Old school gangster rap revivalist, Young Downs (real name, Cameron Downs) has been excavating bars and beats and kicking his own rhymes to the rhythm for over a decade. Now, the Cape Town-based KZN-born rapper has penned a flex-worthy 22-track rap anthology titled YOUNGEN.
Written by the 23-year-old creative and produced by JayTay and McK, YOUNGEN is a well-executed display of ideas and experiences founded on heady lyrics about life’s shiny bells and whistles, as well as the not so shiny ones.
The selection of beats baked into each track are based around pounding 808’s accompanied by common threads that hold the considered project together which range from personal growth and confidence in “Worth” and “Serious”, to politics in “Ego” and “In The Pits”.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the South African hip hop industry is saturated with insane talent right now making it increasingly difficult to stand out from the crowd. However, out of the ten projects Young Downs has worked on to date, YOUNGEN may just be the one that cements his foot in the door. Let’s see what the self-proclaimed underdog does next to get through said door.
