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By : Logan Woodard
It’s fair to say that motivated and hungry talent is at an all-time high in the world of hip-hop and rap music. With the click of a button, it’s as easy to find someone’s music from across the world as it is to simply post your own for anyone to see. Exposure is a currensy and always will be; However, rapper No Swiper P is taking full advantage of what the internet has to offer. A week ago, this young artist dropped a music video titled “One Up,” a smooth record off his 2020 album dubbed Dark Clouds. Produced by Urban Nerd Beatz, shot by @itsjustlondon and edited by @directorxj, One Up is a fluid, elegant jam with jazzy chords, soft atmosphere, and a crispy set of drums that creates a sort of southern ballad. Swiper cohesively ties rapping and singing together to construct a sort of wave-like harmony that dances around the melody and bass. Singing in rap music isn’t as odd as it used to be, and we can thank legends like Pharrell, Kanye West, Lil’ Wayne, and many more for normalizing what was once seen as a huge no-no. In this modern day, it can almost be expected to hear some sort of harmonization, melodic rapping, or auto-tune jam packed into a classic hip-hop, trap rap, hyper-pop, lo-fi, cloud rap or whatever sub-genre song you can think of. No Swiper P just happens to do this very well here on One Up.
The music video for this laid back track isn’t too eye-catching, nor does it entail any shock value, at least in comparison to a majority of rap music videos that are uploaded by the thousands each day. But, why should it? I think it was adequate on the director and editors part to keep this 4-minute film super simple, but just pleasant enough to the eye that it would keep the viewer on par with the music. There’s a few snazzy transitions here and there, interesting color grading, and pretty decent camera work. Overall, it perfectly displays No Swiper P rapping from his soul along with his cohorts, one of which is using an assault rifle (allegedly) as a guitar of sorts. Even though the song was chill and vibrant in its nature, It definitely provided some comedic relief for me as a viewer.
One thing that’s important to note here is that the music video is featured on the growing rap and hip-hop music channel known as Perfect Plug (@perfectplug). This channel is by far a huge staple in the mainstream and underground community currently, boasting an incredible 112 million views on its Youtube channel and a little under 100K followers on their Instagram. I’m sure most true rap music fans have at some point come across a loosie by their favorite artist promoted by Perfect Plug. Huge shoutout to them and what they’ve been doing for the last seven years.
