There’s a scene at the start of Game of Thrones that lingers in the back of my mind. Two knights are jousting for an audience of royals, aristocrats, and commonfolk. One of them, the brolic, seemingly unstoppable “The Mountain,” suffers a shocking loss to Ser Loras, the effeminate Knight of the Flowers. Embarrassed and incredibly pissed off, the Mountain decapitates his horse with a massive sword. Spectators can’t do anything but gasp. This is the nature of medieval bloodsport; unless you’re willing to put your life on the line, you accept it for what it is. This is also the lay of the land according to Zukenee, the latest in Atlanta’s lineage of rap-game world-builders.
If you’re sufficiently entrenched in this underground rap scene, you already know the character archetypes: the androgynous vamp, the bloodthirsty demon, the nonchalant bag-chaser. It’s all just role-playing, foreal. But this sense of predictability makes it interesting when someone presents something half-original, like using dungeons and dragons as metaphors for what goes on in the trenches. Zukenee’s latest full-length, SLAYTANIC, transposes gold-grilled bravado and block-level anecdotes to medieval theatre, solidifying his role as rap’s newest knight in shining armor. SLAYTANIC builds on the motifs of last year’s BIRTH OF ST. SLAY, a well-rounded breakout that brought The Legend of Zelda to the Dirty South (peep “Flannels”). A month after its release, Zukenee performed “Mary Kate” at Rolling Loud with silver gauntlets on his wrists and a hype man wearing chainmail; in the music video, he lights a spliff with a wax candle. Sometimes you’ll catch him and his “slayers” toting swords like Jon Snow. You get the point.
SLAYTANIC is bookended by its two strongest tracks. “Cut Ya Hand” begins with a scrappy fiddle loop that works way better than it should over classic trap drums, as if the court jester was too goofy to realize he’s playing off key. “Cut ya hand, shake my hand,” Zukenee raps, setting the scene with a blood pact. By virtue of natural charisma, he threads between myth and reality. The production, helmed by Cade and Desmos, helps blur those lines: Pay attention as the lush flutes and tip-toeing keys on “Nun” drop out and hooves clop past. Left with nowhere to go on outro “In the Woods,” Zukenee seduces a girl in nature’s embrace. SLAYTANIC is full of tongue-in-cheek, braggadocious lyricism, but occasionally a cogent metaphor veils Zukenee’s vulnerability. Sex is the first thing on his mind, but when he laments, “The village burned down/I miss my neighborhood,” it’s real-life gentrification that lies within sight.
Still, there’s plenty of fun to be had. SLAYTANIC bustles with anthemic, call-and-response-type refrains like the ones on “Cut Ya Hand” and “Bromance”; a big part of the appeal is Zukenee’s proclivity for earworms. Trunk-rattlers like “Gimme Gimme Interlude” and “Sticks and Swords” deserve to go platinum on I-75 just off the strength of their drums, but Zukenee’s larger-than-life presence makes rap-alongs feel compulsory. He really is Southern through and through, from the verve in his cadence to his out-of-pocket, Thug-adjacent word association. I chuckle when he says “Money longer than a Sudanese slim dude,” and then I think, “Damn, Bol Bol is pretty tall.”
Zukenee clearly likes classic trap; he channels vintage T.I. on “Stoopid Fool” and both “Spontaneous Slay” and “Yoga” sound like MTV Cribs montage music. In theory, it’s cool to see him call back to a bygone era (especially one most rappers aren’t pulling from right now), but the best parts of SLAYTANIC don’t revolve around 2000s nostalgia. “Hot Ass Greece” is a return to theme that plays with pitch-shifting strings and vocal effects, even if the production is too stagnant to totally work. That willingness to experiment with scene-setting sets Zukenee apart, though. In the record’s final moments, as quivering violin and double bass echo in negative space, the curtains close in front of a space no one else inhabits. It’s just him and King Arthur.
