When BLIGHT dropped I was in South Dakota listening to HU$H off the strength of (Top 5 MC) Tech N9ne’s name for pure workout fuel like I was a member of the Fatu tribe. Fast forward a couple of years later and I took a look at HU$H’s socials after firing off a tweet to Strange Music (the label that released SKUNKWORKS) recommending that they push for a cross-promotion with HU$H’s music for a future WWE PLE, because his brand of music is the perfect fit. I was surprised to see all of HU$H’s support on all of his socials are disgustingly low: @ohshutit on youtube has less than 200 subscribers and the very same HU$H tag only has barely over 200 followers on Twitter. In a way this is actually a good thing as HU$H epitomizes the definition of his namesake : an audiophile’s best kept secret. It’s a shame that I am compelled to write this then, because this article might just leak it.
Listening to the BLIGHT EP I was ready for Drum & Bass, Dub, EDM – all the electronic synthesized instrumentals with a rough edge that I could muster. Surprisingly though, early on the tape is a fusion of all types of music ready for a festival since the year 2000. “99 Cents 4 Life” sounds like a Blink record featuring some of HU$H’s most cohesive storytelling, “fn myself” belongs in a playlist with Lady GAGA’s “So Happy I Could Die”, and “hate you” belongs on the radio today if SZA can brag about killing her ex-boyfriend all over the airwaves and enjoy the success and accolades that comes with the accomplishment of a pop single. Add on some Slipknot inspiration, a little Bring The Horizon, and No. Cal aesthetics that look like G-Eazy got violated by Green Day at a rave moshpit – and that’s HU$H.
But then it’s not really. Expecting more of an electronic style as his previous tape with Tech N9ne, HU$H waits all the way until the third track (the single “Overstay”) to even introduce the style that Skrillex, Benny Bennassi, and countless others ate off of for the early part of the 2010’s. Then it’s into the pop-punk style with liquor store anthem “99 Cents 4 Life”, then back to the synths on “Plunk” with introspective raps that are also in a sense as omniscent as they are reflective – even if they are presented vocally in today’s popular emo-rap style, like the best cuts off Vic Mensa’s first album spoken through the vox of Tom DeLonge on auto-tune. And HU$H continues to evolve throughout the record : self-depreciating and reflecting until the culmination with the final tracks “Panic” featuring rewindable bars by Jehry Robinson in rare form over record scratches transitioning into “Dulli” featuring Tech N9ne and Northern California rap legend X-Raided over a somber electronic track, that (to keep in tune with the seventeen tracks that preceeded it) is as great to party to as it is to sob over. By the time I got to the Triptych-era Marilyn Manson inspired “Are We Dead Yet” I started to smell what Kurt Cobain smelled back in ’91. Yes, the constant vocal effects and laments over female affection and substance abuse can get annoying and contrived, but by “Into The Sun” I recognized that the opposite sex muse can be converted into a metaphor for HU$H’s crowd as a whole, for those tired of HU$H beating a dead horse.
Yes, self-depreciation and rebuff’s from the opposite sex seem to be HU$H’s only subject matter on SKUNKWORKS, but as layered as the beats are, perhaps there is a deeper meaning in the lyrics that are a pastiche in a record oozing playback value. And if not, HU$H’s emulations of instruments on the synth are enough to make him sound like a prodigy of melancholy at the height of tragedy played up fo entertainment. Besides this music is indefinitely geared for teenagers, young adults (unlike the rest of Strange’s catalogue of grown man rap) and what are those years without melodrama? My point : I’m just glad I bought a new skateboard the week HU$H dropped this, because SKUNKWORKS is the sound of the youth. With emo-raps featuring constant refrains over aggressive electronic beats polished with nu-metal grime, HU$H has a hot and ready gumbo on his hands with SKUNKWORKS.
A fellow Millenial, SKUNKWORKS makes sense as a calculated cacophony. Though it appears that HU$H has purposely made this record to show that you can’t pigeonhole him or his craft in a box, still the methods that he uses to craft a LP that is so outside of the lines, adheres to the tried and true path of the genres that he taps into to create SKUNKWORKS. Some might listen to the record and hear an artist who has yet to find his sound, but coming from HU$H’s generation and having attended Hip-Hop concerts in the same week as Metal festivals while pulling up with Elton or GAGA albums in my headphone’s HU$H has made a sound that is the definition of accessible. A little bit of everything for every concertgoer of my generation onward, in every song on one album, HU$H has made one trojan horse of a safe decision hidden under a bold aesthetic.
If SKUNKWORKS wasn’t distributed by Strange Music Inc. I would think on first glance that HU$H is just a Suicide Boyz / G- Eazy / MGK hybrid industry plant. But with actually taking the time to open my ears to HU$H’s work, I’m happy to say I decided to pumped up the volume on a debut that is scattered brained but has the potential for every song on it to sit comfortably for weeks on the any billboard chart. Pop, Rock, Hip-Hop, Dance. SKUNKWORKS has it all. Take your pick.
Score:
4/5
SKUNKWORKS dropped on 5/12/23 from Strange Music Inc.
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