Ken Car$on
Ken Car$on is a 22-year-old artist from South Atlanta. According to an interview with VFiles, he wasn’t as good at producing as he was at rapping so he decided to focus on the latter, and once he got good enough and made that his focus he started getting beats from Atlanta producers like TM88 and Southside. Car$on soon started to make waves in the rap scene with his unique sound and melodies and this was around the time that Carti was looking to make his first signing for his new label Opium. The two were a match made in heaven and Car$on was signed.
In 2020, Car$on released his first two EPs, Boy Barbie and Teen X. The second, Teen X, included "Yale," one of his biggest hits to date. The production includes some nice synths with hard 808s complimenting them. There’s also a super recognizable melody and sound used to elevate the production and make it a little more memorable. Ken glides through the song with a simple flow utilizing pauses to switch up his cadence and rhythm. The track is catchy, lowkey, and a fun listen.
Ken Car$on opened 2021 by releasing the Lost Files compilation on SoundCloud and his third EP, Teen X: Relapsed, which includes the outstanding song "High as Sh!T." The song is a fun listen that has catchy melodies and a super interesting beat. The track’s melodies stand out and because of that, the song has gotten the online remix treatment where you can find many slow + reverbed tracks on Soundcloud.
Project X, his debut album, was released in July 2021. The standout track on that project has to be “Rock N Roll” which has a very unique sound. The instrumentation is bass and synth-heavy and gives a little trippy-futuristic-space kind of vibe. The different flows keep the track interesting and the chorus is catchy.
Ken Carson actually dropped a track with said label mate Destroy Lonely on SoundCloud. “Murder Musik” is a very distorted track that relies heavily on a punk kind of aesthetic. The autotune and the filter used on the vocals make me imagine a live punk concert kind of vibe. The bass is super heavy and has some variations from the slides used. This is definitely a great genre-bending track.
More recently. Carson dropped his album X that had the standout track “Freestyle 2” which has since gone viral on Tiktok and put a lot more people on to him. Keep your eye on Carson as he has a lane straight to stardom right now.