I’ve been a fan of the Charlotte rapper MAVI for about a year now, initially because of his feature on the Earl Sweatshirt track, EL TORO COMBO MEAL. He gave a performance reminiscent of an early era of Earl himself, with delivery, lyricism, and potential an uncovered gem. From this, I listened to a majority of his discography, him quickly becoming a favorite of mine. The chill experimental hip hop twinged with his disconsolate emotions was everything I could have wanted from the subgenre, and the subtle anger within his flows gave him a distinguishing flair from his contemporaries. Tracks like ‘five minutes writing from the bottom’ are near perfectly infused with the right blend of emotion and listlessness to create a rather bleak and depressing mental field, and the production on almost every release is stellar. 

He’s definitely not for everyone, but the album Let The Sun Talk was one of my favorite albums of 2019, with individual tracks that join the ranks of some of my favorite songs of all time. ‘Self Love’ and ‘Love, of Money’ are two of MAVI’s most popular songs for good reason, both of which rate at a 10/10 for me. Even while using different producers throughout the album his music sounds cohesive and self-contained — definitively MAVI. His more recent mixtape, END OF THE EARTH, while in my opinion isn’t as good as Let The Sun Talk, is still an amazing project with tracks like TIME TRAVEL as standouts.

His most recent release, a single called Mama Says, shows a continuous improvement, being one of my favorite tracks released by MAVI. He consistently nails his chosen niche, and is rare to disappoint. If you like artists like Earl Sweatshirt, MIKE, or redveil, you’ll love MAVI.

Overall, I’d rate MAVI an 8/10 overall.