Our favorite Parisian architect of experimentalist future hip-hop, Gracy Hopkins is always worth a listen with each new release. With his first single in six months and his second since the release of 2018’s masterpiece, For Everyone Around Rage, he turns up the energy and the trap-electronica influence for Smoking Kills. The vibrant and quite frankly bizarre track feels much longer than it’s sub-three-minute run-time, owing its seeming length to its symphonic and compositionally layered format. Continuous fluctuations in its production and instrumentation make Smoking Kills outstandingly complex without drowning out Gracy’s signature coupling of vocal and lyrical deliveries. 

 

And those deliveries are what really steal the show. Vibrant vocals, intense cadence, and thought-provoking penmanship show us once again why Gracy Hopkins is a key figure on the international hip-hop scene, while his unpredictable and risk-embracing self-production fuel the fire of it all.