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Show & Pove: OsamaSon
Words: Grant Rindner
Editor’s Note: This story appears in the Winter 2024 issue of XXL Magazine, on newsstands now and available for sale on the XXL website.
OsamaSon, the 21-year-old rising star born Amari Middleton, makes frenetic, distorted hip-hop that’s about as cutting-edge as you get. He’s accrued millions of streams, a rabid, youthful fan base and a major label deal with Atlantic Records for his unique take on rage music, the mosh pit-inducing subgenre many of hip-hop’s younger fans prefer. But, his musical roots date back generations and a decade of his life to when his older relatives harbored rapping dreams of their own in South Carolina’s signature Geechee scene. “All my uncles and cousins made music, so they used to have studios in their house,” he says on a Zoom call last October. “I got influenced by that.”
Though born in Ohio, OsamaSon and his family moved to the modestly sized South Carolina city of Goose Creek in 2015, and the aspiring hip-hop star proceeded to take the family’s artistry to new heights. OsamaSon estimates he first began recording in fifth grade, thanks to his uncles. “Just doing little demos and kid’s sample voices,” OsamaSon says. “Making me write my own songs and rap it.” He uploaded music to platforms like SoundCloud while still in high school. OsamaSon admits that “nobody liked it, not even my friends.”
His entry into music truly began as a producer under the name Damn 4K when a family member showed him the production software FL Studio, and later, in 2020, under the name PradaUMari. He says he used to make extra money engineering for other vocalists and posits that he has more years under his belt as a producer than a rapper. While he’s working with various beatmakers now, OsamaSon explains that knowing how to make technical tweaks to his music to match what’s in his head is one of his most significant creative assets. “I just love music as a whole,” the young artist says. “I dedicate my life to music. The more experience I can get, the more I can learn, the more I’m going to do.”
By the time he graduated from Goose Creek High in 2021, the rap upstart was just about to embark on a three-year musical stretch that would put his career into warp drive. Shortly after earning his diploma, he embraced the new artistic identity of OsamaSon and released mixtapes Vengeance and Carnival. 2023’s breakthrough singles “X & Sex” and “CTS-V” led to coveted slots at Rolling Loud. His first album, Osama Season, and sophomore effort, Flex Musix, also released in 2023, are snapshots of a young artist pushing his limits, not content to be another Playboi Carti acolyte. (The rap internet has tried to drum up a beef between OsamaSon and Carti signee Ken Carson due to perceived similarities for nearly a year.)
OsamaSon’s best songs capture a sense of controlled chaos that usually occurs only at a live show. The drums vibrate and rumble, synthesizers squeal, and OsamaSon’s vocals are melodic and urgent. Will Cramer, Atlantic Records A&R consultant, caught on to the sound from the rising rapper that same year and really tuned in after he says Osama Season “exploded.” Last year, Cramer helped facilitate OsamaSon signing to Motion Music, created by Rolling Loud cofounder Matt Zingler, who has a joint venture with Atlantic.
Cramer was impressed by OsamaSon’s show, likening it to a “four-dimensional TikTok” and highlighting the way the music improved when scaled up for venues. “The live reaction was so good, too. I was like, Man, I like the way this music sounds, and I like the way that people respond to it,” says Cramer, who manages Rok, the Toronto-born producer who has worked on many of OsamaSon’s biggest tracks including “X & Sex” and “Flxr.” “And I like that people will actually show up, and it’s not just an internet thing.” OsamaSon’s fans are tapped in. That’s partly because, unlike many of his contemporaries in the world of rage-adjacent rap, who traffic in cryptic quotes and opaque interviews, OsamaSon is refreshingly forthcoming. His old music—both the Damn 4K beats and PradaUMari cuts—hasn’t been scrubbed from the internet, so while he’s battled some industry plant allegations, it’s easy to track his creative growth if you care to look.
His then-ignored early releases are coveted artifacts gathered on Instagram accounts with names like “OsamaSon Vault” and “OsamaSon Archive.” They’re frequently reposted on YouTube and SoundCloud. Fans have taken their fascination with OsamaSon beyond just music, sharing clips of him playing basketball at Goose Creek High and doing on-camera sports reporting. “I’m happy [my music is out there] because I’ve always felt like when I was putting out my old sh*t, I would never think it was a*s,” he says. “I’d just be like, Yo, if more people heard this, they’d probably appreciate it.”
OsamaSon released several short projects through SoundCloud before making his commercial debut with Osama Season. He found a handful of collaborators who blur similar stylistic lines, most notably fellow buzzing rhymers Glokk40Spaz and Nettspend and producers like Rok and Legion. They formed their own kind of loose collective that recalls the online rap scene of the 2010s.
Though OsamaSon insists he wasn’t deliberately trying to keep his music off DSPs, his commitment to the underground platform is evidence that he’s part of a thrilling new wave of SoundCloud rappers, one that is bringing similar joyfully chaotic energy that XXXTentacion, Denzel Curry and others did on their come up. “A lot of our mentors are from that era,” OsamaSon says. “They be telling us like, ‘Yo, y’all don’t understand, and y’all probably don’t see this, but I was around for this first wave of SoundCloud, and this sh*t’s bringing me the same exact energy.’ This sh*t is not like we’re replicating it, but it’s the same.”
After dropping the joint project 3vil Reflection with Glokk40Spaz last May, OsamaSon prepared himself to get right to work in the new year. “I’m going to be ready to drop my album in 2025,” he maintains. “So, it’s going to be insane.” He did just that by releasing Jump Out, a new solo LP in late January. Before the effort arrived, he delivered songs “Ik What You Did Last Summer” and “Just Score It.” After already completing tour dates in the U.K. and Thailand, OsamaSon has plans to make his way to Canada to perform the new project.
While there are still kinks being worked out in OsamaSon’s music, the occasional sloppy flow or repetitive track, it’s hard not to believe in a rapper who is this passionate, humble and forthcoming. Though his older relatives in South Carolina probably could never have imagined the kind of hyperactive internet rap that would turn him into a star, there’s no doubt they’re proud.
Listen to OsamaSon's Jump Out Album
OsamaSon photo
GKThe Winter 2024 issue of XXL magazine featuring GloRilla and Sexyy Red on the cover is available for purchase now and is on newsstands. The issue also includes conversations with Ab-Soul, Dej Loaf, Quando Rondo, Ferg, Nav, Kash Doll, Sauce Walka, OsamaSon, Anycia, Baby Kia, BLP Kosher, Sugarhill Ddot, high-powered hip-hop attorney Drew Findling, dancehall artist Skillibeng and producer Ace Charisma. There's also a look at the new season of the Netflix reality competition show Rhythm + Flow through the eyes of its judges Latto, DJ Khaled and Ludacris, plus 18 hip-hop heavyweights discuss the state of lyricism.
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