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There’s not much concrete information out there on Llainwire, the young and underground-minded (and possibly anime-referencing) dancehall rapper who came across my timeline last night. They’ve only got two songs to their name on streaming platforms: “Casca,” a brawny space-trap song with glistening waterfall synth, rattling bass, and “Trust Fund,” which dropped earlier this week. It’s in the latter track where Llainwire’s idiosyncracies really shine: if “Casca” was the honey, sweet and serviceable, “Trust Fund” is the medicine, bitter at first but a healing jolt to your decaying “Bangers Only” playlist.
The song takes a kitchen-sink approach that pays off. Dancehall is a genre to be deconstructed and put next to productions by GAIKA and Arca at their most sleek and sparse. Llainwire is an impudent flexer, ballroom diva, and yes, a lyricist, effortlessly dissolving his bars from underground rap to Shabba Ranks in seconds, then heading back in the opposite direction once more. A lot happens in the song’s brief runtime, but Llainwire never loses control, sounding as confident as a messenger from the future whose predictions have finally arrived.