Carnage Featuring A$AP Ferg, Rich The Kid & Lil Uzi Vert “WDYW”

When hip-hop talks of appropriation, it's not usually about semantics. It's about race and gender and big, macroscopic things that sociologists and politicians will try to scrutinize and, in turn, co-opt for themselves. But trap is different. The trap was a place, a mood, a sound--the underbelly of the underbelly, the grimiest place on the plaet. Remember T.I.'s Trap Muzik? A far cry from the mixes that would pop up on Soundcloud a decade late with "trap" as the primary tag. The word moved across the Atlantic, taking a foothold as a subgenre of EDM. Where "trap" is something you find in a club after the footwork has run out, American trap rap's hallmarks are held up to a funhouse mirror, bent and distorted into something sparser, simpler, more danceable.

Fortunately, some of the best producers and DJs have reached all the way back, grabbing rappers to meld the two offshoots back into one word. On his new single, Carnage enlists A$AP Ferg, Rich The Kid, and Lil Uzi Vert, turning them loose on the raucous "WDYW." The song--"What Do You Want," of course--menaces, all barks and snarls in its negative space. The three rappers are at their fighting weights, especially Ferg, whose rasp becomes more chameleon-like by the month. There aren't many rappers who can hide Huey P. Newton's name so quietly as to make it percussive.

Listen to "WDYW" below:

[FADER]

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