Song You Need: Duwap Kaine is more than a humble pop star on “ASMR”

The FADER’s “Songs You Need” are the tracks we can’t stop playing. Check back every day for new music and follow along on our Spotify playlist.

Even accounting for rap years, it's a little insane that Duwap Kaine could be considered an OG. When he was 16, he dropped Underdog, arguably his best mixtape to this day, which is now a Rosetta Stone for the SoundCloud 2.0 generation. He’s continued to drop music at a consistent rate since then, but much of the hype from the days where he hopped on Pi’erre Bourne beats has dissipated. Instead, he’s doing things his own way. Whether that means turning the Auto-Tune all the way up, turning it all the way down, or working with producers like Mr. Weaver, prblm, and 6houl, who have some of the most interesting beats floating around SoundCloud right now, he’s down for whatever.

Duwap’s been on an exciting run this year. Aside from a flurry of singles, so far he’s dropped two mixtapes: A Dogg’s Influence in March, and this week’s Faith Like Esther. He’s still mainly working in sketches, each song its own idea that got balled up and tossed into the discard pile when he’s done with them. “ASMR,” a standout from the tape, is the kind of song I imagine would play when you’re being put under hypnosis. Over a sugary beat from DYNOX that sounds like it was ripped from the soundtrack of a Nintendo DS game, Duwap croons about rocking designer and turning his house into a strip club. “I’m so humble I be forgetting I’m a pop star,” he sings. That line might seem like a stretch, but to an entire generation of Internet rappers, it’s the absolute truth.