Digital animator and experimental hip hop rapper Lil Darkie dropped his “Swamp” album on Dec. 24, 2020. Unlike some of his contemporaries, Lil Darkie isn’t afraid of combining other genres of music with his own. Not only does he merge elements of other genres in his music, but he also infuses comedy into it as well. 

Lil Darkie spent all of 2020 crafting record after record of some of the most interesting, fun and engaging experimental hip hop seen all year. He started with “This Does Not Exist” and only a few months later, released “Yin,” then to finish off the year, delivered “Swamp.”

Lil Darkie listeners can hear his sound evolve with each album dropped, but out of all of them, “Swamp” is definitely the most musically diverse. Each track on the record has a different sound, making the album as a whole unique and unlike any other. 

“Swamp” has a mix of just about anything and everything. Tracks like “Disintegrate,” “La La Underbelly” and the title track “Swamp” are all hard-hitting and adrenaline-pumping bangers that combine dark, industrial-tinged trap beats with aggressive, animated and off the wall vocals to create some of the most intense rap seen in the 2020 music industry.

Noisy, shrill guitars combined with thick, dense percussion give tracks like “Comfort In Discomfort,” “Incredible Insurrection,” “P.I.G.G.Y.” and “NoisesInsideMyHead” such intense energy that one can’t help but be completely dominated by it. This album emphasizes the more guitar-laden tracks but also showcases Lil Darkie’s most beautiful, poignant and versatile songwriting yet. Tracks like “I Can See Clearly,” “I Don’t Know” and “Baby Me” display this.

Sophomore Isabel Contreras has been listening to Lil Darkie since 2019 and liked his new album. “This album was very different from all of his others. I could listen to it all day. Each song gave off a different vibe. There is something so uniquely euphoric about hearing Lil Darkie’s music that you can’t really find anywhere else.”

At this point in Lil Darkie’s career, he is no longer in a position where he feels the need to impress anyone and is purely making music for himself, which really shows in this album. There is so much love, so much creativity and so much fun pumped into every song.