Numbers don’t lie, and judging from the digits Dici is rocking on streaming platforms around the internet, I think it would be safe to say that he’s catching fire like nobody else in 2021. His single “Five Rings” is a certifiable indie hit, but its glam-style melody skewed with unpolished hip-hop swagger isn’t the sole reason why. In the pop genre, there’s something we like to call the star element that you can’t practice into existence, and when Dici is breaking down his emotions in a verse, he undeniably has it. He’s got the chops to do anything he wants, and in “Five Rings,” he’s feeding a worldwide hunger for harmony-based pop.
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You can tell that this artist takes a lot of influence from Europop, I wouldn’t say he outright adheres to the genre’s aesthetical parameters for every beat in this single. He certainly doesn’t mind incorporating the flowing harmonies and electronic-inspired grooves of the old school into his sound here, but the substance of the melodies – and especially the verses – is 100% hip-hop and nothing else. He’s got the voice to sing or rap, and this is a composition that lets him do both exceptionally well without sounding over the top in doing so.
It might be interesting to hear a straightforward hip-hop performance from Dici at some point in the future just to see what he could do without the pressure to ascend poppy hooks, but I also think he shouldn’t step away from the experimental values he’s living by in this song, either. The thing about having a versatile talent like his is that there are no rules when it comes to what you should do next, other than to remove the slightest trace of watered-down conceptualism from your artistry (which he’s already done and then some).
These verses are never fading into the hook, but introducing the catharsis this chorus needs to feel like more than a stony admission from an insular singer/songwriter. You could make the argument that Dici might be a little harder to pick out of the crowded Miami music scene were he not as game for going off the beaten path in the studio as he is in tracks like “Five Rings,” but I don’t know if anything would change the general likeability of his singing style, no matter the ambitiousness of the composition he happens to be performing.
In an era that has seen more multi-hyphenate stars than not, this singer/songwriter/producer/artist is someone who doesn’t have a hard time standing out beside some of the best and brightest young voices in the American underground, and “Five Rings” demonstrates that irrefutably. Dici’s got a certain kind of charisma that doesn’t often come around in any genre of music, and when taking into account the dry spell mainstream pop has been experiencing in the last couple of years, someone of his talented capabilities could do a lot of damage to the establishment in a fairly short amount of time. He’s got my support, and soon enough he’ll have the rest of the pop world as well.
Kim Muncie