Russ put out a song every week for 3 years, and all the tracks were produced, mixed, mastered, written, performed, and engineered by him. His following steadily grew on Soundcloud as the result of his steady output (11 projects before his album / over 250 singles), and There's Really A Wolf is the debut full-length from the Atlanta-by-way-of-New-Jersey rapper. Sure, he built his fan base on the internet, but Russ is different from the typical cloud rapper. He put in a lot of work, and "Losin Control" and "What They Want," which are both on the album, are already certified platinum singles. And rather than going for the distorted, unmixed, drug-addled adlib-rap aesthetic (not saying that's bad thing), he delivers drug-free, well produced SONGS. It doesn't hurt that he can effortlessly switch between R&B ballads and punchy rap either, and as mentioned earlier, Russ produced, mixed, mastered, written, performed, and engineered every single track on the 20-tracker. Other tracks to check out include "Pull The Trigger," "Do It Myself," and "Me You."

• includes fold-out poster
• music label: Russ My Way Inc. 2017

reviewed by rei kwondo 1/2018