A good rap song by a new artist is like going to a restaurant, ordering an unfamiliar dish, and the experience leaves you intoxicated. Drunk off the surprise of a satisfying discovery. Each bite, like each bar, captivates the senses.

You want more before you finish what’s on your plate, what’s playing in your ears. 

No, no. Maybe a better comparison is a cup of belly-burning coffee. One sip, like one song, is enough to jolt the joints. It’s like a wake-up call to the brain that it's time to get active. 

Georgia-born rapper Marco Plus is the latest rapper to send a spark from my eardrum to my intestines. The self-proclaimed “Southside villain” raps like his mind is a minefield. Lyrics  detonate on arrival. Written and performed to blow minds and destroy stereotypes. 

Whatever you think a rapper from Atlanta is supposed to sound like, Marco Plus is not that, and yet, he’s very much a product of his environment. 

Hence why his music could be used to reignite the conversation about the value of a southern rap perspective from a southerner that lived, breathed, and survived the south. 

Marco Plus reminds me of winter walks under a Capricorn moon as flurries fall in a city where snow is rare as a Black president. The production has a chilliness that could easily be described as an East Coast palette, but it's a southern chill.

Cold shoulder raps from someone who sounds like he needs a fireplace and a therapist to unpack traumas only described over basslines and snare drums. 

There’s no Zaytoven keys or Metro Boomin drums, but the music doesn’t feel made outside of Metro Atlanta. Actually, it feels like he’s rapping from the very center of the city. An all-seeing, all-knowing, all-understanding rapper who examines in rhyme what most people would rather forget. 

Marco Plus raps like a critic of personal history. His life story weaves with candid honesty a man who knows too much and has only one way to express it. His latest album, The Souf Got Sum 2 Say, was released on Oct 22, 2022. A week before JID’s Rap Portrait.

Track six, “Piece of Cake (Time),” is what I would describe as transparent. He doesn’t hide the anxiety of dream-chasing in a city where the environment turns boys into villains. Showing you the ugliest sides of reality and the gorgeous rewards that money can buy.

I like honest rap. Lyricists who, vividly, recall the days we only remember when a beat is looped. Every rapper is looking for that loop to share a story they can’t reveal anywhere else. 

I love that rap, no matter how it transforms, gives recording artists a vehicle to show the scars that can’t be seen on the surface of skin.

It’s like seeing a skeleton when you find a transparent rapper. Their songs are stripped of the clothes, the jewelry, and all the superficial materialism that has become such a common subject in mainstream music. 

I like that rappers are getting rich, but I still love to hear the kid sleeping on the floor. In a house with more people than rooms. Buying blunts instead of health insurance. Barely paying bills but inspired to do more than get by. Eating junk food while dreaming of steak and lobsters. Champagne and chauffeurs. 

Something about rappers who live their dreams sounds good, but they aren’t better than the dreamchasers. A hungry artist has what money can’t buy: Drive. Passion. Determination. 

“I believe in myself, there was never a doubt,” Marco raps on “Steve Harvey.” The entire The Souf Got Sum 2 Say exemplifies self-belief. Each of the 19 songs are rapped with intention. To prove, to anyone who listens, that Marco Plus has a voice. And he’s using it to say…. 

by Yoh.