atticus. is a 21 year old DIY hip-hop artist from Seattle. He is also the member of a Tacoma hip-hop collective called No Entry.
He takes a more traditional approach to his craft, aiming for high detailed imagery in his lyrics rather than trying to follow mainstream trends.
On his debut album, stonefruit, he makes it clear he’s working hard to bring conscious hip-hop back to the scene.
He explains the concept behind the first single off the album, “peach”:
“It’s centered around the concept of letting go of the ones you love and coming to peace with the ebb and flow of relationships and friendships.”
One of my very favorite things about this album is the song length. Most of these tracks clock in at less than 2 minutes, which makes for an easy listen in my opinion. Each song blends together pretty seamlessly making it feel even more like an art project.
His songs are different enough to remain interesting while also seeming like they belong together on the same LP.
There are points of this release where I really heard the influence of Sage Francis who’s one of my favorite emcees.
This whole project is equal parts calm and matter of fact (“plum”) and aggressive/fed up (“zoloft”). As someone who has struggled with prescription drugs in more ways than one, “zoloft” definitely hit close to home.
There are even a few moments in his production that show some jazz influence (“pear.exe”).
It’s always impressive to me when I see an artist who is literally taking their entire sound into their own hands. I admire the fact that atticus. wrote, produced, and recorded all of this himself.
Not only did he decide to take the DIY approach but I think he created a really solid piece of hip-hop art that deserves to be explored for it’s deep lyrical content and relaxing instrumentals.