In a year that Drake, Kendrick Lamar and Ye each released an album, a white boy with a lisp out of Los Angeles took the title of “Al- bum of The Year” for many.
Last month, American rapper and former YouTube star Ben Lasky, better known by his stage name “Quadeca,” released his third album, “I Didn’t Mean To Haunt You” in his thus far versatile discography. IDMHY features strange yet telling artists, namely Ye’s Sunday Service Choir, and Detroit-born rapper Danny Brown, who was named as “one of rap’s most unique figures in recent memory” by MTV in 2012.
Since his debut album, “Voice Memos,” in 2019, Quadeca has outgrown the “YouTube rapper” label that stuck to his name throughout his career. Quadeca fell into the group of YouTubers who overexaggerated drama amongst each other as a way to break into the rap industry by releasing “diss tracks.” Quadeca’s “Insecure,” a diss track on famous English content creator KSI, went viral and accumulated over 37 million streams, and is commonly believed to be the best diss track of that specific era.
Ever since, Quadeca has deviated from his style of “reckless rap” — which often saw him collaborating with artists with aggressive rap styles such as EGOVERT, Moxas, and Sad Frosty, among others — and implemented unique sounds into his music. This is best represented in his newest album, which features brilliant experimental sounds of void, depres- sion and reminiscence with hints of gospel.
“I Didn’t Mean To Haunt You” begins with quite a haunting first track titled “sorry4dying.” It introduces the theme of Quadeca as a ghost who has died and cannot communicate with his mother.
Lead single “born yesterday,” track five, and second single “tell me a joke,” track two, carry the theme of reminiscence, with cries for help over an unsettling and moving ambient.
Track eight, “knots”, the most unique sounding of all, is carried by an instrumental seemingly inspired from Sacramento Hip Hop group “Death Grips,” which is about as experimental as you can get with music. Quadeca executes it perfectly, too, and once again shows off his great versatility.
This “knots” track took many fans by surprise and became an instant favorite (on my own rankings, I placed it third).
I enjoy the fact that the best tracks are spread throughout the album, a small yet crucial detail that makes the album thoroughly enjoyable. When you listen meaningfully, you find yourself sharing a lot of the emotions that Quadeca feels.
The hour-long movie doesn’t give enough quiet time for listeners to properly adjust between tracks, which is actually good because it leaves you disoriented and with many thoughts, which seems like Quadec’a goal from these songs after all.
The entire album is also elevated by the theory that it serves as a sequel to preceding 2020 album “From Me To You,” which if I were to write on, would warrant another several hundred words from its uniqueness and depth.
Quadeca’s explosiveness in low-tune beats with intrinsically clever lyrics, all mixed and produced himself, are some of the traits that makes him a special and generational talent.
He’s clearly gifted; as early as high school talent shows stages, thousands of people believed in his natural ability to rap. He’s clearly lived up to expectations and gone above and beyond by showing his talent beyond the microphone, too.
A writer who is more eloquent, a producer who’s more versed and an overall more mature musician, Quadeca proved himself as a legitimate rapper with his latest collection of music.
Join the Squadeca.
