YOUNG NIGGA PREACH VOL 1: 2SDXRT3ALL
I sat down with the young Atlanta rapper to discuss going viral for beating a kid up, growing up in Atlanta, his unlikely flow, and more.
A week away from the release of his next album, AdlibGod, Atlanta street whisperer 2sdxrt3all, is on the streets of Manhattan, holding a stack of hundreds with blue faces. There’s a particular way that an experienced rapper holds the money they’re making. Drake, for example, looks like a natural holding money. He packs them up and puts the racks near his eyes and ears — a remedy for his deceptively strong middle class values. Usually, a rapper would have them in a rubber band, and is gripping it like a football — holding it tight for the festivities, store, or strip clubs they are about to go to. It’s a signal of success in the American entertainment business known to folks as Hip-hop, a way of being demonstrative about the fortune they’ve achieved. 2sdxrt3all, 18, pronounced “dirtball”, isn’t quite there yet. He keeps fidgeting with his bills like he stole them — perhaps a sign at his charming naivety.
Except, there has not been any stealing — only acidic and introspective rapping. In a tumultuous 2023 for hip-hop, 2sdxrt3all was a welcome surprise for expert rap fans. Few rappers picked better beats this season; few rappers understood that an economical album, as opposed to a megalomaniacal tracklist, is valuable. The four albums that 2sdxrt3all released in 2023 all clocked in at under 36 minutes, showing Yeat, and even Drake that there is such a thing as restraint. The two best albums are gotta be geeked and FUCK SCHOOL, with the latter featuring Florida rapper Luh Tyler. Produced by his manager and eager collaborator, WhyCeg, FUCK SCHOOL has plugg and trap influences. If there is a reason to get bullish about 2sdxrt3all’s potential to expand beyond the confines of street rap, it is in WhyCeg’s eclectic sound. Even something like “get bought”, has bounce to it, allowing 2sdxrt3all’s voice to slide with relative ease. “Everything that has to do with horror goes viral”, WhyCeg says. “I make the beats based off of that.”
Never have I heard a young kid cater his beats to what the internet folk tend to like. It was almost weirdly refreshing despite the realization that even a teenager can’t resist the lure of clicks. 2sdxrt3all’s flow and his overall lyricism, however, is original and startlingly intense — of similar nature to a boy who is throwing a temper tantrum. It’d be wise to almost cover your ears through the headphones. Using a whisper, 2sdxrt3all raps at a low register, insinuating introspective more than talking. Then, as the first sentence is ending — as if his throat is wet and his mouth has bacteria stuck in it — he’ll let out an aggressive scream. On “top 5”, off of FUCK SCHOOL, he utilizes that most effectively (“he should have seen it coming, WITH YOUR OTHER EYE — THE OTHER EYE”). “dis a pain song” has Uncut Gems-like maximalism in its beats, with 2sdxrt3all’s sounding almost calm compared to the rest of the unstable emotion on the record. “make it back” is a street story, the kind that you would hear from Shootergang Kony.
We’ve seen this flow before: It could be considered an update on DMX’s yell, Meek Mill’s yell, and even the pain of Baton Rouge rapper YoungBoy NeverBrokeAgain. Those men use concepts, stories, and their own pain to bring forth a catharsis for the listener. 2Sdxrt3all seems to be like that; he doesn’t sound like he would be on a YSL or a QC song. Those men, such as Gunna and Young Thug, are defined by how loose they are conceptually, and how they bend the line between melody and rapping flow. For a city that has a long rap tradition, it is compelling to see 2Sdxrt3all sound unlike anyone who has come from Atlanta. In the same way New Yorkers had to deal with rappers sounding like other regions, it’s almost like the rap capital has had such a rich legacy, that young rappers are changing the sound. 2sdxrt3all is more Stinc Team than he is the Dungeon Family. “I rap like myself, for real”, 3all says. “I made my own flow.”
Just to be sitting in a restaurant with 2Sdxrt3all means that he’s come a long way. 2Sdxrt3all is from South Atlanta, and had the typical Atlanta childhood: “a lot of fun shit, some dumb shit”, dxrt3all tells me. Rapping with his brother and friends brought him satisfaction. He’d walk in the hallways at his high school, singing songs that they were making on the streets, despite the disapproval of the teachers and principal that would also roam the hallway. “I got kicked out, you feel me?”, 2sdxrt3all said.
Soon, he would be kicked out of school for making fighting videos. The scene is out of a Jet Li film: 2sdxrt3all, who was known as a boxer (“I just like the fight twin”), went into the school’s bathroom and wagered a hundred dollar bill on any suitor who would land a punch on him. All the would-be assaulters left the bathroom besides one, perhaps from hubris, who had already received a beatdown from 2sdxrt3all. “It went viral the second time. I was like Spiderman. Every time I walked into school, everyone knew it was me. It had nine million views on TikTok”, 2sdxrt3all explained to me. (In fact, before WhyCeg knew who 2sdxrt3all was before they started making music together because of this infamous video, which I could not find).
It wasn’t only about scrapping for 2sdxrt3all. Before he officially started rapping, at age 16, tragedy struck for the youngster. 2sdxrt3all’s twin brother was shot below the neck in Atlanta, making life shockingly real. “We were just playing around and doing little stupid shit. We used to do everything together”, says 2sdxrt3all. “At first, twin, I realized that the same thing was going to happen for me. So I had to calm down for real.”
Him dying violently wasn’t the cataylst; he had a sudden lack of control before then. Streets will make a kid, even a precocious one, like that. 2sdxrt3all’s seen cats get killed walking out of chruches; he says this frigidly as if it is second nature.
If there is a reason for 2sdxrt3all dropping music as much as he does, it is because of the violence he has seen. He’s focused more at the age of 18, and he’s just starting to understand what the fruits of
his labor can get him. He’s expecting to go shopping soon, after we finish our Soho dinner. Still, this is nothing compared to the chicken alfredo that he eats when he is in the studio. A smile creeps in his face quickly while we discuss that. “All the anger helps me when I am in the studio”, 2sdxrt3all tells me. “I can release my anger this way.”
Next week, he is set to release AdlibGod, and to cement this, he is going on On the Radar tomorrow, the show where all people come to New York and rap. 2sdxrt3all isn’t a willing freestyler, and he wanted to just do ad-libs. I told him that I felt that he should rap. People click on those videos in order to see new rappers show the general public the skills they have. The internet deserves to hear the talent that 2sdxrt3all has. AdlibGod continues the run that this kid monosyllabic maniac is on. Although, I wanted to see an improvement in the songwriting of the budding rapper, the introspective horror that is his calling card still lands agreeably. “It’s going to be something crazy. Every song and beat is ten times better than the previous record. We made some real shit”, says WhyCeg, who is sitting at the restaurant with us.
“matt ryan”, named after the former Falcons quarterback, is one of the best songs of the year thus far. The beat is chaotic — at times the drums drown out and it is just the piercing bass lines — and 2sdxrt3all raps like he is CEO Trayle; arguments with himself cover the beat. “It’s ight” is without sharp cuts and jarring drums. 2sdxrt3all says, “I’m always in the dark but I had to turn it light/everything is wrong but I gotta make it right!”
You question whether this boy will ever be at peace, but as we were leaving the restuarant, 2sdxrt3all was in a cheery mood — for him. WhyCeg and him were going to go shopping; On the Radar is the next day. Keep this kid rapping.