DaeMoney in "Slaeski."
Shot by Kardiak Films.
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For the last year, I’ve been having random parts of DaeMoney’s Slae Season 2 play in my head, like the shimmering beat of “World Touring…Still Pouring,” which sounds like a string orchestra playing a set of warm-up exercises on loop. On that tape, the Detroit rapper straddles the line between a few different sounds, refusing to fully commit to any singular aesthetic. Songs like “Lil Hoe” and “No Fun” gesture toward the kind of moody and atmospheric Michigan-style beats that’ve picked up steam—peep DaeMoney’s own work with producers Trees and LulRose this year—with more traditional piano-led production and soulful flips making up the rest.
On “Slaeski,” DaeMoney’s back to his old ways. Things have changed in the two years since the original Top$ide-helmed Slae Season, but the Detroit rapper is entirely unfazed. He’s still World Tour and the hot-headed give-a-fuck-your-tradition attitude he came in with hasn’t cooled off at all either. Top$ide’s idea of funk is different on “Slaeski,” too, closer to the kind of fanfare a marching band would play in a stand battle than the slinky Beats by the Pound grooves he’s made part of his signature. But DaeMoney's up for the challenge and comes at it with more vigor than usual, rapping through his pain and alluding to days past. “Then they got to jamming niggas up, thought it was over for us / Turned into them White House Legends, that's the glory for us,” he raps. Slae Season 3 can’t come soon enough.
