Goodbye Horses

The borderline setting of ian's commercial debut was either genius or the end of hip-hop as we know it. Definitely, a mixtape full of cheapies Flokaveli type beats and bars about “dropping cash on your headIt can be bad taste from a white kid born in 2005—especially when it's made to look like the kid it comes from money. But what makes ian's ascent so strange is that before he broke out to show his face, he was already making the best music of his life. In 2023, ian's Instagram was private and anonymous, his SoundCloud a library of plugg rap on of most vanguard. The DIY recordings he posted online stitched together stretched melodies into unusual sound collages: His raps veered between vanity and introspection, hovering over spectral ads and textured percussion that fed into samples cut from haunted auditoriums. At times the songwriting was painstaking and honest. “My momma said she's proud, I still don't think I'll be enough,” he raps over the iokera production.Reminder,” pitching his voice like Izaya Tiji in his darkest hour. Behind the veil of anonymity, ian thrived on experimentation.

The veil was lifted in January with a quote “Wimbledon,” a snare-leaning speaker that led to hundreds of comments like, “Damn, that white boy can rap!” ian fed off the ensuing hype and never looked back, recycling old traps as the audience gathered. Five months later Valedictorianmonitoring Goodbye Horses doubles down on the formula: Young Chop's lines and manufactured rapper speech. Only this time there is a cool Chief Keef feature. It is unfortunate. The production is stiff and stuffy where it's meant to feel upbeat, set against a backdrop of loose hooks and lyrics that barely reflect the talent of the artist at the helm. Apart from some faint spots, Goodbye Horses meets like 2K Sports menu music: the kind of songs that make you want to mute the TV.

“Till I Die” is one of many songs on 2024 designed to rattle your skull in the same way that “John“and”Hard on Da Paint” they still do over a decade later. Instead, it pours through horn fanfare and a corny synth lead that sounds like it's been cut from Regular show. The smug nonchalance of ian's beat on the chorus seems awful (if you're talking numbers out of the gate, you'd better swipe like Bossman Dlow). The same goes for “3.5” and “Loco”. On “Older,” he tries to channel Future's melodrama High Off Life and promptly stumbles: “Parents grow up/Grown-ups tryin' to make me short/Pass me the doja/Tryin' to be dead by morning.” Forget the serious use of “bigwig” in a pain rap song: ian's perceived struggle pales in comparison to artists who do real ballad in that vein—plus the doya won't kill you, daug.