The thrill of the unknown and dangerous can be real. When mixed with psychedelics, horror, and surrealism, the formula becomes foolproof and exhilarating in the right hands. For Fatboi Sharif, a New Jersey rapper who made his debut (as a kid) in creative writing with a poem about the Holocaust, there’s nothing like pulling the rug out from under you and creating abstractions from unsettling fragments. The secret always lies in how you arrange and use the elements.
After experimenting as a duo with Sydetrak Imperial on the album Age Of Extinction (2016), the American expressionist found his ideal partner in Roper Williams, a producer and fellow New Jersey native who delivered cinematic boom-bap and unleashed his imagination on Gandhi Loves Children (2020). There are those who believe that in a world full of madmen with great destructive appetites, what is needed is more madness. That alone justifies his daring to put Malcolm X and Jeffrey Dahmer in the same sentence and to say that they are the same person in “I’m Buggin’.”
By constantly venturing into horrorcore territory (both in his imagery and the way he often stylizes his voice through layers), the artist has connected with labels like Deathbomb Arc and Backwoodz Studioz, contributing to tracks by the likes of billy woods, Blockhead, and Moor Mother—and it was through this path that he aligned himself with some of the finest lyricists of his generation. Within these interconnected networks, he also released a collaborative EP with Bigg Jus, one of the original members of Company Flow, a group founded by El-P that worked in adjacent fields of dystopian rhymes and beats. Still within the realm of his proximity to legends, the group dälek selected “Cinnamon” for a new mix they curated for The Wire magazine.
Beyond his boundless inventiveness, his productivity has been extraordinary: in recent years he has released projects such as Preaching In Havana (2022) with Noface, Decay (2023) with Steel Tipped Dove, Let Me Out with Driveby, Endocrine with GDP, Planet Unfaithful and Goth Girl On Enterprise with Roper Williams—the latter four in 2025 alone—allowing him to split his time between the more experimental scene and classic-feeling East Coast rap. In 2026, Crayola Circles marked his first collaboration with Child Actor, who provided him with productions infused with jazz and folk elements, structured with full intent.
A method rapper who falls asleep listening to the instrumentals he’ll have to rhyme over, thus narrowing the gap between dreams and reality, the grotesque and the beautiful. An MC with a director’s eye (influenced by David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick, or Wes Craven) dedicating himself to oddities with unprecedented ideas.
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