This week, we revisit a familiar friend of the Lounge, none other than Baltimore-raised rapper Shordie Shordie. With his polished, signature conversationalist-style, he delivers yet another album that you can’t help to bop your head to. Those who have been fans of him over the years can expect his usual melodic sound littered across the album, paired with the ever so catchy “woah, aye yeah, aye, yeaaaaa-aaa-aaa-aaaa-uuuuuuhhh” we have come to love so much. We have to admit, this one took a few listens to grow on us, but, as expected, we ended up loving it the more we ran it back.

Shordie Shordie first popped on the mainstream scene back in 2018 with his project “Captain Hook” and its platinum hit “Bitchuary (Betchua)”. Since then, the rapper has been prolific in the volume of work he releases, staying true to the sound that hooked so many people in on his first hit. “Pretty Lor Liars” & “Call Me” actually feel like a callback to Bitchuary, both production as well as cadence-wise — it’s almost like he made a couple of 2024 versions of the song. If there’s one thing Shordie Shordie is a master at, it’s creating intoxicating hooks (looking back, he might have been onto something with the name of his debut…). Songs like “DND” (feat. 03 Greedo) make you feel like hooks are what this man was put on this Earth for — it’s a natural talent for him. Not to mention his chemistry with his collaborators… 03 Greedo delivered one of our favorite verses from him on this album, he slid perfectly and his (more than usual) sick / gravelly voice was a pleasantly surprising complement to a song that feels like that sound shouldn’t work with it. It feels like Shordie Shordie explored some production that is out of the norm for him (ex. “Güd 2 Me”, “Beautiful Flower”, & “Paranoid”). “Holster” is a song with a beat that sounds like it was made for exactly 1 person, Blxst, and to be honest, we were actually very surprised to not see a feature from him here, especially with them having a history of collaboration. We could only spot a couple of samples on the album. In the intro, “Still Be Here”, you can very clearly hear a sped-up version of “If You Let Me” (feat. GRADES) by English singer/songwriter Sinéad Harnett (there may or may not have been a HSL obsession with that song in the past…). Then, in “Keep It Together” (feat. That Mexican OT), we immediately hear a pitched-up take on 702’s classic 1996 ballad “Get It Together”. We can always appreciate ‘90’s R&B, even if the feature verse got a little more explicit than was intended for the vibe of a ‘90’s R&B love song. The way he rolls his R’s when he raps is cool though, so we’ll give him a pass. Then we have songs that remind us of our favorite album by him (“More Than Music, Pt. 2”), namely “Passion”, which is a song that feels like it could have been added to that album (complete with his signature “ayeee yeeaaahhh” tag — something he sang a lot more on that album). Lastly, “It” (feat. Lefty Gunplay) and “Long Time” are two of our favorite songs on the album… songs that remind us why we fell in love with Shordie Shordie as an artist in the first place.

We feel it important to express our feeling that Shordie Shordie is an immensely underrated artist in the music industry at large, and the rap game especially. Why do people not talk about him more? It’s hard to point to many other artists in the genre who have mastered melodic rap as well as he has. Especially with the majority of the genre’s sound shifting that way in the post-2010’s, an outsider could listen to his music and assume him to be one of the most popular artists in the genre, and it would be an understandable assumption for them to make. However, our reality says otherwise. Why? Unfortunately, that’s a question that still has us scratching our heads. Nevertheless, HSL exists to give flowers to artists regardless of popularity, and Shordie Shordie more than deserves his. We just hope that the rest of the world will decide to plant some for him while he can still smell them, too.

What do you think — is this album a hit, or is Shordie Shordie an artist who just doesn’t click with you? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section for this #POTW on our Instagram.