Pesh Milli Drops New Single

When it comes to a trend like the surreal hip-hop movement, there’s no slowing down the momentum we’re seeing in the underground half of the scene; artists like Pesh Milli aren’t about to back away from the opportunities in front of them, and in his new single “V Roy,” Milli is demonstrating a potency that is bound to set his sound apart from the competition right now. There’s been a lot of talk about a lack of urgency in the current hip-hop narrative, but in this track we have a rapper who appears to be taking that issue to task himself – with some of the slickest verses I’ve caught up with in a minute.

I dig the way Milli is ready to slash through this bassline despite the fact that the drums aren’t really providing as much of a groove as they should; to some extent, I think this showcases just how little has to rely on any of the instrumental componentry to make a fat beat feel even more imposing. He’s good at utilizing whatever is in front of him when it comes to getting his point across, and the total lack of synthetics in this mix is all the more telling about what matters to him as an artist.

This has been one of the worst years for mastering that I’ve reviewed since becoming a hip-hop critic a number of years ago, but you’d never guess as much just going off of the example outlined in “V Roy.” Instead of piling everything on top of each other here, Pesh Milli is going out of his way to spread out the depth of the melodic instrumentation, almost ensuring that we feel immersed in the stereophonic sound of the music rather than getting caught up on the hook exclusively. Well-rounded rap is a commodity in 2022, and anyone who loves the genre will tell you as much.

Pesh Milli isn’t one to step back from the microphone until he’s said everything that is on his mind, and I was able to recognize that just when listening to the opening stanza in “V Roy.” His determination, much like the passion he has for the model, is something he’s not hiding from us in any department here, but instead a banner he celebrates like it’s proof of his authenticity in the game (which, in some ways, it kind of is). I like the catharsis he delivers with this approach, and it’s a shame some of his peers can’t do the same.

I don’t often say this about artists in any genre, let alone one as hot as hip-hop is at the moment, but Pesh Milli is someone who is living up to the hype surrounding his music and giving us a lot of reasons to keep tabs on what he’s cultivating in the studio at the moment. “V Roy” is a declaration of ability, and it’s one that definitely took me by surprise when I first heard it just a couple of weeks ago.

Mindy McCall