Duwap Kaine rules, and here’s the proof

Name: Duwap Kaine
Style: Melodic, autotune-soaked raps over beats that’ll blow out your speakers
Location: Savannah, Georgia

Duwap Kaine comes from a generation inspired by the father of modern day rap, Chief Keef. He stylistically pulls from songs like “Love No Thotties,” and “Kay Kay,” making heavy use of autotune and putting large amounts of emphasis on hooks. It’s always interesting when an artist takes their favorite part of their influences and runs off with that, making it their defining trait. The 17-year-old rapper’s always hitting notes in the highest register possible, almost forcing his voice to crack. He’ll distort the audio on his voice too, constantly changing the balance to emphasize words mid-hook. It’s easy to get so caught up in his catchy hooks that you miss out on lines like, “Niggas be so soft, man, these niggas be Little Debbie,” which are designed to make you laugh.

The most interesting thing about him, though, lies in his production choices. He’ll choose to blow out your ears on songs like “My Voice” and “#TellOnMe” but his voice will always manage to cut through the blaring and busy production. He manages to make his voice (and his vocal inflections) the focal point of his music despite there being so much going on in his beats. While the blown out production and high-pitched auto-tuned crooning may be tough to get past, he’s shown many times that he’s capable of switching it up and doing anyone’s style just as well as them, as he does on Goonew’s “Stain.” On that song, he takes Goonew’s slow delivery that reminds me of supervillains describing their plans and matches him bar for bar.

The most exciting part about listening to him is playing his songs over and over to discover a new favorite one liner. My current favorite? “Bitches on me like I’m Johnny Bravo / 12 lookin for me like I’m Waldo.”