On his 2013 song “Lonely,” South Carolina rapper Speaker Knockerz sounds like C-3PO with a splash of AutoTune, backed by pianos soft enough for a lullaby. “I had to make a couple bands by my lonely,” he sings, and his expressionless voice suggests he’s trying to hold back tears over a stack of money, like Jada Pinkett Smith in the final scene of Set It Off. It was a regional hit, and became something bigger than that after his tragic death at 19 the following year. The song trickled its way up the East Coast to New York, and Speaker Knockerz’s handful of mixtapes became a lodestar for a new scene of singing rappers 700 miles from his hometown: artists like A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, Lil Tjay, Jay Gwuapo, and most obviously, Lil Tecca.
Coming from the Five Towns, a section of Long Island that abuts Queens, the 18-year-old Lil Tecca has made Speaker Knockerz’s impact on his music openly known. But even if he never admitted it, you’d be able to tell. “Ransom,” Tecca’s 2019 breakout moment, feels particularly indebted, as he glides over a bright and bubbly beat with a monotone flow, sounding like the kid who got called on by the teacher after sleeping at the back of the classroom. Tecca channels the style well, but there’s an element of Speaker Knockerz that mere imitation can’t capture: he was a writer, filling songs like his “Rico Story” trilogy with the narrative detail of a Carl Franklin neo-noir. On Lil Tecca's debut album Virgo World, he compensates for his lack of a pen with a pocketful of catchy rhythms and melodies, but they don’t have enough spark to elevate the filler.
This isn’t an attempt to nitpick about rappers who lack substance, but they do have to say some memorable or cool shit eventually. The lifestyle Lil Tecca documents in his songs is mundane, which isn’t necessarily a strike against him; plenty of other rappers have found ways to make the uneventful pop. Babyface Ray packs his songs with colorful specifics that make it feel as if you’re there, and Curren$y can make the most monotonous days sound glamorous. Virgo World’s boasts and observations are too generic to resonate in the same way. “For all that I been through and all that I’m goin through next/I’ma always be myself and we gon’ count up these checks,” he raps twice on “No Answers.”
Tecca’s storytelling faults are most clear on “When You Down.” Next to Lil Durk and Polo G, who are both pouring their hearts out, Tecca sing-raps about faceless haters and friends who have turned their backs on him, a writing crutch he leans on repeatedly. On “Insecurities,” he sings, “Real nigga shit, niggas not how they seem like/Real nigga shit, I’m goin’ up and niggas seem tight.” These impersonal and unspecific lines are made even more lifeless by a Taz Taylor and Nick Mira beat that’s like a watered down version of an instrumental from Popcaan’s Fixtape.
Since Lil Tecca emerged on SoundCloud in 2018, his best songs have been the ones where the melodies, production, and good vibes outweigh the blandness of whatever he’s saying. In keeping with that trend, Virgo World’s strongest cut is “Selection,” a Skrillex and DJ Scheme pop record that captures the fun of that “Sorry,” “Where Are Ü Now,” and “What Do You Mean?” summer of 2015. Tecca also has an affinity for light Afro-Fusion records; “Level Up” and “Closest to Heaven” are a pair of moody, slow-wining dance cuts that I selfishly wish were released in June. But these glimpses of vibrancy don’t come often enough.
Nobody is asking Lil Tecca to be profound, or even to make sense. But at least give us the full picture of what you’re talking about. Who turned their back on you? Who is fake? What are you wearing? What are you drinking? What city are you in? Who or what is making you feel this way? These sorts of details helped Speaker Knockerz mixtapes travel from South Carolina and into Tecca’s Long Island home. So far, it’s hard to imagine Lil Tecca’s music making the same sort of journey.
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