Driven by a giant bassline but hardly devoid of substance in its vocalist’s blistering rap, Chilleano’s “That Shit” is perhaps best described as being rapid-fire where it counts but executed with immense thought and self-control just the same. There are aesthetical contradictions in the track that immediately confront us in the intro – there’s a minimalist structure to what will obviously become the flow of the verses, and yet the bass part just awaiting to come alive with indulgence is already moaning out a moderate melody that the rest of the instrumentation will spend the duration of the song trying to replicate or defend against in some way, shape or form.
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The verses themselves speak to an alternative influence in Chilleano’s sound definitely not as evident in his performance in “Get Into It,” the first single he cut in 2020 and technically his official studio debut. No matter how you slice and dice this track, I would rank it among the required listening in indie hip-hop this September, and if you follow the genre as closely as I do, you’re already aware that this is no small statement for any critic to be making at the moment.
There isn’t a spot of static on the bass here – in fact, everything in the mix is pretty crisp and arranged as to give us the most muscularity as we can handle without drowning out the vocal part specifically. The overall sonic integrity of the music has been preserved brilliantly, as if it were Chilleano’s goal to make this single sound and feel more like an off the cuff underground performance more than it does a conventional studio recording. There’s feeling to his delivery that you don’t usually find in the poppier stuff produced by contemporary rappers in and outside of the mainstream, and it’s backed up with an attitude from my man that makes his lyrics feel tangible and real to us. I’ve been saying for years that the poetic artificialities in modern rap are precisely what holds back its greatest young voices from making an impact outside of their target audiences, but it’s hard for me to see this ever being much of a problem for Chilleano, as he’s making a point to reject said artificialities on every occasion he’s presented with them in this latest release.
TIK TOK: https://www.tiktok.com/music/That-Shit-6852801980809611266?lang=en
If the beats and genuine charisma behind “That Shit” are in fact just a sample of what Chilleano intends to make into the catalyst for the headline-making moments in his career still to come, I would bet on seeing and hearing a lot more from him in the next few years. Hip-hop is undisputedly having an amazing year in 2020 all things considered, and in a time when it seems like nothing is really certain anymore, the genre’s indie stalwarts and pulling through and giving us plenty of reasons to believe in the future of the music and musicians like Chilleano. I’m impressed with what he’s offering here, and I think other rap enthusiasts will be, too.
Jodi Marxbury