Surrounded by 10,000 of his closest friends, diamond* doesn’t say a damn thing until he has to. Maybe it’s wrong to describe the svelte twentysomething as “coy”–he raps about swinging his dick and flashing jewelry too much for that–but that’s how he seemed when I saw him at a show in Manhattan a couple weeks ago. When he didn’t have a mic in hand, he silently blended in with the loud, proud blazers of ØWay, Atlanta’s biggest new rap crew. diamond* and Tezzus, SoundCloud’s very own Tasmanian Devil, are the figureheads of the collective; they both signed to Young Thug’s YSL Records last year. The lasting memory I have from that recent YSL show is of countless dudes mobbing onstage around Thug, with Tezzus screaming lyrics right next to him and diamond* somewhere off to the side with a bag of chips. That yin-and-yang dynamic defines their relationship: For all of Tezzus’ bloodcurdling trap thumpers, diamond* has an equal output of plugg that feels like an oasis in the sky.
With the surprise release of the DJ Holiday-hosted BLING SLIME VØL 1 (shit, I shøuld be crøssing my Ø’s), diamond* makes a case for being the slickest emcee from his city since Baby or Gunna. Listening to nØ idØls, his debut tape from last summer, is like walking through a funhouse with marble floors and stripper poles. Exclusively marked by plush, straightforward cloud rap, it felt disappointingly one-note to me when it dropped, but diamond*’s dulcet melodies and wonky falsettos have since grown on me. Comparatively, BLING SLIME is grittier, less focused on melody and more locked in on hard-nosed rapping. Nearly no one else whose M.O. also revolves around trap shit and sex binges is coming with these kinds of breathless, acrobatic punch-ins, and his ability to fill his vignettes with out-of-pocket humor and aspirational finesse helps tie everything together.
BLING SLIME isn’t as light and airy as nØ idØls, but the undertones are still playful and prismatic. When he’s up for it, like on “FØURS” with Young Thug, diamond*’ll hit these wacky ad-libs that fall somewhere between Yoshi and Mickey Mouse: “Waaa!” As Thug goes to work with yet another generation of his disciples, it’s fascinating how widely his influence is still permeating—but these collaborations are starting to highlight that he’s currently getting lapped by them. He sounds aggressive and determined on “FØURS,” but not effortless like he once did. His timing feels slightly off-center and the surreal, uncanny imagery he’s known for now feels more likely to come from a rapper like diamond* than from Thugger.
A lot of the coolest beats on here are marked by the kind of sappy atmosphere you’ll find on Couple’s Night at a roller rink. I hear the starry keys of “HØRSEBIT” and “3 Wishes,” both co-produced by a dude named Phil, and I imagine diamond* grew up in a house constantly playing wispy R&B from Brandy or Monica. Even “BURGERS N FRIES,” a banger in all respects, is buoyed by a soulful Smokey Robinson sample you might recall from Rocky and Ye. “HEDIS N PELLES” with Pz’ might be one of his most guttural tracks (without Tezzus at least), its beat carried by its buzzsaw bassline.
The high points on this tape showcase diamond* putting on a swag-rap clinic. His bars tend to manifest in stop-and-go streams that are jam-packed and fast-paced, often coming neatly wrapped in near-complete sentences. Nearly any line from “GG” fits this criteria: “My dawg feel like changing his life, keep on steppin’ forever now he want a million/We back-to-back takin’ these drugs, when you come from the trenches you seen too much killin’,” he raps. His punch-ins on “WYD2” are deathly precise, line after line corkscrewing in place without losing pace. “STFU” works similarly, locking in on a wavy flow until he’s thrown off by a girl enough to shift his cadence from unbothered to slightly peeved: “She get mad, start talkin’ too evil/Bitch, why in the fuck would you say that?” BLING SLIME is a real exercise in staying in motion without moving far from where you start. Ironically, diamond* seems poised to blast off.
