by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
Rome Streetz has been on a tear, leaving a trail of relentless rhymes and cold lyricism in his wake. He’s established himself as the pound for pound, bar for bar, champ of the New York City underground, an MC with great vision. With an intricate portrayal of a life doing dirt and his ability to body any beat flipped his way, Rome Streetz has nothing to prove. While he spent the first four years of his career releasing records every few months, he’s decided to let everyone breathe. Rome Streetz understands that its a marathon and not a sprint. What was trendy yesterday won’t be trendy tomorrow, so he’s bucking trends altogether and creating for himself, making timeless hip-hop in the process. Rome Streetz is simultaneously high voltage and laid back.
It would seem that 2019’s Noise Kandy 3 marked a turning point in his trajectory, the album cementing him as one to watch. a generational talent writing with an inherent sense of smooth menace. Following album length collaborations with producers DJ Muggs, Futurewave, and Farma Beats among others, Rome Streetz released Kiss The Ring, his first for Griselda Records, the modern pinnacle for hard boom-bap. Executive produced by Westside Gunn, the record was business as usual for Rome Streetz, operating with precision over dusty yet crystalline production from Griselda’s in house team of Conductor Williams, Camoflauge Monk, and, Daringer in addition to high profile contributions from The Alchemist, SadhuGold, and DJ Green Lantern. With incessant lyricism and a hard delivery, Rome Streetz arrived at the upper echelon by staying true to himself. When given the chance to show and prove, Kiss The Ring seized the opportunity, an introduction for the uninitiated and a defining statement.
Where some rappers find critical acclaim and feel the need to flood the block with new records, Streetz is content to let it marinate. His albums are lyrically dense, with compact rhyme schemes and plenty to unpack, and he’s allowing time for everyone else to catch up. There’s a tendency in hip-hop to bury releases prior to their gestation period, and Rome Streetz is cognizant of it. Kiss The Ring was his only release in 2022 and while he released two albums in 2023, they were nine months apart, a show of learned restraint. That first album, Wasn’t Built In A Day, produced in full by Big Ghost Ltd, was an early highlight, a dark and kinetic record of eerie keys and booming beats. The second was Noise Kandy 5, the return to Rome Streetz’s signature series, a place of artistic freedom where he’s able to shape the sound to his whim.
Over beats from both emerging and established producers including Wavy Da Ghawd, Sovren, Evidence, SadhuGold, Conductor Williams, and more, the production on Noise Kandy 5 matches the high level of his rhymes, a combination of psychedelic boom-bap haze and vibrant soul loops. Opening with a clip from Christopher Walken’s “King of New York,” the tone is set with a grisly immediacy on “Second Seizure” as Rome Streetz takes his opportunity to talk his shit over a Piff James beat lurking in the shadows. He bends his bars and glides his cadence, spitting flagrant rhymes,“You ain't slick as me, this is fly-level ghetto wizardry, to mindfuck the devil with my trickery,” later expanding “really though, this is well-crafted acid, street-savvy mathematics, comin' live through your stereo, they all praise the god even if they ain't really spiritual.” This isn’t just another avalanche of braggadocios swagger though, Streetz is aware that for every rise there’s also a fall, and explores themes of trust issues, oppositional greed and envy, the cost of gun violence, and time spent behind bars. Surrounded by snakes, Rome Streetz keeps on a swivel, he’s offering knowledge in a savage land, highlighted on songs like the prismatic “Go Raw” and the eerie “Black Magic”.
As adept as he is to soundtrack days spent running wild and the dark side of hustling over gritty soundscapes, Rome Streetz can also bounce over a trap beat, and he does it without sacrificing lyricism. He’s taking risks by straying from the relentless and ultra hard sound he’s built his reputation on, but when given the opportunity, he proves himself adaptable, bringing his brand of lyrical assassination to the detached trap schemes of the Young Chaacha produced “Pocket Full of Beans” and Xaneotb’s syrupy “Shake & Bake” beat. The latter is a reflective song torn between stunting and hard realities, as Streetz offers “I took a page to get some understanding, living underhanded in a slum of bandits, kept a .44 on some Son of Sam shit, tryna come up on a sandwich. Drug to scam is the language, you either paid or broke, stuck in anguish”.
On an album that swerves between one highlight and the next, it’s “Procall,” the album’s closing track that really steals the show. Produced by Evidence, the song bubbles with an evil loop, the kind you want to hear over an endless posse cut, but for all the booming darkness in the sound, Rome Streetz uses it to assert a shimmer of street wisdom, from the come up to a place of calculated moves. Without a hook, he’s diving in with heavy alliteration, “I was a young n*gga, runnin' wild, reckless robberies, backin' out revolvers for your property. Now thе product potent and popular like the patеnt leather Prada sneaks. Made legal paper off my criminology, honestly follow my own path, no role models showed me what I could be,.”
“Procall” really unwinds like a summary of past dirt and the acceptance of a life lived in order to be where he needed to be. Rome Streetz expands bar for bar with a cold and crispy delivery, one lyrical gem after another captured in lines like “To the world stage from out of the cage, look what I achieved. The wise crook in gold and fly garments, tricks inside his sleeve. The dumb ask, "Why?" and base they thoughts on what the blind believe. Gotta know when to press the brakes and when it's time to speed. Be a wolf, but know when you gotta rock the disguise as sheep.”
Rome Streetz is not resting on his laurels but instead putting the rap game in a stranglehold. He’s out here waiting for his prize fight, and he sounds as hungry as he ever did. The MC has given us a lot to digest throughout one of last year’s definitive hip-hop albums, a record meant to unpack in time. There’s a forward thinking sensibility in much of his music, but the album is still rooted in a harsh reality. Nothing comes easy, but he’s giving a voice to the struggle, offering life as he’s lived it. Rome Streetz is taking it all in, a brilliant observer and an even better lyricist.