If you haven’t caught on yet, know this, the new RATKING surprise album 700 Fill is ABSOLUTE FIRE. The free to good home nine track project bleeds out with the same classic repetitive beats, strange samples and droning hooks that made the group an internet phenomenon after their first two projects Wiki93 and debut album So It Goes. It was the latter, which featured the crazy track So Sick Stories with the young future of British music and Cool Accidents fave King Krule that really resulted in people paying attention and helped them travel the world including a visit to Australia for the recent Laneway Festivals and sideshows where they absolutely slayed it.
The crew that consists of front man Wiki (who in my opinion is raps equivalent to the aforementioned King Krule), Hak and untraditional formally dread-locked god producer Sporting Life have brought all they had in the arsenal to the new work including strong, minimal features from the likes of underground scene rappers Remy Banks, Despot, Slickboy and Wiki’s own better half the beautiful Princess Nokia. However it’s none of these features or even a singular track that brings the most important element of 700 Fill, it’s the hard working and new school attitude of the fresh faced NYC scene that seems to be sitting well with the youth of the world wide rap scene that helps the project resonate so well.
Pegged as the new face of New York alongside up and comings stars like Joey Bada$$ (who also is currently making his mark after recently dropping his fantastic debut B4DA$$) Wiki is not content with settling for this simple image. While throughout the album the young crew rep the always illusive NYC sound and talk of the struggles that come along with making it big in the largest and most constantly growing hip hop scene in the world, overall it feels like the project is meant to be read as a message, a message that RATKING has conquered the hometown and now they’re coming for you and yours. This crew is ambitious and talented, a sometimes seemingly unfound pairing in today’s youth both in music and life in the eyes of older generations. The message is best heard on the third track Bethel where Wiki raps of the advantage that coming from New York gives him over others trying to do the same thing, even going as far as to claim himself as the MVP or that others have given him this title.
Perhaps the strongest track on 700 Fill comes late in the piece; the seventh track titled Sleep Tech is hypnotic in the way that it plants its hook deep into your brain and leaves it there for as far I can tell forever. Strong features from Despot and the amazing Princess Nokia bring the song into hit territory and Sporting Life really went all out on this simple beat that rings throughout in generally the same way whether it be during the hook or the verses.
If it wasn’t already obvious RATKING have a bright future, whether it’s as the face of the New York scene or as legitimate worldwide superstars who cares, as long as they keep giving us shit like this to listen to on the regular.
-Mac Dennis
