I was still figuring out who matt proxy was when I saw his tweet about the sudden death of his sister in the spring. trojan horse, the debut album from the 19-year-old Minneapolis rapper-producer, arrives at a gut-wrenching crossroads of triumph and loss. proxy is a budding star online who puts SoundCloud-native intensity in conversation with post-Ye, post-Odd Future, and post-everything hip-hop. Here, his jagged, heterogenous sound template has reached a fever pitch: trojan horse’s ear-splitting tonal shifts, distorted transitions, and pained revelations are constant and ever-changing. Its sequencing is so restless it’s almost uncomfortable.
proxy’s music leans toward sensitivity, but his disposition is free-spirited. If you watch the random cook-ups and FL tutorials he likes to post on his personal YouTube page, it’s clear he loves to troll, but the videos also illuminate his knack for stream-of-consciousness, right-here-right-now compulsion. He’s an open book online and a popular face among his peers: In his hometown, he’s broken bread with local acts like Lil Shine and seventhirtyatmorning and bonded with JPEGMAFIA and fakemink while opening for each of them at the Fillmore. At Summer Smash in Illinois last month, he looked like Veteran-era Peggy or XXXTentacion (two major influences) onstage, thrashing his body, barking on his hands and knees, swallowing his lyrics whole. He’s since been in close contact with Ye and is geeked about it.
proxy is as voracious as anyone in rap right now and trojan horse is eager to show it. With help from fakemink and upstart producer-songwriter never goodbye, “5” opens the album with drunken, fuzzy guitar strums and pitch-shifted melodies, imbuing the tingly anticipation on the precipice of a warm weekend. Don’t get used to that shit, though—as soon as “5” gives way to “Stars,” you’re met with bruising, face-scrunching 808 distortion. His verse on “5” was deadpan and measured, but now proxy’s yelling and growling, setting off DJ tags and dropping shards of guitar into a mix that’s clipping so bad it starts buffering. As loud as he’s ad-libbing, his voice is barely audible at the bottom of the rubble. These kinds of high-contrast heel turns are abundant on trojan horse, and they can be as exciting as they can sloppy and incongruous.
There are stretches when the record’s nervy shapeshifting becomes too much for its own good. “New Solution,” produced by Grimes, starts off ominously with dark, squelching bass and creaturely intonations, but once the beat drops with dissonant electronics and clanking rhythms, it loses momentum. It sounds too dated, like a track that was left off of Veteran, especially in how proxy fiddles with his cadence. trojan horse works when his influences feel subtle, but “Sorry,” like “New Solution,” sticks out for being the opposite. The IGOR-inspired ballad proves his ability to write a sticky hook, but it’s too saccharine to match the tone set by the rest of the album. It’s a too-obvious step back in time from an artist clearly capable of pushing shit forward.
By comparison, tracks like “God” and “Misery” are the best demonstrations of matt proxy’s individualism. The latter materializes fuzzy and squeaky, the beat and vocals compressed like a chintzy Limewire bootleg. “Darling, I’m not blaming you for all my misery,” the sample cries as proxy mulls over his personal failures and the trials of a youthful long-distance relationship. But just as quickly it all fades out, and a new, deeply exultant beat bursts like a supernova, full of fist-pumping drums and beautiful, harmonious Auto-Tune crunch. “God” is equally triumphant. Featuring never goodbye and bedroom-rock mainstay Current Joys, its climax is marked by floor-to-ceiling synths, crashing cymbals, and thunderous guitar dissonance. “I’ve been myself, delusional optimist,” proxy spits over pretty guitar plucks and cherubic backing vocals. “My mama working after hours just to put food on my lips.” It’s a cry-once-you-get-to-the-movie-credits ass song if I’ve ever heard one.
matt proxy clearly has a lot to say, and not just about his own life, but also the state of the world around him. With that comes a tendency to fill his verses and vocal samples with non-sequiturs and vague references: I love “5” for its woozy, drug-induced yearning, but when he hamfists four bars about prison and homelessness, it feels like the start of something new that should’ve been separate. His dedications to his family are consistently the most memorable parts of trojan horse, and he’s most evocative when he’s extremely direct. At one point during the melancholic “Blue,” as he hums to himself over some noodly guitar, a cheesy DJ voice says, “Rest in peace my sister,” stuttering like it was a tag on a dubstep drop. Maybe humor is how he processes loss. I’m genuinely not sure if I’m meant to chuckle or feel more sorrowful than I already do.
Without being tied to a major rap metropolis, proxy’s influences aren’t organized by region; trojan horse feels like the output of a teenager biologically linked to his DAW and search engine. But that doesn’t make his hometown any less consequential. Minneapolis is also where the murders of George Floyd, Philando Castile, Renée Good, and Alex Pretti have all occurred in the past decade, as proxy came of age. “It was literally made to radicalize people,” he said to Welcome Magazine of Minnesota. Last year, following proxy’s high school graduation, his father was detained by ICE while driving from Minneapolis to Atlanta and deported to Liberia after six months in detention. “Fuck the president and his sentiment, I’m hot/Let me tell you ’bout my pops,” proxy raps on “Atlanta,” where he speaks from his father’s perspective to counsel his younger self: “Matthew, if a nigga try you, you is fighting. You only have yo’self ’cause the world is enticing.”
For what trojan horse lacks in lucidity, it’s got this pervasive fighting spirit that makes the rough edges bearable. proxy’s willingness to depict his world in its rawest form and to embrace cruel authenticity is not common in underground rap of this ilk. Maybe what we need is less escapism. You can’t run from the grind and you damn sure can’t run from grief.
