In the last few years, rapper Tray Tray has done a good job of setting himself apart from the competition through a slick composing style more loyal to the traditions of hip-hop than it is to the passing fads of contemporary pop. His writing has gotten stronger with each LP he’s dropped, and now almost two years after his sophomore effort Born Legend II hit record store shelves, he offers up a single in “Like This” that features more duality than any other to bear his name in the byline. Tray Tray’s unwaveringly smooth vocal delivery is in the spotlight here, and earning the critical respect it arguably deserved as early on as 2018.
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The bass part in “Like This” is enormous, but its indulgence works out well for this rapper for a couple of reasons. First off, it gives his cruder lyricism a firm sonic backing that suggests swagger and self-assuredness only attainable through years of refining your execution as a vocalist. He can say anything he wants in this track and translate as comfortable and connected with the groove beneath him in the music, which grants him a platform many of his rivals would do anything to land.
These verses allude more to desire than they ever could arrogance, and the very fact that we can feel the hunger in Tray Tray’s voice is a testament to his renewed interest in outplaying the competition he faces in the American underground today. Rather than riding some remixed vaporwave melody into an off-psychedelic hook-laden with druggy lyricisms – as has become the norm among his peers – he’s giving us a straight, unfiltered shock to the stereo speakers that is bass and drum-born. I doubt he cares if you call him old school, but in all actuality, this is where minimalist aesthetics could place the future of hip-hop much sooner than you think.
Tray Tray works this lion-like groove excellently, and though it’s big enough to drown out some of his sleeker handiwork with the mic, his precision arrangement of the lyrics never allows for this to happen. His pace, and the way he’s able to set it without much of a crunch from the percussion, is indicative of his organic relationship with the medium, and with no synth vocal parts nor tinny basslines to obscure our view, we get a sense for how unfiltered a player he’s always been and continues to be today.
As the trap renaissance of the late 2010s begins to slow in favor of a more surreal, hybrid-based subgenre in hip-hop ascending the charts in 2021, the strain of pure verse-and-beat rapping Tray Tray is producing in the studio is as unique as it is affectionate towards the simple foundations that made this music so captivating to begin with. “Like This” doesn’t carry the burden of postmodernity like a lot of the other hip-hop releases I’ve covered this summer have; it’s a hard-hitting, unapologetically streamlined rap single from an artist who doesn’t have time for the aesthetical filler in today’s game.
Kim Muncie