YC The Cynic

Calls home: Bronx, N.Y.

Latest release: Good Morning, Midnight

Why You Should Listen: I’ll sum up my feelings on the beyond-talented, too-gifted-to-be-slept-on-but-still-is YC The Cynic with one track, “Rude Boy Jamaican”. The cut landed on radio personality Peter Rosenberg’s hand-picked New York Renaissance mixtape, which also featured fellow underground/rising acts DyMe-A-DuZiN, Joey Bada$$ and Pro Era, Homeboy Sandman, and Flatbush Zombies. And just to note, yes, the track was on last year’s Good Morning, Midnight.

And amid that crop of respectable acts, it was young YC (no “Racks”) who stood out with a track that was apparently added at the last minute. With Yuri Beats’ organ-laced instrumental as his canvas, the Bronx MC does borough proud with shape-shifting rhymes and lyrics so devastatingly real and affecting that you’ll want to message dude on some “Yo, this is one of the best autobiographical joints I’ve heard in a minute.” As for why you don’t hear him flex his rude boy patois, we offer the following explanation from YC on his father:

“Lived my whole life in his absence/Bastard/Only thing he left was an accent/Dropped it/As a kid, thought he was a doctor/Went to the hospital, all he did was mop it.”

Listen to the track below.—Andrew Martin