The main thing Matt Ox has going for him is that he has never treated rap like a stepping stone. For a white rapper who went viral at age 12—mostly because he looked like Tom Hanks’ son in Sleepless in Seattle went to middle school and got really into Finally Rich—that’s a miracle. The bar is in the dirt, I admit, but in an era where artists get drunk on viral fame and spend eternity trying to recapture that feeling, Matt Ox seemingly has no ambition other than making fun rap music. The Philly native, now 18, has been extremely fortunate, though. His breakout single “Overwhelming” and his debut OX were enjoyable enough, though these releases often felt more like showcases for Working on Dying, the impactful beatmaking clique who shaped contemporary landmarks like Playboi Carti’s Whole Lotta Red and Lil Uzi Vert’s Eternal Atake. The same pattern holds on OXygen, Matt Ox’s new collaborative mixtape with the producers of the New York-based collective Surf Gang.
For years now, Surf Gang have been a constant in New York’s underground rap scene. I’d argue Polo Perks’ Punk Goes Drill, produced mostly by crew affiliates, is the apex of sample-drill beats; the lush soundscapes they’ve made for out-of-towners like BabyxSosa and RealYungPhil are noteworthy too, and their local live shows and DJ sets are consistently a good time. Like Working on Dying, Surf Gang use Matt Ox’s elastic, somewhat anonymous voice as a steady base from which to wrangle a bunch of cloudy and absorbing beats. Take the Evil Giane-produced “WTW”: The staticky instrumental sounds like it’s short-circuiting, and the sporadic Stone Cold Steve Austin-style glass shatter FX up the disarray. Harrison and Eera’s instrumental on “Fast” is an intoxicating blend of frosty synths that recalls Gud’s production on RX Papi’s Foreign Exchange and dreamy Goth Money-like mayhem (especially the gunshots). The tape is loaded with mesmerizing production touches like Evil Giane’s throbbing club rhythm for “Real Rage” and Harrison’s drum patterns on “Pack It Up,” which fire at the pace of a difficult Dance Dance Revolution routine.
As for Matt Ox, he doesn’t do much to distract from the beats. The closest he comes to stealing the spotlight is on “Pack It Up,” where his frequent pitch alterations and vocal switch-ups come off strained and unnatural—you can feel that you’re supposed to think he’s being eccentric. But while he’s obviously fluent in the language of Playboi Carti, the Atlanta rapper he feels most aligned with is Key!, especially in the way Matt attempts to swing drastically between moods by raising and lowering his volume. But Key!’s yo-yo vocal fluctuations were always intended to convey how emotionally volatile his songs are: angry and loving and joyful and paranoid, all at once. Meanwhile, even when Matt Ox alternates between scratchy shouts and stoned murmurs on “Duff,” it’s numb. Not even his scattered roars on “Wormhole” have any genuine rage to them. It’s like when a toddler starts yelling curse words they’ve heard from their parents.
The idea to mesh a chaotic rapping style with Surf Gang’s hazy sound is a good one: Their beats are an open range where a gifted rapper can roam and find their weirdest self. Matt Ox just isn’t that person. I wish these beats were in the hands of someone who could take advantage of the freedom to come up with something like Hook’s explosive, improvisatory flows or Bktherula’s impulsive yet nimble emotional shifts. Instead, OXygen is much like OX: a glorified audition tape for producers who one day will help a better rapper to realize their vision.
