The young New York rapper and his producer brother have already found success on TikTok, but their strange and poignant full-length debut proves there’s far more to their craft.
In less than a year, New York teen Judah Weston has become the prince of TikTok’s For You page algorithms. But if you look beyond the ridiculous stitches of his biggest single to date, “Ra Ta Dia,” one of which features a content creator dressed like Mermaid Man, it’s undeniable that there’s something timeless about its hook. In another era, his hard-nosed coke raps could have blown up in a much cooler way, say, during the 2010s blog era. You can imagine a throng of hipsters over from Brooklyn watching him put on some chaotic but legendary set at the Alife Rivington Club, after which record label exec Jonny Shipes signs Judah and IsoKeys on the spot so he can throw them into the Smokers Club tour that summer.
Judah’s actual come-up tale can be found on “Creative Geniuses,” a “Through the Wire”-esque closer to his delightfully weird and poignant debut, Why So Much Hate. Over an IsoKeys beat that sounds like a high school band’s attempt at covering a song off Paul’s Boutique, Judah proudly runs through his story in less than four minutes. The SparkNotes goes like this: He went from a juvenile offender to an aspiring rapper who shamelessly posted on TikTok every day until Shipes slid into his DMs—like “a little IG thot”—before signing him to his label, GoodTalk. It’s not exactly cinematic, but you can’t blame Judah Weston for gaming the social media algorithms at a time when even New York’s mayor has to reach his youngest constituents through Sidetalk interviews.
What that also means is that anyone vaguely familiar with Judah Weston has probably only heard a few seconds of his music. Your introduction has likely been through Instagram or TikTok cuts of his “Lyrical Lemonade” or “On the Radar” YouTube freestyles, which are so oversaturated that it naturally makes everyone question if he’s an industry plant or another white rapper being carelessly platformed. But once you move beyond these short clips and off-the-cuff TikToks filmed outside the public high school where he just graduated, you realize that he’s rapping for more than just internet clout. On Why So Much Hate, it’s clear he’s really spitting for hard-knock kids like himself.
“I know how it feels to have nobody around to give you love, I used to sit on my bathroom floor and cry when I needed hugs,” Judah calmly utters on “I’m Selling Crack Mama.” He drops bars like a church confessional, alongside an ambitious producer striving to stretch beyond the genre like a Gen Z Rick Rubin. The dynamic is at its best when Judah glides over IsoKeys’ beats like two kids trying to be suave while hopping an MTA turnstile with one tap. It’s most evident on standouts like “Thug,” where Judah effortlessly flows about the toll of New York street life with as much sorrow as Lil Tjay over a cloud rap beat that feels more fitting for Yung Lean’s 2013 debut.
The desire to make fresh New York rap that isn’t indebted to drill, or chasing broader Gen-Z hip-hop trends such as jerk and rage rap, sometimes leads to experiments that don’t land anywhere. While the reggae-inspired “Too High to Think” grooves with a melancholic chorus about self-medicating growing pains, the detour into country on “Bourbon” will not help Judah beat broad generalizations that all white rappers eventually ditch rap to make chart-pandering music for Middle America. But sometimes, the risks pay off. “Toe on the Gas” and “Baby” feel like IsoKeys attempting to make LCD Soundsystem songs, and Judah stumbles into the booth like James Murphy, if he decided to open a strip club instead of a wine bar in Williamsburg.
Why So Much Hate feels too underdeveloped lyrically to come off as strong as other precocious teenage debuts like Joey Bada$$’ 1999. But occasionally, Judah offers a wise-beyond-his-years perspective on his profession. Over the honky tonk piano beat of “Music Industry,” he raps about scamming his own label for money, fully keeping up the spirit of A Tribe Called Quest’s industry rule No. 4,080. “Crack just like sellin’ music/Frontin’ work is finance/Poppin’ pills so you can stay outside is time plannin’,” he cooly recites before declaring that he’d rather sell crack than deal with any suits in L.A. In an industry where any TikTok jester can become an overnight celeb, Judah Weston is at least one kid who’s worth stopping on your timeline for.
