Music Existence Because of Music, We Exist
Thoroughly drenched in an energy that will soon consume the entire front of the mix, it doesn’t take much more than pressing the play button to run head-first into the discord that is the intro to Smilez’s “Open Ur Eyes.” Ominously subtle but not quite clandestine enough to avoid tiny bits of chaos from slipping out of the speakers and burrowing their way into our ears, this juncture of the track is definitely the most creatively provocative – but in the best of ways possible. Smilez isn’t trying to copy the model his peers have abused to death in their work; in “Open Ur Eyes,” he’s quite literally marching to the beat of his own drum and setting a fine example by doing so.
In pop music, everything revolves around a chorus and, more specifically, the hook is sewn into this climactic moment.
While this is just as true of most hip-hop, I’m not quite sure I could say so for “Open Ur Eyes,” being that there’s just so much going on ahead of and after the chorus for the track to be defined by this one moment alone. With each verse, it seems as though Smilez is peeling back something else and revealing yet another layer of his emotionality and storytelling talent to us. He’s not presumptuous or particularly arrogant in his execution, but instead staying true to a swagger that at one time made rap one of the most artistically viable and expressive genres on the planet.
The instrumental element doesn’t get enough credit in today’s hip-hop, and it shapes the core of the mood in this track beyond question. Something I wasn’t expecting to find, the bass’ intertwining with the percussion isn’t hazy but instead designed to swell and make us feel a little overwhelmed – just in time for Smilez to come swooping in with one of the crispest lyrics in the song. He’s very methodical in the way he’s structuring this single, and had I not known differently I would have thought he had been in the game for twice as long as he has been. This is a guy who is at complete peace with the recording process, and it shows in his work.
I didn’t know much about Smilez outside of his reputation out of the modern Gen Z rap underground before I stumbled across “Open Ur Eyes” this September, but I can tell you now I can’t wait to hear what else he’s capable of doing both in and outside of the studio.
He swings hard and gives us one of his best listens yet in this single, but while he’s an excellent master at poppier jams, I’d like to find out what he can do with something a bit slower and more deliberate in measure. This is a meaningful, melodic hip-hop track that every fan the same should check out immediately, but more importantly than this, Smilez is an artist you need to keep a close eye on in the future.
Matthew Johns
