick to it, afraid to mess things up — but Ame lets his melodies wander. More than just a crooning voice, he’s almost like an instrument of his own, conducting the ones behind him in a freewheeling solo.

## An underground talent meets an overground legend

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cM_KlwO_uS4" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

If you’ve spent sleepless nights as a SoundCloud obsessive in the past half-decade or so, Duwap Kaine might make your GOAT list. The 19-year-old Georgia rapper can claim the influence of someone twice his age -- a generation of artists on the platform have borrowed the ways they rap, sing, write, and present themselves from him. 

[KRONE](https://soundcloud.com/kkkrone), meanwhile, is less widely-recognized than Kaine, but no less worthy of recognition. He’s perhaps most notable as a member of underground collective [Flexxcult](https://soundcloud.com/flexxcult2k12), and while his most distinctive feature is his [growled rap vocals](https://soundcloud.com/kkkrone/maman-brigitte-prxd-nxsta-n-krone), he can also conjure up dark, hellish beats as well as anyone. Duwap Kaine fits like a glove when he’s chilling out over cartoonish instrumentals that he’s produced himself, but KRONE’s “Hobos” tests his abilities with a one-minute gauntlet of frenetic drill drum programming. The clash of styles is what makes this work; Kaine’s taunts are as casual as ever, but KRONE’s production could accompany a last-ditch race out of a crumbling haunted mansion. Seeing such a deep-underground artist collaborate with one of the platform’s most legendary figures reminds me what a small world SoundCloud really is -- a web with undiscovered connections wherever you look.

*Pictures courtesy of @lilwzr on Instagram*

Featured Post

Sidewalk Talk With WhotheHellisCarlo

Posts

The Browser #5: A Q&A with Rodneyy

The Browser #4: An Interview with Raegun

The Browser #3: A Q&A with Rosesleeves

The Browser #2: juno Is Repurposing Pop Punk on SoundCloud

The Browser #1: A Conversation with midwxst