RED_E¥E's album Through the Hole in the World... is a musical voyage showcasing his societal awareness, consciousness, and creative lo-fi hip hop production.
Reviewed by Reggie Katz, edited by Ash
AUTHOR'S NOTE: As always, before reading this review, be sure to support RED_E¥E by streaming the project! The links to Through the Hole in the World… on all platforms can be found via RED_E¥E's Linktree page.
IF SOMEONE ASKED YOU TO IMAGINE what it would sound like if the '90s hip hop crusaders collaborated with the current alternative R&B leading players, you would probably think of a sound like RED_E¥E's. Before I had sat down to listen to this album, I was introduced to the RED_E¥E sound in a Collegium listening session. I really liked his production style, mainly because it is totally unique to him. It's easy to fall into the trap of using the exact same MIDI instruments, VSTs, mics, et cetera, that you see your peers using, resulting in music that doesn't sonically differentiate you from any other artist; nonetheless, Rain manages to neatly carve out a distinctive sound profile only he can pull off. And even if Rain is mirroring production techniques from others, it's clear that he takes his time manipulating sounds and adding diverse textures so that there's no confusion about whose track it is when you put on a RED_E¥E song. It's very impressive how Rain has already found his artist sound at such a young age, especially because of how great it is.
The opening track on this album is a prime example of being able to tell a story without the use of lyrics. "Sometimes, I miss home." features a vast array of dark, ominous synths that create a sense of uneasiness very quickly. This track exists in the realm of experimental electronic music, so it's hard to predict where the song is going to go next, but it always seems to come together. If you listen on headphones or monitors, it sounds like the lead synth that comes in about two-thirds of the way into the track is pulsating forward and backward. I interpreted this as an artistic choice to represent the feeling of missing home. For me, the fluctuating synth symbolizes the push and pull between the times you're not really thinking about missing home, and the times when you miss home so deeply it's impossible to think about anything else. Having an instrumental track open an EP or album is a trend that I have been noticing more and more in modern music, especially within the Music Tech community. It doesn't always work, but it was a really beautiful choice here.
We are welcomed into "The World Goes On", the EP's second track, with the harsh sounds of rain and a plane flying above us, cleverly crafted and spatialized with the use of panning. Right from the start of track 2, Rain intensifies the uncomfortable feeling already imposed by the first track, using samples from sounds you hear every day walking to class through Washington Square Park over a violin part that clashes with the underlying chords. I'll have to find out where Rain got his drum samples for this production, because the drums just knock! One of the strongest features of this track is the boom bap beat reminiscent of '90s hip hop artists like Public Enemy and N.W.A. Overall, the lyricism in this track is very strong, but the hook fell flat in comparison to the verses. "And you never really get that shit that you want/That real real love, but the world goes on/But the world goes on" is a short and memorable hook, but I was hoping for something more lyrically substantial after hearing the verses. There are several examples of killer bars in this track. One that stood out was, "Another killed in these streets of rage/Another red dot on a ledger fully bloodstained". This is a really dope phrasing of a thought-provoking concept, and because of how well-executed this bar is, as well as the rest of the lines in the verses, the hook leaves you wanting something more. I still have to give Rain a lot of credit because this song does capture the essence of what a young adult might feel moving to a big city like New York, experiencing for the first time a stronger need to watch your back, more hostility and violence all around you. I ultimately respect how he communicated these feelings in such a vulnerable way on this industrious track that serves as the lyrical opener of the album.
One thing you can count on from RED_E¥E is a really cool and distinct production. The production on "Godzilla", the third track on the album, is produced like nothing I have ever heard before. It sounds like he took a beat that Biggie would use and put it under the piano stylings of Lauryn Hill. The way Rain combines the influence of many different artists creates a very unique sound. The overall lyricism in this track is well-done, but he did lose me towards the end of the song. If you've listened to the album before, the final bars of "Godzilla" makes more sense because you know what the track coming next is about, but closing a song with bars about "pigs" crossing the line and "giving 'em war" feels out of place since the rest of the track doesn't allude to those ideas at all. Besides that, I enjoyed it. It's clear that Rain was going through it when he was writing this. The experience of feeling like you "ain't shit" unless you isolate and focus on your art sounds dehumanizing, but he ends up finding contentment and inner peace in loneliness by remembering that we all die alone anyways, which is an even darker dehumanizing concept. This is a pretty somber track, but one that still has relatability to a certain audience. Rain expresses his ideas in a very poetic way, which I appreciate—and I definitely prefer this track to the Eminem song of the same name!
Track 4, "Sovereign Tyrannical Disease", has a name that is bound to catch your eye. I keep mentioning how the music from two or three decades ago has a large influence on RED_E¥E's sound, but this track sounds like it was pulled straight out of a '90s conscious hip hop playlist. Everything about this track is old school, from the beat to the lyrics to the delivery, and it's awesome. The track even starts us off with a sample from Malcolm X's 1962 speech on police brutality.
"Though it was released in early 2022, much of Through the Hole in the World... was a direct response to and reflection on the events of 2020—the death of George Floyd and the ensuing protests." –Rain Edward a.k.a. RED_E¥E
Although the ideas in this track are phrased well, they felt a little too stripped back for me. I would've liked to see some of the ideas in this track develop a little more, especially because the hook in this track has stronger lyricism than the verses which hasn't been the case in the predecessor tracks. What would've been really cool is if track 4 combined with track 5, "Fight Back!", to create one six-minute track, utilizing a beat switch-up. These tracks seem to go hand in hand, and because of how strong "Fight Back!" is, the previous track could have used its help. The flow in this track feels a little awkward to me, but the lyricism is so remarkable that I have to forgive it. If Rain was able to channel this level of conceptualizing ideas in each one of his tracks, he would be unstoppable. Bars like "run it back/run it back", "all black like a funeral", and "hunnid stack/hunnid more killed by the man in the uniform" have so many meanings behind them that you have to listen to this track a couple of times and really think about it, and even then, you still probably won't catch everything that's implied. Rain's writing ability really shines through here and it is fantastic.
RED_E¥E knows how to fill your headphones with some detailed production, especially on the penultimate track on this album, "Propaganda". He is a truly great producer and I don't want that to go unnoticed. His production sounds personal. Because of how unique the sound is to him, it sounds like he spent hours chipping away at filters, reverb throws, delays, and compressors to find just what he was looking for. This also gives the impression that he is great at composing the ideas in his head into a tangible art form. Although I enjoyed the production throughout, especially the tone bend on the lyrics "Don't listen to the mothafuckas on the news/They spread their lies, monetize by misleading you", the vocals were sitting a little too far back in the mix on this one. Lyrically and conceptually, this track hits hard on the toxic environment the news and media have created, sometimes hitting on it a little too much.
"For anyone listening to track 6, 'Propaganda', wondering what the sample at the end is, Google this: Sinclair's script for stations. You'll see." –Rain Edward a.k.a. RED_E¥E
The news anchors heard for the last minute of the song are sampled from "Sinclair's script for stations". Sinclair, the country's largest broadcast company, forced over 200 news media outlets to read the same script warning against "fake news" you might hear from other news stations. When I heard this part of the track, I was immediately reminded of the beat drop in Kendrick Lamar's "DNA". Lamar's track follows the same concept of using the words of news anchors as a statement about racial discrimination in music, specifically hip hop. The only difference is that the news sample used in "DNA" was from a news segment where they were specifically talking about Kendrick Lamar's music. Because of this, and the fact that there is no beat switch-up after Rain's news sample, I'm not sure I love the choice to include it on "Propaganda". People are bound to notice a good amount of similarity between the two, and it's a large feat to try and match the level of Lamar's Pulitzer Prize-winning album. While I didn't love this choice, it's still a choice that makes a statement. Although you can infer where RED_E¥E's head was while writing this track, it is written from a politically neutral standpoint, and I think that's a good thing. Every news outlet has done its fair share of putting certain news in the limelight and leaving other stories on the back burner in search of monetary gain. He also spits about how the death of someone will be shared on social media only if it's able to get a quick couple of likes and maybe some comments, and if you don't show your artificial support for someone, you'll be next on the list to get cancelled. What's quite ironic is that this track itself is partially a prime example of that idea. At the time that I am writing this review, the track has less than 1,000 streams on Spotify. Yet, somehow the trend of posting a blank black screen on "blackout Tuesday" has gained more attention than this album that brings these issues to the foreground more than mindlessly posting a blank screen. RED_E¥E is pointing out the elephant in the room that many are too afraid to speak about, and in that aspect, this track is truly excellent.
The album closes with the instrumental track, "Please, remember my words while I'm away." As a standalone track, I really like it. But in context with the rest of the album, I admittedly am not a huge fan. The opening of this album is also an instrumental, and because of how similar the closing instrumental sounds to the opener, it makes this track feel like a greater means to an end. I was hoping for something more ambitious that matched the energy of the previous tracks, but at the same time, it's still very enjoyable, so I don't have huge complaints about it. The eerie synths from the opening tracks get welcomed back into the mix, and they sound killer. The production is really well-done and consistent with the rest of the album.
Even though my thoughts on RED_E¥E's Through the Hole in the World… are mixed, the vast majority are positive. Performance-wise, the flow was pretty good, but there were several moments when it did feel a tad forced and awkward. There were a few artistic decisions that I didn't agree with, such as two instrumentals on a 7-track conscious hip hop record, the news anchor samples, the lyric choice at the end of "Godzilla", and generally speaking, the simplicity of the lyrics.
"While there's always a place for wordplay and double entendres, I felt this project needed to form a clear statement." –Rain Edward a.k.a. RED_E¥E
While I do partially agree with this quote from RED_E¥E, I feel like it would have benefited the album had he incorporated more wordplay and double entendres in the lyrics. I felt like the bluntness and laconicism of Rain's lyrics on this project were at odds with what I expect from a conscious hip hop record. It is sometimes said that if you're not writing original wordplay into your lyrics, then it's already been said before in a better way, and I did feel like a lot of the issues RED_E¥E brought up have already been rapped about in a more insightful manner. We have rap and hip hop pioneers like Biggie, Public Enemy, Lauryn Hill, and N.W.A., as well as recent artists like Kendrick Lamar, Childish Gambino, and J. Cole, paving the way for brilliantly-crafted songs on racism, police brutality, the news, and social media. It may seem unfair to compare these major label artists to RED_E¥E, but I am only doing so because I think Rain has an inner genius that needs to be brought out. Tracks like "Sovereign Tyrannical Disease" and "Propaganda" really showcase his abilities as a songwriter and artist. If he is able to channel that part of himself onto all of his tracks, I could see him making a big dent in the hip hop scene. Production-wise, this guy already can't be stopped. Rain is a great producer, point blank. The consistency of the sound of this project while still managing to make each track distinct in its own way is truly remarkable. The soundscape of this album is among the most distinct I've heard from the Music Tech community so far, and I thought it was the highlight of the album overall. The use of sampling, especially when it came to strings and drums, was executed at a near-professional level. I appreciate the way his production pays homage to the rappers who were the original pioneers of this style of thought-provoking hip hop music. Interestingly enough, RED_E¥E's tone of voice reminds me of JID; the contemporary tone of voice mixed with old-school production will really help solidify RED_E¥E as a respected artist. I'm looking forward to hearing what's next from Rain. I heard firsthand from him that he has an album coming out in July that will "blow this one out of the water", so make sure you stay on the lookout for that!
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Rain has also asked me to let you all know that he has a new song coming out on Valentine's Day, for all you romantics out there! Stay tuned for that as well!
Personal enjoyment rating: 7.5 out of 10
Standout tracks: "Sovereign Tyrannical Disease" and "Propaganda"
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