Dear listener, I rarely post hip hop, and when I do its usually so deep underground that a brief, intermittent ray from the sun would strike it fuckin’ blind. I like hip hop that is bizarre and experimental and for the last year or so, I’ve been getting increasingly deeper into phonk; a darkly themed and distorted subgenre of trap. The primary reason that I enjoy phonk is because it seems to be a modern worldwide trend for regular people with audio software to create this kind of music from nothing more than disparate samples, which is based on old school Memphis rap and southern hip-hop styles. And while I wish I could tell you a whole lot more about the artist showcased this week, like a lot of other phonk performers, SPYDER550 seems to enjoy his anonymity. Smash play and enjoy GODDD MODE from 2019’s ACID THUG.

As much as I enjoy giving my audience on Tumblr a proper overview of who the artist is, what they stand for, etc… sometimes I can’t dig up anything of substantive value. SPYDER550’s Instagram is here, his SoundCloud is here, his Spotify page is here, and I found a slightly more robust profile that seems legitimate enough here. You, yes you that is reading this, feel free to go ahead and Google this artist for yourself and tell me if you can possibly draw a clearer picture of the person behind the music than I did here. I suppose I should be relieved; generally speaking, there is TOO MUCH information on certain musical acts that I post, and here is a good example of the polar opposite. From what little I was able to ascertain from my research for this post, 550 is very new to the worldwide music scene, having their first album out in 2019. As far as I can tell, they’ve released at least five albums since then, all under 10-tracks at a stretch. I can’t even tell with 100% accuracy where this artist is located on the planet. One profile says they are from Russia, another says they’re based out of Finland, and another says Memphis, Tennessee… which I’ll assume is just a throwback to Memphis rap (i.e. the music his own sounds are based on). I don’t even know if the above picture is really 550, or even what the hell his real name is. But you know what? None of that really matters, because I’ve been bouncing from tune to tune wherever I can find his music online, and I can tell you there’s a lot of noticeable raw talent here. Each individual tune I’ve found by this artist is intriguing, catchy, and thoughtful in its own unique way. His musical arrangements possess a haunting quality that is often repetitive, but repetitive in a good way, all while managing to be enchantingly mesmerizing. Like a lot of phonk artists, you can bet your bottom dollar that 550 ‘chops and screws’ a lot of his tracks together using various samples directly from the internet (including the vocals most likely). Just below is another bizarre banger, Toxic Face from 2021’s SPYDELIC. Enjoy!