Nearly 10 minutes pass before you hear a single snare drum on Chuckyy’s I Live, I Die, I Live Again. The 19-year-old Chicago emcee rose to street-rap prominence last year on the strength of a Lil Durk cosign and his keen appropriation of the diabolical drill beats favored by Philly artists like Skrilla and Ot7Quanny, but his sound was distinct: pared-down choral, Blumhouse-slasher instrumentals that put sharp focus on his deadpan performances. But on the first half of his latest tape, he’s backed by little more than reverb-laden chanting and murky bass pulses, building tension for beat drops that never arrive. At its best, I Live, I Die, I Live Again drops all semblances of song structure, allowing verses to breathe and Chuckyy’s trains of thought to digress. He knows it’s the anticipation, not the jumpscare itself, that makes a horror flick effective. At a time when bite-sized virality reigns supreme, it’s refreshing to sit through a slow-burning tape that unfolds at its own patient pace.
I Live’s opening stretch is radically sparse, not just in its complete lack of percussion but also in Chuckyy’s refusal to repeat himself: Cuts like “2-Double-O Dash” and “FREE SMURK OFNG” play out like radio freestyles recorded live from the Shadow Realm, Hell’s bells tolling behind surreal images wrenched from his stream of consciousness. On opener “Wemby,” he matter-of-factly chains drill tropes with a sense of strategy, as if he’s priming the pocket for absurd imagery that’s still cooking. The gems that do emerge amid the eerie, wordless background vocals are vivid and eccentric. Twenty-dollar bills bloom in his backpack like seaweed. A basketball metaphor that might otherwise read as trite turns hilarious when Chuckyy remembers that Kevin Durant tanked his parlay.
Kicking off the tape with its most unorthodox song is a bold move, but one that pays off. By annihilating expectations about drops and hooks from the jump, Chuckyy is free to build whatever structures he’d like within the newly cleared space. “Hiccup,” with its pizzicato strings and canned brass, reconfigures a first-wave trap palette into a delicate MIDI symphony. By the time the track arrives on I Live it feels less like a radical outlier and more like a logical progression from its predecessors, adding a subtle jolt of energy to the Gothic haze.
After filtering out his less adventurous listeners, Chuckyy stacks the B-side of I Live, I Die, I Live with a suite of more familiar fare. “Hotseat” opens with a verse from fellow Chicago native LUCKI, the tape’s sole guest and one of Chuckyy’s most recognizable influences. Bolstered by a spectral bit of Three 6 Mafia pastiche (complete with hi-hats, snares, and kicks this time!), the duo sound like they’re duking it out to see who can appear more nonchalant. The elder statesman wins out in the end, flashing his technicality without breaking a sweat: LUCKI’s use of syncopated snares to divide bars into bite-sized units makes dashed-off lines like “take pink 30s like it’s a mint” or “Patek remind me of Dove” feel vivid. Locking in with one of his heroes puts a battery in Chuckyy’s back, and although there’s a skill gap between them, I’m fond of the way he refers to the color-changing effect of Promethazine on his Fanta as “power of the Tristan,” adding some magical realist flair to the image.
