Denzel Curry & Charlie Heat – “Aloha”
Maybe you’re familiar with Denzel Curry, the frenetic and hyper-gifted South Florida rapper who, despite his young age, is one of the founding fathers of the presently-dominant SoundCloud-rap wave. Maybe you’re less familiar with Charlie Heat, a New Jersey producer who has worked with people like Kanye West, Lil Uzi Vert, and Madonna. But it makes sense that they are now working together. Any chef will tell you that curry should always have heat. (Sorry. I’m so sorry.)
Last year, Curry released the monstrous and ambitious TAI300, one of the year’s best rap albums. And today, Curry has teamed up with Heat for a new song called “Aloha.” There has been some online scuttlebutt about how this new song might be the first taste of a larger collaborative project, but there’s no official word on that as of yet. But we can hope. Because this song goes hard.
For those of us used to hearing Denzel Curry rapping over grimy, gothic lo-fi beats, “Aloha” offers us a chance to hear him in a whole new light. “Aloha” is a relatively big and clean song, built on what sounds like a sample of a mariachi trumpet. You can still practically hear the sweat flying off of his dreads, but the sharper, bigger sound suits him. Listen below.
“Aloha” is out now at the streaming services.