Rap Blog: OsamaSon is moving faster than ever

Rap Blog is a weekly showcase of a standout rap song.

Odds are you've seen OsamaSon around on social media, making a cameo in a Xaviersobased snippet or popping up on rage-adjacent meme pages. The South Carolina rapper has survived serious data leaks (hundreds of songs), beefing with Jace!, and perhaps most crucial of all, the aura check (neither childhood TikToks nor ridiculous antics have dented his image). He's one of the bigger artists in the dark plugg scene, never far away from an 808 strong enough to shake your heart.

On "popstar," squealing synths squiggle skyward as OsamaSon stomps over the kicks, undisturbed by the swarming noise around him. He's spilling lean on his lap, recouping his advance and spending the remainder on a new coupe. The beat comes courtesy of gyro, an Irish producer who was also behind the boards for OsamaSon's magnum opus "Rehhab," speckled with sonic details that reward close relistening, like the counter melody that cuts in around the 25-second mark. "Bitch tryna keep up you can't keep up with this shit," Lil O grins at the end of his verse. The brainrot video is complete information overload, all fast cuts and saturated filters — for the past couple of weeks, I've been screenshotting frames at random just to try and digest more of the messages, which range from silly to depressing to inspirational. Coming on the heels of "withdrawals" with Nettspend and 3vil Reflection, a collaborative tape with Glokk40Spaz, "popstar" paints a compelling portrait of the Gen Z artist at work, moving faster than the camera shutters following him. He'll slow down when he has to.