Present & Pove: OsamaSonPhrases: Grant RindnerEditor’s Notice: This story seems within the Winter 2024 subject of XXL Journal, on newsstands now and obtainable on the market on the XXL web site.
OsamaSon, the 21-year-old rising star born Amari Middleton, makes frenetic, distorted hip-hop that’s about as cutting-edge as you get. He’s accrued tens of millions of streams, a rabid, youthful fan base and a serious label take care of Atlantic Information for his distinctive tackle rage music, the mosh pit-inducing subgenre lots of hip-hop’s youthful followers favor. However, his musical roots date again generations and a decade of his life to when his older relations harbored rapping desires of their very own in South Carolina’s signature Geechee scene. “All my uncles and cousins made music, so that they used to have studios of their home,” he says on a Zoom name final October. “I acquired influenced by that.”
Although born in Ohio, OsamaSon and his household moved to the modestly sized South Carolina metropolis of Goose Creek in 2015, and the aspiring hip-hop star proceeded to take the household’s artistry to new heights. OsamaSon estimates he first started recording in fifth grade, because of his uncles. “Simply doing little demos and child’s pattern voices,” OsamaSon says. “Making me write my very own songs and rap it.” He uploaded music to platforms like SoundCloud whereas nonetheless in highschool. OsamaSon admits that “no person favored it, not even my buddies.”
His entry into music really started as a producer beneath the title Rattling 4K when a member of the family confirmed him the manufacturing software program FL Studio, and later, in 2020, beneath the title PradaUMari. He says he used to make more money engineering for different vocalists and posits that he has extra years beneath his belt as a producer than a rapper. Whereas he’s working with numerous beatmakers now, OsamaSon explains that realizing the way to make technical tweaks to his music to match what’s in his head is one in all his most vital inventive belongings. “I simply love music as a complete,” the younger artist says. “I dedicate my life to music. The extra expertise I can get, the extra I can be taught, the extra I’m going to do.”
By the point he graduated from Goose Creek Excessive in 2021, the rap upstart was nearly to embark on a three-year musical stretch that might put his profession into warp drive. Shortly after incomes his diploma, he embraced the brand new creative id of OsamaSon and launched mixtapes Vengeance and Carnival. 2023’s breakthrough singles “X & Intercourse” and “CTS-V” led to coveted slots at Rolling Loud. His first album, Osama Season, and sophomore effort, Flex Musix, additionally launched in 2023, are snapshots of a younger artist pushing his limits, not content material to be one other Playboi Carti acolyte. (The rap web has tried to drum up a beef between OsamaSon and Carti signee Ken Carson because of perceived similarities for practically a 12 months.)
OsamaSon’s finest songs seize a way of managed chaos that often happens solely at a reside present. The drums vibrate and rumble, synthesizers squeal, and OsamaSon’s vocals are melodic and pressing. Will Cramer, Atlantic Information A&R marketing consultant, caught on to the sound from the rising rapper that very same 12 months and actually tuned in after he says Osama Season “exploded.” Final 12 months, Cramer helped facilitate OsamaSon signing to Movement Music, created by Rolling Loud cofounder Matt Zingler, who has a three way partnership with Atlantic.
Cramer was impressed by OsamaSon’s present, likening it to a “four-dimensional TikTok” and highlighting the best way the music improved when scaled up for venues. “The reside response was so good, too. I used to be like, Man, I like the best way this music sounds, and I like the best way that folks reply to it,” says Cramer, who manages Rok, the Toronto-born producer who has labored on lots of OsamaSon’s largest tracks together with “X & Intercourse” and “Flxr.” “And I like that folks will truly present up, and it’s not simply an web factor.” OsamaSon’s followers are tapped in. That’s partly as a result of, not like lots of his contemporaries on the planet of rage-adjacent rap, who visitors in cryptic quotes and opaque interviews, OsamaSon is refreshingly forthcoming. His previous music—each the Rattling 4K beats and PradaUMari cuts—hasn’t been scrubbed from the web, so whereas he’s battled some business plant allegations, it’s simple to trace his inventive progress for those who care to look.
His then-ignored early releases are coveted artifacts gathered on Instagram accounts with names like “OsamaSon Vault” and “OsamaSon Archive.” They’re incessantly reposted on YouTube and SoundCloud. Followers have taken their fascination with OsamaSon past simply music, sharing clips of him taking part in basketball at Goose Creek Excessive and doing on-camera sports activities reporting. “I’m joyful [my music is out there] as a result of I’ve at all times felt like after I was placing out my previous sh*t, I’d by no means assume it was a*s,” he says. “I’d simply be like, Yo, if extra folks heard this, they’d in all probability respect it.”
OsamaSon launched a number of quick tasks by way of SoundCloud earlier than making his industrial debut with Osama Season. He discovered a handful of collaborators who blur related stylistic traces, most notably fellow buzzing rhymers Glokk40Spaz and Nettspend and producers like Rok and Legion. They shaped their very own sort of unfastened collective that recollects the web rap scene of the 2010s.
Although OsamaSon insists he wasn’t intentionally making an attempt to maintain his music off DSPs, his dedication to the underground platform is proof that he’s a part of an exciting new wave of SoundCloud rappers, one that’s bringing related joyfully chaotic vitality that XXXTentacion, Denzel Curry and others did on their come up. “A whole lot of our mentors are from that period,” OsamaSon says. “They be telling us like, ‘Yo, y’all don’t perceive, and y’all in all probability don’t see this, however I used to be round for this primary wave of SoundCloud, and this sh*t’s bringing me the identical actual vitality.’ This sh*t shouldn’t be like we’re replicating it, however it’s the identical.”
After dropping the joint mission 3vil Reflection with Glokk40Spaz final Might, OsamaSon ready himself to get proper to work within the new 12 months. “I’m going to be able to drop my album in 2025,” he maintains. “So, it’s going to be insane.” He did simply that by releasing Bounce Out, a brand new solo LP in late January. Earlier than the hassle arrived, he delivered songs “Ik What You Did Final Summer time” and “Simply Rating It.” After already finishing tour dates within the U.Ok. and Thailand, OsamaSon has plans to make his solution to Canada to carry out the brand new mission.
Whereas there are nonetheless kinks being labored out in OsamaSon’s music, the occasional sloppy move or repetitive observe, it’s arduous to not consider in a rapper who is that this passionate, humble and forthcoming. Although his older relations in South Carolina in all probability might by no means have imagined the sort of hyperactive web rap that might flip him right into a star, there’s little question they’re proud.
Hearken to OsamaSon’s Bounce Out Album
The Winter 2024 subject of XXL journal that includes GloRilla and Sexyy Pink on the quilt is accessible for buy now and is on newsstands. The problem additionally contains conversations with Ab-Soul, Dej Loaf, Quando Rondo, Ferg, Nav, Kash Doll, Sauce Walka, OsamaSon, Anycia, Child Kia, BLP Kosher, Sugarhill Ddot, high-powered hip-hop legal professional Drew Findling, dancehall artist Skillibeng and producer Ace Charisma. There’s additionally a have a look at the brand new season of the Netflix actuality competitors present Rhythm + Stream by way of the eyes of its judges Latto, DJ Khaled and Ludacris, plus 18 hip-hop heavyweights focus on the state of lyricism.
