Fork, fork. It’s hard to think of a rapper who epitomizes 2024 more than Lazer Dim 700. He records almost all of his music on the Bandlab app using his iPhone’s earphones, and seems to take advantage of its algorithms to an unusual degree. His typical sound includes fried 808s rapped at a blistering pace with a flow reminiscent of Young Nudy suffering from a smoker’s cough. He has his own coined words, such as “li twan” (lil twin) and “FineShyt” (villain). Yate was “obsessed with his energy” and even used him to improvise on his latest album.
His style has been controversial, drawing common complaints like “new rappers suck” and “hip-hop is dead,” but Lazer Dim 700 can actually rap. Nowhere is that open secret more apparent than in “Laced max,” the New Jerk Fruit of a particularly entertaining Plaqueboymax stream (“I’m tapping in on that Twitch. This isn’t Myspace”). Razor may not be prone to deep observations or complex rhymes, but his sheer talent is hard to overstate, and miraculously, my clothes fit better, my hoes are better I found a new way to say, Okay, my tattoos are better.
The charm of Razor is really in the details. His philosophical musings on loyalty and staying in bondage, and the hilariously self-deprecating intro, “I thought Feinshutt wanted me, but she wanted Max.” “Food Trap Xavierso-based Emotional Jerk Type Beat” provided by YouTube includes Razor blowing up Florida Zaza as he laments a lame woman pretending not to be crazy. There’s enough space to ensure the lyrics are front and center. “I hear the sirens. I look up. I see the nuns and it’s raining,” he says, sighing mid-way through, as if he’s one of the most exciting fresh talents of his generation. It’s like he’s tired of it. But the “Laced max” line has to be the first: “When it’s over, they’ll play this.” After millions of plays, the Lazer Dim 700 is a success. It’s no exaggeration to say that.
