Steve 'Flash' JuonAs someone who cares about the written word there are three things that make me uncomfortable.
- TYPING ANY RAPPER’S NAME IN ALL CAPS OTHER THAN MF DOOM
- typing everything a rapper does in lowercase because that’s their way of standing out
- Anybody Who Posts On Social Media Capitalizing Every Word For No Damn Reason
I’m having to overcome my dislike for the second with redveil’s “learn 2 swim” but the good news is that he’s worth it. In fact I’m going to go ahead and say this right now — he’s way too nice to have only been 18 years old when this album dropped. This entire album was self-produced, self-written and independently released. I’m having a hard time figuring out how he got to be this good this fast. Now let’s be real, he grew up in the DMV, and there are no shortage of good emcees and producers in the area he could draw inspiration from. What’s marvelous is that he still sounds entirely like his own man and not like a clone of them. He’s a “one of one” original.
“On my soul, there ain’t no headlock constricting all these wins
They gon’ have to put a nigga in the pen
Every breath inspire life until my body in the wind, like
step up to the plate, I wan’ know how it feel to win” – redveil, “working on it”
The lack of posturing, singing, bragging and boasting instantly sets him apart from the pack — as does the fact he’s rapping. I’m so used to hearing new rappers be pitch-corrected that I expected it from redveil before I pressed play. Not once did I hear it. He’s emotional, but he’s not an emo rapper. Instead his emotions are the ups and downs of someone looking at the world and trying to figure out his place in it. “morphine (da ways)” is the exact opposite of the song title. It doesn’t numb redveil’s pain, it makes you feel it and relate to what he has to say.
“Got my own back, learned to never trip on no dismay
Cause my dome raps ain’t different than display
Picking up the pace got me living on display
This pending need for capital turned living to a race
I erase all these shackles in my daydreams and escape”
And when you do hear singing, it’s a guest star inspiring it, like Sam Truth on “better.” I’m not intimately familiar with Mr. Truth but his last name is apt, because I feel like he’s speaking it with his voice. When redveil follows his lead he keeps the vocals true to his natural gifts and doesn’t disguise himself. In fact everything about redveil is startlingly naked. It’s like he can’t help but expose who he is and all of his traits to the world. The positives and the flaws are all dealt out in equal measure.
“No pain to remain in my truth
Never been vain or cut the same as these lames and I knew
that when them veins extend that growing pain a part of the language
We all speak to each other in a perfect arrangement”
At this point I genuinely want to ask how redveil has been hiding from me in plain sight. Does being this independent mean he didn’t have a PR team? Were his fans not speaking up enough or was I just not hearing them when they spoke? I don’t get it. It’s clearly a failure on my part to have not been talking about “learn 2 swim” sooner. “sky” makes me all the more aware of this failing. He’s directly addressing his detractors and critics, even though it’s hard for me to imagine he has many of either.
“You been pump faking, I be damned you try and call me yo’ brother
My nigga, you was just the man tryin to stall me
Throw your demands straight up in the fan, I ain’t the man for all that
These niggas got hands out looking for bands, I just had planned for all that
The shit that my kinfolk had to withstand made us prepared for all that
Done left out the stands with picks in our pants and we demanding all that”
Not only did reviewing redveil’s “learn 2 swim” put me at peace with the forced used of lowercase, it made me an instant fan of his work from the first listen, and I can’t begin to stress just how rare that truly is. This is a remarkable young man and given how good he is at this age already one of two things is going to happen — he’s going to get even better and become a legend or he’s going to flame out spectacularly and this will go down as his masterpiece. I’m not a praying person but if I was ever going to say one I would definitely pray for the former and not the latter. I want to hear much more of redveil in the years to come.