ezcodylee played his first show just over four years ago; he booked it himself. He played last, when a 100-strong crowd had dwindled to under a dozen. “I still had one of the best times I’ve ever had,” the 21-year-old enthused in a recent interview. “To turn up with those 10 people… it felt like this was what music was all about.” Perhaps ezcodylee is reminiscing on that December 2021 concert when he crows, “I told my brother, ‘Just look at the crowd, my nigga, we made it,’” on “FAMILY FIRST !,” an early highlight from his latest album, STUNT 4 LIFE.
The SoCal rager has seen plenty of bigger crowds since, but his hybridized rap-rock has retained its intimacy even as his monthly listeners have ballooned. That’s partly due to substance; ez’s lyrics are peppered with human vulnerability and political anger. But mainly it comes down to style: ezcodylee pushes his rock-rap synthesis further than some SoundCloud peers keen to label themselves rockstars.
Where artists like OsamaSon or Che might choose a beat with a grungy preset, ezcodylee made electric guitar riffs the backbone of his 2025 full-length Stunt and Die 3. That album was heavily indebted to the contemporary digicore sound spearheaded by close friends and collaborators slayr, Lucy Bedroque, and prettifun, but it nevertheless established ez as a unique artist with a distinct vision for where the future of rage rap might be headed, five years after Whole Lotta Red.
STUNT 4 LIFE is the clearest distillation of ezcodylee’s punk-inspired ethos to date, neatly buffing out intergenre seams in pursuit of cathartic clarity. Largely produced by Chris Marek, these songs refuse to trade on novelty—enormous 808s and chugging power chords don’t just cohabitate, but work in tandem to churn moshpits and choke up emotions alike. And while the album’s intentional sprawl occasionally feels bloated, the heightened ambition is matched by ez’s fiercely committed performances.
Consider “SHUT UP !,” where ezcodylee begins rapping but quickly winds up shouting through a layer of distorted grit, like he’s getting pissed off just thinking about unoriginal artists. Or the second part of “WHO GOT A PROBLEM !,” where a more straightforward rage instrumental prompts ez to float between his melodic head voice and a more diaphragmatic low register. As intense as his beats can be, complete with overstimulating sounds and whiplash beatswitches, they rarely dwarf his vocals, offering thematic bracing and support for the album’s most dramatic peaks, whether personal or political.
While the most reshared lyrics will likely be his Che and RainingLol disses (“FAMILY FIRST !”), ezcodylee’s motivational raps are just as engaging whether he’s feeling sweet (“BAD APPLE !”) or salty (“DIEHARD!”). And although he’s not an overtly lyrical rapper, he’s never too far from a memorable metaphor, like when he declares, “From the hood, we making it out like tongue kissing,” or “ Hard rock with my metal, chain heavy/But it’s fuck ICE, I ain’t Wayne Gretzky.” It’s no surprise he finds inspiration in the punnily dumb lyrics of Lil Wayne—indeed, STUNT 4 LIFE feels like a true successor to Wayne’s ill-fated rock crossover Rebirth—but such lines can also be oddly affecting.“I stunt in case one day you have to see me die,” ezcodylee murmurs over a lonely strobing synth on “ONE DAY !,” but as the beat pulses in anticipation of an impending drop, his tone twists from conciliatory to triumphant: “’Cause when I die, stunt for me!” Then, as the 808s kick in, he drops the Pi’erre Bourne-worthy clunker, “College girl, A+, she go dumb for me!” It’s legitimately stupid, but the humor doesn’t undercut the gravity of the moment; rather, it emphasizes it.
In other places, ezcodylee trips himself up. The thematic thrust of STUNT 4 LIFE revolves around believing in yourself in the face of external adversity. Originality and authenticity are key components of that worldview; that’s the clear subtext beneath ezcodylee’s disses of RainingLol and Che, respectively. So it’s particularly frustrating when he lapses into a Carti interpolation on “BAD APPLE !,” capping an especially tender song’s only verse with someone else’s words. And while he raps on “MOSHPIT !,” “lowkey I feel like Osama, I had a few sons ’fore that nigga blew up,” ez’s flow on “DON’T BE SCARED !” seems like a direct lift of OsamaSon’s cadence on “Trenches.” Neither moment feels disqualifying, but they scan as missed opportunities for ezcodylee to define his own style.
STUNT 4 LIFE stumbles when ezcodylee’s desire for institutional prestige belies his punk attitude. After snarling, “Free Palestine, free Gaza,” on album highlight “DIEHARD !,” ezcodylee raps that Rolling Stone should put him on the cover. Setting aside the political contradiction therein, it’s an off-putting appeal to authority from an artist who’s succeeded without capitulating to gatekeepers. There’s a similar whiff of validation-seeking around the album’s wide-ranging rock palette, which prioritizes showcasing the breadth of ez’s musical knowledge at the expense of momentum. The heavy metal two-parter “DON’T BE SCARED,” infidelity anthem “TOUR !” and the first half of “WHO GOT A PROBLEM !” all seem oriented toward proving ezcodylee’s punk bona fides, but these detours feel emotionally flat.
The desire for approval comes through early—on the album’s first proper song, in fact. “Stunt rock, where the fuck my GRAMMY?” ezcodylee chants on lead single “ALBUM OF THE YEAR !” Even here, he’s not exactly marketable—unfriendly to social climbers and banned from venues for rocking out too hard. But his prickly bombast conceals a softer center: “I got stage fright, still ain’t scared to stage dive,” he reveals six tracks later, on “VOMIT !” The crowds might make him nervous, but they’re proof ezcodylee made it.
