The first time I listened to redveil was earlier this year when JPEGMAFIA and Danny Brown dropped their album, “SCARING THE HOES” this past March. When I first heard the track redveil was on, “Kingdom Hearts Key”, I thought it was Denzel Curry rapping given his past feature on Peggy’s “LP!”. I was really confused though when I went back through the album and found out it was an artist called redveil. Curious, I looked through their discography and found this great EP called “playing w/ fire”.
“playing w/ fire” is a hip hop EP that dropped this past April, from the young Maryland-born artist and producer, redveil. It showcases six tracks that are equally as unique in production as they are enjoyable to listen to.
A Lovely Intro
The EP starts off with “stuck” which not only feels like a great intro given its build up with the track’s layering, but it also feels like redveil wants to show off their production skills before we enter the EP. The track adds onto itself constantly for the first minute until it later becomes this grandiose sound. A singer is going off in the background, the bass from earlier in the song is still providing a solid foundation, and now the brass parts, that were originally playing in the lower register, are now playing in the upper register with a confident sound.
As we’re at the peak of this rollercoaster, it immediately cuts all sounds except the organ and a message from redveil’s uncle plays. A message that inspired redveil to name the EP “playing w/ fire”
“Just wanna say, I’m so proud of you man. They don’t know that playing with redveil is playing with fire.”
“stuck” – redveil
After this message, we then move on to the rest of the EP that focuses more on the hip hop aspect of redveil’s music.
The Music
If it isn’t obvious from that spiel, “stuck” is one of my favorite tracks off the EP. However it’s competing with another track I love called “captain”. Unlike the intro, this track gets straight into its melody which makes me jump around while I’m listening. redveil’s style in this “playing w/ fire” just feels so fun to listen to. Although each track is unique, each of them hit that same feeling of ‘I love this so much’ followed by unintentional head jamming or something of the sort.
Because the EP is fifteen minutes long, and because all of the tracks are pretty good, I would simply recommend listening to it in its entirety without shuffle. redveil did a great job at meshing these tracks together so none of the transitions between them feel disjointed.
Overall
As someone who has never listened to redveil prior, I found this EP to be a great introduction to dive further into his discography with his albums like “learn 2 swim” or “Niagara”. I loved what I heard off of this EP, and am really looking forward to any of redveil’s future projects.
This EP is great listen if you’re a fan of the genre or simply just looking for some good music to pass the time.
