Throughout all the seasons of the Kazzy calendar, from the dual masks of Anxious Confidence, to the hardcore rapping of Zodie, there have always been whispers of The Tape. Anyone who encountered RayKaz’s music since his debut EP has, in both subtle references and declared announcements, heard about the Those Around Me Tape and has waited years for it to drop. Finally, TAMT dropped and, dare I say it’s a good album? I dare say it’s a masterpiece.
An album review by Tanatswa Makara
Ray’s music has never shied away from exploring deep vulnerability and soul searching, themes I feel mainstream Zim hip hop, perhaps even mainstream Zim music in general, tends to be less intentional about. However, in TAMT he dials that up to eleven. Unlike before, where he undertook that challenge by being the protagonist of his music, this time discusses his complex upbringing, and his unique, possibly strange, standing in the local music industry through the various lenses of those around him.
Basically, The Tape is a twenty track introspective journey of the adage, “Show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are.”
His true skill, I believe, isn’t simply in how delicately he handles the sensitive subject matters in his songs, or how he vividly he conveys the poignant, often heart-rending, and sometimes tragic stories of those around him. It is how he oscillates between the wildly varying emotions of each song whilst retaining both the thematic and sonic consistency of the tape.
For example, TAMT’s first two tracks, "Warm Intro: BDale Tales" and "Too Much," are largely directed at the most peripheral of those around him (i.e., his Zim hip hop contemporaries.) However, the third track, "Born a Victim," swings in an entirely different direction, taking a more “status quo rebel” tone where he’s basically saying whatever he wants. He follows that “reckless” tone by zoning into the tragic and somber "Yo’s Story/CJ’s Story." And as if that wasn’t enough, he follows it up with the more hedonistic Tahani.
All these aspects - Warm Intro and Too Much’s aggression, Born a Victim's reckless lyrical showboating, CJ’s Sorrow’sdesperate grief, Tahani’s crude sensuality - are not supposed to make any sense when strung together, but somehow he pulls it off! Neither the sonic diversity nor the tonal fluctuation oscillate too haphazardly that you lose track of central thread, the rich undercurrent of Those Around Me.
Speaking of Those Around Me, TAMT is not just a mishmash of story recitals with a title slapped onto it. It’s also not a self-indulging recounting of the stories that shape Ray’s life. There is no overwhelming sense of drab protagonism or “main character-ism” where the artist projects his own perceptions of self and tries pawning them off as others’ view of him.
Rather, it is, again, not only testament to Ray’s skill as a storyteller, but also a much subtler ability to weave interlacing tales from those around him without losing his sense of self. It’s common knowledge that most, if not all of his projects are laced with deeply human subject matters, but TAMT does something different on both a thematic, sonic, and lyrical level. TAMT is so meticulous with each of its features that you get both an individualized perspective without losing the communal bonds that tie Ray to those around him. I could pick a random track from TAMT and it’d still prove that point.
For instance, in "RIP Sporkie," the featured artists, 9xne, Shefsnow, and VR4T all explore the bittersweet possibilities of love from varying angles, but the lyrical and sonic chemistry amongst them is so persistent you understand the worldview they share even beyond the music without even being told. Or, in "Tahani," the previous track, the chemistry between Malik the Rainman, LiamLeezy, and RayKaz is so palpable you can almost visualize them sitting in a room discussing how they’ve “been through it” and only this hedonistic lifestyle (a life they’re approaching from the various angles of narcotics, sexual promiscuity, and suicidal thoughts amongst others) is the only confident mask they can wear to hide the deep scars within.
We could spend a lot more time just raving about the insane chemistry in these features, but I’m also a huge fan of how Ray uses these features from those around him to show the rawest side of the man that is RayKaz. Normally, one would use the features on his project as an avenue for self-promotion, whether through self-aggrandizing lyricism or virtue-signaling trauma dumps, but Ray chooses a different route.
With each feature, he’s not trying to prove or present anything other than the fact that he is human, just like everyone else. As I said before, Ray complex background has earned a unique, if not strange standing in the Zim hip hop scene. Whereas in other projects the focus might have leaned towards presenting his lyrical prowess or hit-making ability, in TAMT he achieves both without blatantly trying to prove it. Every artist Ray features here has a conversation with him.
“Have you ever been backstabbed by the people you trusted? Me too.”
“Do you throw yourself head first into an unhealthy lifestyle to process your hurt? Same team!”
“Do you miss when you were a kid and life was that much simpler? Yes, me too!”
“What about your parents? I know, right?”
And through all this, Ray seems to have moved beyond caring about judgements and stereotypes towards his humanity because he’s not trying to sell those things to you. In probably his rawest emotional tracks "Ray’s Insomnia" and "I Got It Outro," he’s not trying to gain acceptance by eliciting sympathy. What he wants, and what he gives us a front row seat to, is an unfiltered collage of pictures that make up the artist and the man that is RayKaz. He wants us to see him at the core.
My two favorite tracks of The Tape are, by quite a distance, the intro ("Warm Intro") and the outro ("I Got It Outro.")
There’s a lot going for them. From the lyricism to the emotion, those two tracks set the tape’s tone more than most. Above all, what I appreciate is how those two tracks bring everything full circle from a sonic, thematic and sequential perspective. "Warm Intro" opens by addressing perhaps the furthest of those around Ray, his Zim hip hop rapper contemporaries, but "I Got It Outro" is the culmination of zoning in to the most immediate, and perhaps most important, of those around him; his parents.
So, what am I trying to say with all this. RayKaz’s Those Around Me Tape is a true masterpiece of a journey, and the best (yes, I’ve said it) hip-hop project this country has ever produced. Give it a listen and then listen to it some more.
Greedysouth rating: 9.5/10
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