Nettspend – “him” review

Richmond, Virginia rapper & songwriter Nettspend surprise-releasing his 2nd mixtape on his SoundCloud. Blowing up in 2023 off his debut EP Kickdoor, he would also team up with Hooligan Lou for the poorly received collab EP 3rd Knock preceding him signing to Grade A Productions & Interscope Records a few months afterwards. His debut mixtape Badass Fucking Kid was welcomed to divisive feedback although I personally enjoyed it more than Kickdoor or Nettgenes’ eponymous debut EP. Coming off the introspective Early Life Crisis a couple months ago, him looks to prepare us for the next era.

“kriss kross” opens up with him talking about not having any friends & for his sidekick to slide back over a rage beat whereas “sumthin’ different” describes him taking 10s all day to the point where he feels like he’s spinnin’. “medicine taste like shit” produced by che sticks out amongst my personal favorites on the tape detailing his dislike of fentanyl & cocaine until “strong” samples “hey, hello” encouraging this person to take hard-hitting drugs with him over yet another hypertrap instrumental.

We get a cross between plugg & cloud rap on “bliss” suggesting the problem between him & this woman was him waking up & asking her which drugs he should take prior to “change on me” bringing the rage beats back into the picture talking about having the ability to steal hoes before becoming famous. “goin’ dumb” embraces a more prominent digicore sound discussing all the hoes knowing exactly how hard he’s been going while “team x” shifts towards a pluggier direction again getting on his gangsta shit.

“high off life” contains one of my favorite hypertrap instrumentals on the tape courtesy of gyro advising for this individual to never hit up his line again going forward & if I had to pick a least favorite track, “breesh breesh” takes the cake talking about having guns & drugs inside his bag. “$ MF” blends cloud rap & plugg again moderately flexing his cash flow while “H.Y.W.D.S. (How You Wanna Do Shit)?” goes full Chicago drill to talk about having no time for the power.

The rage lets itself loose once more during “young ho” detailing him being at the point in his life where he’s used to hearing gunfire & what he refers himself to be instead of an O.G. while the Early Life Crisis outtake “pocket bag” incorporates some jerk undertones confessing that he isn’t playing for keeps. “killin’” emphasizes the jerk influences with a bit of a plugg twist talking about being a real villain while “sallys” cooks up another outstanding hypertrap instrumental from CXO shouting out the place he dyes his hair.

“problems” spends almost a couple minutes colliding cloud rap cautioning for everyone near him not to test your luck since he has the ability to leave muhfuckas dead but after ”Snapchat” swaps out the cloudier elements in favor of standard trap music talking about women sending him nudes through the social media app itself, “sonder” experiments with mixing characteristics of emo rap & jerk asking if the chick he’s addressing meant what she said.

The last 3 songs all have their own rage-inducing auras to them, except “10k ona dogg” talks about his savagery & making out of the rap shit off the rap shit itself while “beep beep” calls out the crowd of individuals who stay envious of him experiencing the lifestyles of the rich & famous from his Range Rover to his fit. “shootin’” finishes him by posing the question of why things have gotten worse for him in the midst of trying to find a way out of this dead end.

Wasn’t anticipating Nettspend to drop again so soon, but I suppose it makes up for the delays Early Life Crisis faced taking a couple leftovers from those sessions & throwing some unreleased material in there ahead of his upcoming sophomore effort Slut vindicating why he’s been him. I’d even put him him above 2slimey when it comes to that experimental rage style & there’s more variety between jerk, trap, cloud rap, plugg, digicore, Chicago drill & emo rap than the hardcore/pop raps of his debut.

Score: 3.5/5

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