Steve 'Flash' Juon“Rank” is the sound of one hand clapping. I’m not saying that as a joke or a subliminal diss. The drum track for the song is exactly that. Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap.
“Trappernese” by Certified Trapper is another in a long line of self-made discoveries poking around the internet looking for new rappers to cover. Though I’m new to C.T., C.T. is not new to the game. The Milwaukee emcee f/k/a Lotta Guwopp has been recording albums since the mid-2010’s and rose to greater fame a couple years ago off the success of “Oi (Beat Da Koto Nai)” from this album, which last time that I checked had nearly six million views on YouTube — making it likely it has done equally impressive numbers on Spotify, TikTok, Apple Music, et cetera. Therefore I was fully prepared to be impressed by this Trapper rapper, but I’m either amazed or stupefied that the very next song “1 Ninja 2 Ninja” has the exact same production as the opening track. Clap, clap, clap, clap. Again.
After noticing this I went back and listened to “Oi” again and I could hear the exact same percussion. It’s much more muted, pushed further into the background, but it’s there. Could this be C.T.’s signature? I pressed ahead to the next song “Cocofelons” and YUP there it is again. This time the tempo has been sped up a bit but there’s no question now. It’s not just “Rank” or “1 Ninja” that are the sound of one hand clapping. The Certified Trapper of Milwaukee has exactly one drum track he uses to spit bars to. The melody, the pitch correction, the speed can all change. That clapping always stays the same.
I get it. “Trappernese” is a self-produced album. On “I Know Why” he spits the line “Rich as fuck/I sleep like a motherfuckin’ baby.” And why not? The money he saves on keeping things in-house goes right back into his pockets. The time he saves on recycling the same percussive sound means he can pump out more tracks at a higher rate. 24 seconds into “Road Trips” featuring G.T., I thought maybe C.T. had realized it was repetitive, even for him. 25 seconds in I realized I was wrong and he had gone right back to that signature again.
The problem with the sound being so pervasive on “Trappernese” is that it will 100% affect your enjoyment of his music. You’re either pleased he picked a lane and stuck to it, or mad that the longer you listen to him the more it crawls into your brain like a Ceti eel. Sometimes on short tracks like “No Deals” the bass and the sound effects can hide it effectively. On other songs like “Exit Door” it’s paired with AutoTune that AutoTuned itself recursively, meaning there’s nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. You’re stuck with two sounds in your ear, neither of which are desirable to hear.
I am all about regional artists making a come up and getting national exposure, so congratulations to Certified Trapper on the success of “Oi” and the new audience (myself included) that came from it. I’m going to be as fair as I can about this and say that there’s a 100% chance anything he did before or after this dropped that clap track. The virality of “Oi” may have locked C.T. into a mode where he had to keep doing what already worked. For one album I can at least tolerate it, and there are some decent songs that use it, but if I listen to another C.T. album six months or a year from now that sounds exactly the same as this one I’ll throw my hands up in the air and say I just don’t care. So clap your hands everybody, if you got what it takes, because Certified Trapper has one sound, and those are the breaks.