PawPaw Rod

One Liner:  Distinctly funky mix of hip hop, soul, and indie pop

Wikipedia Genre:  No Wikipedia, but this borders between rap and indie pop

Home: Oklahoma City

Poster Position: 19
Weekend One Only.
Saturday at 12:05.

T-Mobile Stage.

Thoughts:  Well, that is surprising.  Fully expected for this to be some sort of punk band named after a grandfather.  Instead, this is a Hawaiian rapper who was raised in Oklahoma and now makes an interesting mix of music that sort of reminds me of that Gym Class Heroes group where he melds rap with a poppy indie that gets into soul at times.  There is very little easy to find info about him - no Wikipedia - but he was born in Hawaii, is a Capricorn, is a military brat who has travelled the world, his real name is Rodney Hulsey, and one song has already been featured on an iPhone commercial.

That track is his most popular by a ton, and this one is like Thundercat collaborated with him to make a funky rap track.  "HIT EM WHERE IT HURTS," with 60.8 million streams.

Hell yeah.  That is funky, tasty action.  I very much enjoy.  That was also his first single, which is pretty rad, to just pop out of the gate on that level.  

Three EPs and no albums.  No other track is nearly so popular, but two others, both from that first EP that featured the above track, crack 10 million.  They are pretty solid too.  "Lemonhaze" is the winner right now with 20.4 million.

More funky action!  Gimme some mo!  "Glass Houses" is also choice, I like the looping sample.  The problem here is that those two yummy songs were both from back in 2017, and from jamming his catalog a few times it seems to me that he doesn't stick with that exact action later on.  It's not like he started making death metal, but I just don't think it is as tasty.  This is "Rainy" and it still has some funk but also gives me a little drum machine where I want Thundercat.  315k streams.

But, another new single - "High Notes" - sounds like Larry June.  Which is a good thing for me.  Either way, I'd absolutely add this to my list - if you can bring me some funk and fun then I'm almost always in your corner.