Tommy Cash - ¥€$
Estonian rapper, Tommy Cash’s debut album ¥€$ is a genre-bending, experiment in hip-hop. ¥€$ is filled with ample production by Boys Noize, Amnesia Scanner and PC Music’s A.G. Cook & Danny L Harle. The eccentric production perfectly matches Tommy Cash’s quirky personality.
¥€$ opens with ‘WAIT A MINUTE!’, a hard-hitting hip-hop track that boasts stunning drone production. ‘MONA LISA’ keeps up the intensity with gradual distortion and a buoyant, electro-pop chorus featuring Rick Owens. ‘X-RAY’ is an energetic spin on 70’s disco, featuring stunning dance floor ready synthetics. ‘BRAZIL’ features MC Bin Laden rapping in Portuguese over sampled sirens. The track is filled with groans and ad-libs by Tommy Cash, conceptualising his show-stealing personality. Following is the silly and self-aware ‘VEGETARIAN’; a track in which Tommy raps, “I don’t want no beef, I’m vegetarian”. ‘BRAZIL’ and ‘VEGETARIAN’ are both produced by Boys Noize, as are the bubblegum-bass ‘BLACK JEANS, WHITE T-SHIRT’ and the more relaxed ‘NOT CARE’.
‘HORSE B4 PORSCHE’ is eye-catching by name alone, but the track channels a futuristic and chaotic tone through off-kilter lyrics and a relaxed flow. ‘DOSTOYEVSKY’ is truly a sci-fi jam, featuring the sounds of ray guns and sampled chanting. ¥€$ is an album of surprises, but it’s the secret Charli XCX feature on ‘COOL 3D WORLD’ that really outdoes itself. With emo-rap influence, the track feels intimate and calm as Charli adlibs in homage to her 2016 track ‘Vroom Vroom’.
¥€$ closes with ‘YES OR NO?’; a gritty and industrial amalgamation of the project as a whole. ¥€$ has given the world a slice of Tommy Cash’s fun and creative sound, one to match his excitable and indescribable personality.