ZiDiil is a fully-developed artist: a rapper, singer, producer, engineer, graphic artist, as well as the founder of the music collective ENYU, a talented group of individuals with fellow multihyphenates such as Scott Delta and Illmana. A musician since the very beginning, they grew up playing various instruments and honing their musical skills before starting to develop their artistry via songwriting and production throughout their high school years, eventually dropping out of college to pursue music as a career. They created the collective ENYU around 2016 as an outlet for themselves and select peers to “channel [their] intentions and [their] ideas together to create something tangible and real, while also using it spiritually as a means to add purpose and establish a support system,” eventually fully realizing the collective around the summer of 2019 when the members came together from “all corners of the U.S.” to pursue their aspirations in music and art. 

This September, they dropped an LP titled Soulbound, a grand sonic adventure explored through the lens of hip-hop, dream pop, witch house, and a plethora of other musical and artistic influences that the artist has channeled into a dense 11-song album. While they have been very active in the underground music scene, dropping conceptual EPs and smaller-scale projects over the years– including countless collaborations with other ENYU members– they consider Soulbound to be their first official full-length album: “full length, full send, full picture.” Roughly two years in the making, this album hits everything from Eldia-esque dance-pop (look no further than ‘As Above So Below’ with Grbageman) to ruthless Memphis-inspired trap, wholly genre-defiant but a masterful exploration of every sound that it touches on.

Fully produced by ZiDiil, the instrumentals and engineering on this album are nothing short of breathtaking; for example, on the penultimate track ‘Sentience (One That Made)’, it starts off fairly minimally with some synth pads for texture as ZiDiil’s voice echoes through the stereo field, an airy whisper before a sparse drum line drops alongside the initial verse. As the song progresses, it feels like it’s alive– evolving, even– as the softer synth textures swirl, as more melodic elements are introduced, and as the drum line fills out with a powerful drop of stomping kicks and reverberated rimshots under ZiDiil’s calm croon, eventually warping into a wall of breathing textures and chopped vocal runs as it fades to silence. There is so much care put into every aspect of the production and just as much care put into the mixing of this record; every choice made on this album feels purposeful and thoughtful, and while there may be some songs on the record where the vocals are fairly obscured under various effects (‘As Above So Below’ and ‘Restoration Prayer (Requiem)’ being good examples), it’s clear that they are stylistic choices rather than any sort of error on the artists end as there are no offensive frequencies nor muddiness. Despite all of the vocal processing done on this album alongside the heavy harmonic textures and warped layers of melodies, all on top of constantly evolving drum patterns that border on experimental, every element of each track comes through clearly without clashing in the mixes, creating lush soundscapes rather than cacophonous messes. 

A fair amount of the first half of the album falls into poppier territory in terms of vocal performances and production, with songs like ‘Kiwi Spree’ (featuring Scott Delta) showing off ZiDiil’s higher register as their airy cadence and melodic-rap delivery evokes the spirit of artists like Thaiboy Digital and Ecco2k, especially when accentuated by the bright arpeggiated synth plucks and catchy trap percussion that this track features. In the aforementioned track ‘As Above So Below’ with Grbageman, ZiDiil’s staccato flow brings incredible energy to the Eldia-adjacent dance beat, their vocals heavily processed (much like Kiwi Spree) as the reverberated and delayed tails of each bar blend into the soundscape of the instrumental. It’s an excellent example of an artist using their voice as an instrument of sorts, but it’s unique in the fact that this is mostly done in the engineering rather than the performance– their vocals still sit on top of the mix as intended, although the added effects create a vast bed of sound that adds a lot to the atmosphere of the song. 

The futuristic, experimental sounds of the first half of the record get reined in with the following song, ‘Left4dead’ (featuring Scott Delta). ZiDiil takes a step back from the bright melodic deliveries shown prior, instead utilizing their talents as a rapper and lyricist to create one of the most interesting hip-hop songs of the year so far. The production on ‘Left4dead’ is still ethereal and layered, but significantly more grounded as the shimmering synth-pads throughout the song are tamed under filters to allow more room for the artist's vocals to shine. The instrumental is completed with a fairly standard trap drum line, the two-step hi-hats accentuated by light rolls and thin rimshots, all under a bouncy-but-simple bassline to complete the catchy rhythm. Like many other songs on the album, the instrumental feels alive. The transitions between verses and sections in each song are dizzying, and the evolution of many beats on here make each track feel like a journey. Not to mention, ZiDiil’s verse after Scott Delta’s brief interlude is a fantastic showcase of their lyrical ability– their bars often toe the line between straightforward and esoteric, dripping with metaphor but clear in intent. They balance exaltation and introspection between bars (“Disrespect the faction, we gon’ turn it to an accident / Fatal my attractions, will I ever find some happiness?”) while blending in dense internal rhyme schemes that command the listener’s total attention. 

The departure from the pop-adjacent sounds and structures of the previous tracks is furthered in ‘Restoration Prayer (Requiem)’. I’m unsure if this was the intent, but in the context of the full album, it seems to act as a hard interlude between the melodic soundscapes of songs prior and the deeper dive into hip-hop and psychedelic territory that characterizes the latter half of Soulbound. Five total artists (including ZiDiil) are credited as having vocal performances on ‘Restoration’, but the vocals on this song are layered and processed and filtered so heavily that each performance becomes near-indistinguishable from each other, a wall of voice that glides between registers, creating beautiful harmony while allowing few– if any– lyrics to escape the ambiance. Trails of reverb and delay from the artist's vocal runs overlap with each other and disappear into the fog of the instrumental, a very minimalist composition characterized by a trap-esque drum line. The kicks stomp through the mix alongside the subdued bassline, while the snares and hi-hats/cymbals are delegated to an accent in the overall mix, never quite reaching the higher frequencies expected of them. The vocal processing and layering in this song alongside the slower, darker drumline create a very claustrophobic atmosphere, but it’s not to the detriment of the song. This brief track is a brilliant-yet-simple composition with a masterful mix and arrangement, clear in tone while otherwise quite opaque.

The following two songs, ‘Distant Memory’ and ‘Valhalla’, follow a fairly traditional song structure as it pertains to ZiDiil’s previous rap performances but they differ greatly in their overall tone. ‘Distant Memory’ shows ZiDiil adopting a laidback Memphis-esque flow, with some more confidence in their tone exuded through each syllable without the aggression displayed in ‘Valhalla’. Both the instrumental and the vocals of ‘Distant Memory’ are coated in reverb, but just enough to create a dream-like atmosphere. The vocal mix is reminiscent of Yung Lean’s earlier work (see: Yoshi City) blended with Memphian proto-trap, with the instrumental sounding like a unique divergence in the evolution of early cloud rap. Shimmering melodies and drifting pads are layered under ZiDiil’s vocals, melodic elements falling in and out of the mix as the reverberated hi-hats give a sort of ‘live’ feeling to the percussion. It’s a soothing yet empowering track, almost like a small victory lap or reprieve from the ails of life during the creation of the record.

On ‘Valhalla’, ZiDiil is much more upfront– their voice is belted, staccato-spitting each syllable with a ferocity unheard to this point on the record. The title is quite fitting for the feeling this song gives me; it feels heavenly, both in the gorgeous production as well as the louder, clearer mix in contrast to ‘Distant Memory’. The slightly braggadocious streak of their lyrics loses the modesty entirely, with the artist’s delivery confrontational and confident as they establish their ascendance (“Bitch I’m the boss, bitch I’m the blueprint / Two cents dropped on the block, keep it movin’”). There is no opacity to their intent here, but there is a lot of justified posturing as this is one of the catchiest songs of the year without following a single trend. Songs like this where every element of the instrumental punches through and their vocals are entirely unobscured only serve to cement ZiDiil’s ever-increasing talent as it shows that they don’t need eccentric engineering techniques to create a fantastic song– they’re just another facet of their artistry that they use to the best of their ability. It makes spacey, soulful albums like this so much greater when those techniques are utilized in other songs that I believe would still be just as strong at their rawest iteration (see: Left4dead, Kiwi Spree, As Above So Below, Saturnalia). Another thing I want to mention is that the sound selection for the drums throughout the record is nothing short of breathtaking, featuring a lot of unconventional hi-hat/snare/accent percussion sounds that add a significant amount of depth to the rhythms under the heavily-layered melodies, although ZiDiiL seems to consistently love a heavy kick drum– I do too, so that’s okay with me. 

The following song, ‘Allah’, is one of the catchiest and most accessible on Soulbound, immediately kicking off with a wall of shimmering synths and textures that feel as dense as diamond, but only for a moment. Each melodic element settles into its own place in the mix in the following seconds, giving the arrangement some room to breathe before an incredibly bouncy drum line begins, leading into ZiDiil’s absolute earworm of a hook. Their pointed, chant-like delivery throughout the hook provides an immediate burst of energy that never truly lulls throughout the remainder of the song, allowing the artist to relax their cadence during their verse. The vocal performance during their verse on this song is less focused on hitting every rhythmic space as sharp as before, with ZiDiil floating over the drums as opposed to fitting within their confines, vaguely evoking the cloudy flows of Warlord-era Yung Lean. This is used to their advantage as they fuse this lackadaisical style of delivery with their strong lyrical ability, creating a tastefully carefree and immensely enjoyable listening experience that feels more low-stakes without sacrificing any amount of quality– their flow during the bars “Popstar like Madonna, bitch / Like Benny, fuck a ‘Hana / Benzo poppin’, I’m a Leo like Mufasa” is absolutely mind-bending, yet simple and catchy enough to enjoy on a more casual level than some of the higher-concept songs on the album. The contrast between the bubbly brightness of the instrumental and the hedonistic braggadocio of ZiDiil’s performance works incredibly well on this song, playing to the artists strengths both as a songwriter as well as a producer. That being said, ‘Allah’ is not without its own little left-turn; as the outro begins and ZiDiil’s chanted hook gets split bar-by-bar, repeating and warping through a heavy blanket of vocal processing, the overall mix of the instrumental progressively gets more and more “smushed” until it’s reduced to a brain-rattling bassline that’s only pierced by the higher-frequency synths cutting through the echoed repetitions of “Allah my persona / A-Allah my persona”.