There’s a certain type of rapper who spends years buffing their sound until it’s as glossy and frictionless as a Spotify playlist made for dental offices. BruceBan$hee is not that rapper. His new EP, 4th Wall, is what happens when you take the polite façade of modern alt-rap, set it on fire, and then throw the ashes into a pit full of punk kids who haven’t slept in three days. It’s loud, it’s messy, it’s experimental, and crucially; it’s fun.
The title isn’t just branding. The “fourth wall” is the thing separating performer from audience, the magic trick that keeps you watching instead of participating. BruceBan$hee tears it down in the first thirty seconds. This isn’t “press play, sit back, nod your head.” This is “press play, get up, and risk putting a hole in your drywall.”
The opening track, “MO$hpit!”, does not negotiate. It doesn’t say “welcome to the record,” it says “welcome to your impending concussion.” It channels the rage-rap energy of Sheck Wes but strips it of any commercial sheen. This isn’t the mosh pit in the festival promo video; it’s the one in a half-lit basement where the floorboards are questionable and someone’s definitely bleeding.
Then there’s “CtrlAltDel,” which is what happens when a rap song decides to corrupt itself like a broken hard drive. It’s got the glitchy menace of Chills’ darker tracks, but with BruceBan$hee treating his voice like a digital weapon; clipped, distorted, shredded until it sounds less like he’s rapping and more like he’s trying to claw his way out of a bad dream.
“Ride or Die” is the closest thing to a breather, but even then it feels unstable. The production borrows from Drake’s mid-2010s moody catalog, yet instead of offering smooth luxury, BruceBan$hee keeps all the grit in. The vocals don’t glide; they scrape. It’s like taking a velvet couch and leaving it out in the rain; still recognizable, but warped, heavier, and undeniably more interesting.
The emotional centerpiece is “Stillsadcobain.” Yes, the Lil Uzi Vert parallels are obvious, but this track doesn’t feel like cosplay. It’s a song that wears despair like a uniform, turning vulnerability into a performance of defiance. You don’t nod your head to this one so much as you wince and grin at the same time.
And then there’s “PullUp,” the shortest and maybe most tantalizing track here. Its emo-meets-nu-metal production hints at a future where BruceBan$hee leans even harder into hybrid chaos. It’s the outro, but it feels more like a trailer for what’s next: messy, jagged, and brimming with ideas too big for this EP to contain.
What makes 4th Wall work isn’t just the energy. It’s the refusal to pretend. The underground is full of artists who claim to be “raw” while still chasing industry polish. BruceBan$hee actually means it. These songs creak, snarl, glitch, and stumble, but never collapse. They thrive in imperfection. They demand to be experienced in their brokenness, like a VHS tape that somehow sounds better because of the static.
The whole project is eight tracks, short and sharp, like Ye or Kids See Ghosts. But instead of Kanye’s grandiosity or Cudi’s spaciness, BruceBan$hee doubles down on something simpler and riskier: sincerity through chaos. It’s experimental alt-rap not as a gimmick but as an instinct, and it leaves you slightly dazed in the best possible way.
4th Wall is not music for everyone. It’s not supposed to be. If you want background vibes, go queue up something “lofi chill beats to study to.” But if you want to feel like music is grabbing you by the face and demanding your attention, this is where you go. The wall is down, the performer is in your living room, and he’s not leaving until you acknowledge he’s got something to say.
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About the Author
A tenured media critic known working as a ghost writer, freelance critic for publications in the US and former lead writer of Atop The Treehouse. Reviews music, film and TV shows for media aggregators.
