kels! rakes in his residuals on “Get Money!”

Listen to “Get Money” off the Chicago rapper’s debut mixtape RENAISSANCE.

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Aliens invade Chicago and out of a gleaming saucer emerges a ski-goggle wearing, cheetah print-loving, insane tweet-posting maniac named kels!. Despite the extrastellar intro, his debut mixtape RENAISSANCE keeps things down to earth by balancing plainspoken heartache with tongue-in-cheek humor. On spring single “VAN GOGH” he was simultaneously hanging with a beautiful woman and missing a different one, but the song opens with kels! groaning about his burgeoning lean gut like he’s reporting on the weather. Behind him, jittery synths pulse and strobe, almost as fast-moving as he is.

kels! is a clear student of the SoundCloud era, but where most of his peers are taking cues from Playboi Carti, the Chicago rapper’s flow reminds me more of early Lil Uzi Vert, especially when he leans harder into singsong melodies on “C You” or deliriously chanted hooks, as on early banger “Get Money.” Here, he warns listeners to get off their asses — “somebody living ya dreams, bitch!” Where another rapper’s delivery might condescend, kels! is so matter of fact you could almost believe he’s talking to himself when he croons, “you need to do it like ya mean it/get it while you sleepin.” And his lithe microverses are as carefree as his cashflow, happily running it up over a physically punishing burble of bass and starstruck synthesizers. When he wails, “my life go sweeeerveeee,” his swooping melody perfectly mirrors the physical sensation of taking a corner way too fast, a brief glimpse into the hectic lifestyle of a rising star who refuses to slow down.