In a recent profile of his hometown scene, the rapper Mel (of duo The Outfit, TX) describes Dallas as the Bay Area of Texas rap: Both regions are the weirder, more undersung counterparts of their respective states’ dominant hip-hop metropolises. The comparison with California offers a useful paradigm for thinking about the differing sounds of the Lone Star State’s first and third-largest cities. L.A. and Houston rappers have, historically speaking, made music for car speakers: Houston is laid-back and poured up, recorded with your Cadillac in mind. But in the Bay and Dallas, hip-hop is dance music—it’s made for the club. The so-called Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex pumps out more viral dance moves than oil barrels; the DFW is home to the Dougie, popularized by Lil Wil’s “My Dougie” before L.A.’s Cali Swag District taught the whole country how to do it, and the Stanky Legg, as made famous by GS Boyz. Though the area has produced superstars like Erykah Badu and regional legends like Dirty South Rydaz and Big Tuck, its biggest breakthroughs have been relatively short-lived.
Dallas today offers an entire spectrum of styles: the strip-club trippiness of The Outfit, TX; the chart-ready soulfulness of Yella Beezy and Boosie affiliate Mo3; the made-for-the-mosh-pit bars of SPLURGE and Emotional Xan. But on a national scale, it’s still most influential as a source of novelty dances. The latest descendant of the Dougie is the Woah. After a boost from Lil Uzi Vert, the Woah was picked up by the likes of Drake and Travis Scott, but Dallas is making sure to take credit for its latest creation. Though its origins are contested, Def Jam signee 10k.Caash established himself as the authority on all things Woah with last year’s mixtape The Creator.
As its cover art suggests, The Creator was largely educational in nature, staking 10k’s claim as the authentic originator of the Woah. Planet Swajjur (which takes its name from 10k’s intentional mispronunciation of the word “swagger”) attempts to prove that 10k.Caash is more than his most famous creation: not just a viral phenomenon, but a bona fide pop artist with a viable aesthetic universe of his own. Yet memes and other forms of online currency remain his stock in trade. His songs are bite-sized, accompanied on Spotify by looping cell-phone footage—mostly edited on the app Triller—of 10k and friends doing various dance moves. The project’s 10 tracks are designed with virality in mind: not much longer than your average TikTok, with repetitive basslines built for looping. Former Raider Klan affiliate and prolific beatsmith Ronny J lends his producer tag to songs like “Flip Flop” and “Hop Out,” but it’s hardly his most cutting-edge work. 10k’s beats often feel like they’re built from digital Lego bricks: loads of crunchy and compressed bass, colorful synth lines, and a few loops that sound like GarageBand presets.
The Creator showcased co-signs from a menagerie of very online rappers—Rico Nasty, RiFF RAFF, Famous Dex, Lil Yachty, Matt Ox—but 10k.Caash is now using his newfound clout to raise the profiles of other emerging artists. In addition to Dallas comrades GUN40 and DSmooth66, Planet Swajjur features appearances from L.A.’s Sexton, Maryland’s TyFontaine, and upstate New York’s Young Jordan, as well as more established guests like Zoey Dollaz and fellow Texan TikTok star TisaKorean. It’s a lineup that’s as regionally diverse as it is stylistically varied, from Sexton’s half-sung, trilling raps to TyFontaine’s bright and exuberant choruses. But these contributions are so brief as to be rendered largely unmemorable. The only real heavyweight this time around is Chance the Rapper, with a guest verse on “Me And My Friends” that’s the hip-hop equivalent of a Cameo shout-out.
In both sound and presentation, 10k’s most formative influence is Soulja Boy, the original internet rapper. DeAndre Way might still be considered a novelty by some, but there’s no denying the untouchable effect he’s had on the last decade of hip-hop: an early pioneer of FruityLoops and digital production, one of the first to figure out how to use social media to his advantage, and the original otaku rapper before everybody and their mother was name-dropping One Punch Man. Like his stylistic forefather, 10k has the signature trend, but he’s got a bit further to go if he wants to reach Soulja Boy levels of saturation. 10k has proved his musical planet is worth visiting; whether or not he’s more than the sum of his viral dance videos remains to be seen.
