EP REVIEW: no$ia - worthless

2017 was the year when trap music was becoming a trend more than it is a sub-culture of hip-hop. Emo-rap became prominent again when international rappers like Lil Peep and Xxxtentacion have released projects at the very peak of their careers. Apps like Spotify and Soundcloud have laid the groundwork for the streaming culture we know today and have launched the careers of many. It’s present day 2018, there are a few other locals that I can recall that is following this kind of trend. No$ia is one of the desperate few to sing and rap in this kind of music. Before heading on to the artist’s ‘emo-rap’ style, No$ia started to rap about the memes from rapping about Bulalo-ala Pure Mind Quiet Heart style at “Bulalord$”, making fun of how other ethnic groups speak in “Bahog Bilat”, and ripping off one of Pampanga rapper $VTVNV$ (formerly known as GVNDVLICXXX$) track on “ako ay may lobo sa impyerno”. And how can we forget his most ‘meme’ worthy track “Sinigang”? Well anyone can remember how gimmicky that track was and how it managed to rack up the listen count. But anyways, No$ia’s fellow internet social media buddy kiyo has his own movement that also features quiet, ‘rainymusic.com’ type production that you can get for free on YouTube and song topics that revolve around being heartbroken. No$ia on the other hand does the opposite for him to possibly (or event attempt at being) stand out from his Soundcloud contemporaries. The 15-year old rapper uses noisy and reverb heavy production, sharp hi-hats, tons of autotune, and song topics that revolve around well being heartbroken again I guess. His first ever mixtape “worthless” is over nine tracks and it runs over 20 plus minutes. I sat down before I listened to this project and I was left thinking “where do I start?”, well, starting out in the young rapper’s early material wasn’t that much of a great start but seeing him shift to a emo-rap vibe was really off putting but I gave No$ia a benefit of a doubt to see if he has potential in this style. But man, I was wrong.

“worthless” starts up with the first track which is the title track featuring shiloh. You get this very deep bass and reverb heavy vocals by No$ia. The second track “letting all my feelings in my songs” featuring bedroom musician and rapper Kiyo, this track was a Lil Peep inspired and I can just hear the pegs of it even in a mile away. It kind of has this guilty pleasure to it where the beat matches the hook and you get that “White Wine” vibe to it. And the next 7 tracks revolve around the same theme over and over and each track lasts like roughly around 2 to 3 minutes which is too much if you manage to rap the same lyrics and section in each track. So it’s sort of useless to me to even write about each track that are remotely similar to each other. If you rap about one topic and one topic only without any minor changes or switch ups to your flow, writtens, and beat, you’re only heading to a brick wall of cliches other than jump those expectations that people get when listening to your project. Let’s jump straight to the final verdict and say that “worthless” was repetitive, it had inauthentic ‘sadness’ to it, and it’s way better to watch paint dry than listen to this entire project. The lyrics and the music here lack substance and is void of any musical progression nor direction even if the context was made to literally ball your eyes and cry but you just can’t because it’s made to annoy you rather than make you uncomfortable. I may come off as being too cynical in this review because I know what it feels like to lose anyone in my life as far as song context is concerned. But for me, sadness isn’t there to be fetishized or glamorized but rather it is there that solely exists as an expression that should be addressed to all audiences that can relate to you without feeling like it’s a cheap attempt. Sadly, these songs didn’t resonate to me and/or struck with me in a personal level. These are 9 tracks of ‘worthless’ is literally not worth your time except if you don’t mind the same song structure. No$ia’s “worthless” is a project that literally values almost little to no ‘worth’. What No$ia should keep up is to chase the latest meme trend and make a terrible mix out of it. And yeah, it’s way better than make sadness as an accessory right? Support the art & the artist: https://soundcloud.com/aison-palma/sets/worthless