Media buzz can be very deceiving, especially when it swells all at once on an underground level. People tend to get more excited about fleeting trends than they do anything sustainable in pop culture, but every once in a while, there’s a player worthy of the hype. SunniLong just might be the type of rapper, and in his new single “Keep Going,” which features Stacccs in a guest appearance, he makes quite the argument for his belonging on every hip-hop fan’s watch list heading into the spring season. “Keep Going” is a hard-hitting, filler-free exhibition in strength, and for all the attention it’s getting, I can honestly say it deserves the praise.
SunniLong’s vocal is rather unsophisticated, but so is the arrangement that he’s straddling with his verses. The beat is so straightforward you could potentially mistake it for something stock; what gives “Keep Going” such a freeing edge is the linguistic fluidity with which its leading man is guiding us towards a narrative. Stacccs holds his end of the composition up brilliantly, and never does it feel like these two are competing for the same spotlight. As I see it, they’re sharing our focus just fine.
Listen to “Keep Going” below
This raw mix matches the DIY tone of the vocals as well as the implied grittiness of the visual setup for the music video, and I think it was wise of SunniLong to avoid an overly polished sound here. He doesn’t need the fireworks and frills that a lot of his contemporaries would in getting a cathartic point across to us in even the most barren of instrumental surroundings, and had he not gone with a stripped-down profile for this recording, I don’t think this fact would have been as obvious to listeners and serious music critics the same.
I don’t get the impression that SunniLong or Stacccs care too much for where the trends in the Canadian underground might be going next – in “Keep Going,” they both make it pretty evident that their primary objective is hitting a groove as hard as possible, all while steering away from melodic excess of any variety. Their efficiency should be the standard not just in their insular music scene but across the international hip-hop community, and whether he hits his stride with American listeners or not, I think SunniLong is onto something very special with the sound he’s catalyzing so brilliantly with his collaborator in “Keep Going.”
