Mel V Chapo is turning dark plugg up a notch

Discover Blogly is The FADER’s curated roundup of our favorite new music discoveries.

The internet can give listeners the impression new rappers simply fall from the sky, going from Triller clips to distro deals as easily as rain falls to earth. That isn’t usually true, but sometimes an artist’s swift rise can feel as electric and sudden as lightning. I first saw Mel V Chapo doing hanging crunches on my timeline in early March — just a few short weeks later, she had a single produced by dark plugg mainstay Boolymon, and her apocalyptic taste in beats was earning comparisons to Lazer Dim 700. Her new EP Chapolations compresses Flockaveli into 15 ultrapotent minutes, a cannonball of fearsome energy. This is some of the hardest-hitting music on streaming right now — the only thing bigger than her 808s is her personality.

The hectic snippet teasing “Seeing 20” is disarmingly simple: Mel and her manager run around an apartment complex, filming dances in furry boots. It’s the sort of low-budget clip any teenager might make on TikTok, charismatic in its unforced fun and a neat demonstration of the pint-sized Houston rapper’s swag, potent enough to make a cardboard crown look cool. But you could just as easily close your eyes and hear her raw star power: “CALL ME WEEZY I AIN’T STOPPIN TIL I SEE A MILLI!!!!!!! / DOIN’ DONUTS IN YOUR HOOD LIKE I WORK AT KRISPY!!!!!!!” Two seconds later, she adlibs a super visceral retching noise: the mere thought of trusting a bitch makes Mel physically nauseous.

Her thunderous bark brings to mind Osamason and Bktherula, but the laser sight focus of her ALL-CAPS music distinguishes Chapo from her peers. Unlike her dark plugg scenemates (think Smokingskul and wildkarduno), her flows steadfastly refuse to lean on melody. Instead, her bars burst forward as if she was screaming in your ear to make sure you hear every word over rib cage-clattering subwoofers. “Feelin’ like that n**** Ralph cuz every beat bitch I’ma wreck!!!!!! / I been getting to that green tryna find my n**** Shrek!!!!!!” Mel rattles off on “Kawhi;” “I’m pretty as fuck but I’m torching a hater!!!” she crows on the breakneck “Undertaker.” Her onomatopoeic adlibs include weed smoke-induced coughs,an entire gun range of “BOW!!!” “PEW!!!” “GRRRRRR!!!” etcetera, and her signature “CHAPOOOOOOOOO,” reminiscent of Chicago drill queen Katie Got Bandz. She rides beats like Tow Mater from Cars. One perfect hook goes as follows: “Kickin shit, with my dog, I feel like I’m Bruce Lee!!!! / Yea I’m skinny, but back there that baby fat, Kimora Lee!!!! / I still think that I’m the biggest even though I’m so petite!!!! / Bitch lets go up in the booth I bet yo ass can’t fuck with me!!!!!”

The synth loops and digital instruments on her songs are similarly mutated, frequently drowned out by clamorous drums or corroded and evaporated by distortion. The cheery plugg melody of “Pew Pew” crumples under the weight of Boolymon’s 808s; the cascading piano of “Bruce Lee” glimmers beneath a roiling sea of sub-bass. These beats aren’t really that far from the mainstream — the horns on “Valentino” would feel at home on Jeezy’s Trap or Die, while “Undertaker” makes the case Mel V could take Ken Carson’s spot without breaking a manicured fingernail — though her take-no-prisoners approach feels too abrasive for casual listeners. In that sense, Mel V Chapo is a natural heir to the lineage of Waka Flocka Flame and Chief Keef, polarizing tough talkers whose debuts spurred broad derision prior to their acknowledgment as landmark stylistic achievements.

With the songs on Chapolations averaging a minute and a half, Mel makes the most of every measure, rapping from start to finish. Despite the staccato rhythms, there’s a casual fluidity to her flows that seems to hint at her musical past. Just take a look at this November 2022 cypher, where Chapo’s meandering freestyle ebbs and flows over a Zaytoven-esque beat. Her cadence sounds a bit more like fellow Houstonian Megan Thee Stallion, particularly when she drops lines like “you took my n**** I said, ‘Which one?’” and “can’t trust a hoe ate my ass on the first date.”

Fast forward to summer 2023 and Mel V’s harder knocking style was coming into focus, leaning more towards Sexyy Red; this incredible December snippet was produced by Dxntemadeit, the guy behind Bossman Dlow’s titanic “Get In With Me”. Still, her growth over the past eight months is impressive, with her taste for corrupted beats paralleling the increasing volume and hoarseness of her vocals. It’s these qualities that have catapulted Chapo to minor stardom among Instagram rap pages like Tubman Underground and spurred social media commenters to label her “the female Lazer Dim,” a moniker which makes the most sense when listening to jerk-style March loosie “katt daddy,” though you can certainly hear some of Lazer’s run-on approach in the rhymes on Chapolations.

“If I’m a female why the fuck y’all keep comparing me to dudes?” Mel V Chapo asks near the end of “Zenobio” before shrugging, “that just show that these hoes really can’t fuck with me in the booth (BITCH!!!!)” She’s less romantic than Bktherula and uninterested in the glossy trap revivalism practiced by JT. When she talks about sex (mostly getting head), it’s a quick flex, rather than a going concern. And where other female rappers like Rico Nasty and GloRilla imbue their threats of physical violence with impish playfulness, Mel V comes across totally deadpan. One-liners like “I be flexin on these bitches I don’t even work out!!!” and “I’m stuntin on bitches I feel like Criss Angel!!!” are played totally straight, closer to the nonchalant witticism of early career Keef or Slimesito. And similar to those artists, Chapo’s stunt raps about smoking weed and emptying clips can give way to surprising depth, even if a line like, “RIP to all the bros I want my dog back like fleas” seems like it should be delivered in a sigh rather than a shout.

At the end of the very first track on Chapolations, Mel V raps, “You think this hard just wait for the deluxe I ride every beat like a Toyota truck YUH YUH!!!!!!!! CHAPOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!” like the damn Kool-Aid Man busting down a wall to scream in your face. While I wait impatiently for more Mel V Chapo, I’ll make do by rewinding the record four times an hour.