A rapper, a streamer, and a leaker step into a vehicle. Who’s sitting behind the wheel?
OsamaSon could probably tell you. En route to the biggest release of his young career, the 21-year-old spitfire has been riding shotgun. The amount of his music that’s leaked in the past year forced several delays for his highly anticipated third album, Jump Out. Osama’s fans spent 2024 begging for official versions of songs meant to stay private, songs that could’ve gone on the album if only leakers hadn’t already released them. Last summer, Osama pulled up on Kick streamer BruceDropEmOff for a livestream and witnessed a song leak in real time. Just three weeks earlier, he’d had 400 songs leaked in one go. And it’s not for no reason: After breaking out with two back-to-back projects, 2023’s Osama Season and Flex Musix, the South Carolina rapper has become the figurehead of post-COVID SoundCloud—a high-octane, 808-driven destructionist. Songs like “Trenches” are the reason why iPhones come with headphone warnings; the onslaught of bass paired with OsamaSon’s strained, exigent punch-ins are a match made in hell (that’s a compliment).
Since emerging two summers ago, Osama’s not-so-discreet adulation for Playboi Carti has been a subject of scrutiny. The influence manifests in his music, in old visualizers, and cover art; some have even compared their ’fit pics. But in the same way that Cash Carti once used Chief Keef’s sound as a launchpad, Osama melds his favorite rapper’s early echoic staccato into something more corrosive. There’s a thin line between mimicry and reinvention, and OsamaSon has gradually nudged past the threshold. On Jump Out, his sound is as distinct as it’s ever been, resulting in some of his most bone-shattering work to date. At 18 tracks, the album can at times feel exhausting, but its torrential downpour of synths and 808s is ultimately rewarding.
Carnage propagates in every crevice of this record. The seismic jolt of “Fool,” the demented showmanship of “Round of Applause”; it’s all brazen by design. If the drums sound like they’re suffocating the mix, it’s because they’re supposed to. When the beats crackle on “GTFO the Room” or “Mufasa,” I feel like a kid in Florida again, watching SUVs slide by with speakers so loud you could feel the music more than you could hear it. Is it jarring? Sure, maybe. But all I remember thinking back then was, “What song was that guy playing?” A major architect behind this sound and Jump Out’s overall chaos is Charlotte-born beatsmith ok, the album’s executive producer, who’s credited on 15 tracks. Practically every rapper born after 9/11 has a song with that “ok is the hardest” tag on it (Glokk40spaz, xaviersobased, fakemink, YhapoJJ); last year, he executive-produced Nettspend’s BAD ASS F*CKING KID. Inevitable is an understatement. On lead single “The Whole World Is Free,” ok presents Osama with the brightest, most forward-thinking piece in his catalog: A feverish, polychromatic Skrillex flip completely submerged by volcanic percussion.
