Houston’s Without a Face Now an Enigmatic M.C.

Without a Face dropped a new single this year.

On balance, that’s a local artist putting out new music for the first time in a minute.

It’s been five years since the Houston scene last saw Without a Face put out a solo project. 2013’s The American Scheme featured a mix of poppy and melancholy tunes, often accompanied by an acoustic guitar. You can look at a track like “Twisted Sexual Assault (The TSA Song)” and see it as full of biting wit or a joke that’s aged poorly.

What you won’t see coming is something like “SBNF,” a straight fire (the kids still say that, right? Becky Lynch does, at least.) track released on January 25 with some of the best technical delivery the Houston hip hop game has seen in a minute.

It’s not a specialty or even the future for the artist, who has claimed on social media that he has more rhymes ready to go if the feedback is good and his heart is in it.

Consistent with Without a Face’s earlier work, there’s still a lot of humor. There are Seinfeld and Batman references in the first 45 seconds. The idea that his schtick might be tired to any and everyone is explored too.

“I got hate coming at me from all sides/ from black, red, yellow, brown, and white guys,” he says after the drop on the King Tut-produced track.

Out of context it can come across as rote, but the idea is that this guy knows he’s good enough to wait five years, swerve entirely away from where we last found him, and drop a pretty proficient track outside of his comfort zone. For that, credit is due.

(Editor's note: the views reflected in this post do not represent those of the whole staff-the editor of this piece thinks this track is the bees knees-the kids still say that, right?)

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