There’s a rare and deeply underappreciated serenity that settles in when you start a rap album and realize that it has absolutely no interest in being a TikTok trend. No trap-snare tantrums engineered for 15-second dopamine loops. No wink-wink challenges for teenagers in LED-lit bedrooms. No frantic metaphors desperately auditioning for a slot on a meme page curated by someone named “RapGod1996.” What you get instead, astonishingly, is music made by people who actually like music.
Revoh Wattz and producer Funky Flacco have made something that doesn’t just resist the algorithm; it ghosted it entirely. This isn’t an album that’s vying to be the background noise to someone’s “get ready with me” video. This is grown, deliberate, slightly mysterious hip-hop. It’s music that looks the streaming economy in the eye and calmly says, “No, thank you. We’re full.” And, miraculously, they are.
Funky Flacco’s production doesn’t just nod at boom bap and soul; it slow-dances with them. The drums land with a subtle thump, the loops are textured like aged velvet, and the samples breathe in ways you forgot music could. It’s not retro for the sake of it. It’s not a Pete Rock cosplay. It’s “modern vintage,” the kind of sound that respects its roots without trying to wear them as a costume. It’s less “we miss the ’90s” and more “we understood them the first time.”
And then there’s Wattz; unbothered, self-aware, and blessedly disinterested in theatrics. This is rap without the usual pantomime of dominance. No lyrical arm-wrestling in a room full of ghostwritten gym metaphors. No forced throne talk from people who still confuse virality with power. NONXM isn’t interested in being king, they’re too busy enjoying the real world. If King’s Disease was Nas trying to re-polish the crown, NONXM is about realizing the crown clashes with your outfit anyway.
Wattz raps like someone who’s processed their ambition and comes out the other side slightly amused. There’s no over-explaining, no sonic backflips to prove worthiness. The rhymes are clean, the delivery unhurried, and the whole thing radiates that rarest of artistic traits: composure. It’s the difference between screaming your truths and saying them plainly, with the kind of quiet confidence that makes everyone else in the room sound desperate.
The album, blessedly, is not just a pile of singles arranged by vibe. It’s an album in a nearly mythological format where sequencing, pacing, and emotional arc actually matter. It starts with an energy spike, dips into something softer and more introspective midway, and closes on a high note that doesn’t feel like a send-off so much as a perfectly timed fade-out. The final track, “Livin’ Life Ain’t Free,” is the kind of outro that makes you sit in your car a little longer after parking. Not because you’re emotional, but because it’s giving you something worth thinking about.
And this isn’t nostalgia bait. It’s not trying to bait your serotonin receptors with crackly vinyl samples and faux-poetic dust. It feels lived in. Thought through. Whole. Which, in this current landscape of playlist-padding and two-minute attention grabs, is nothing short of radical.
In its first few hours, NONXM has already earned glowing reception and even snagged a radio spot that felt more like a hangout than a promo tour. And that tracks; the project itself feels like sitting in the back booth of a bar with someone smarter than you, who isn’t trying to impress you, but somehow still does. Effortlessly.
With Flacco’s unhurried, soul-forward instrumentation and Wattz’s casually sharp delivery, this isn’t just a boom bap revival. It’s more like a course correction. A reminder that you can make hip-hop that’s mature without being smug, introspective without being boring, and relevant without being exhausting.
And in an era where music is designed for metrics more than meaning, this album doesn’t scream to be heard. It just speaks clearly, calmly and lets the noise cancel itself.
Which is, in its own subtle way, revolutionary. Or, at the very least, tastefully defiant.
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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.
