Salotheboy showed up on my radar last year during one of my bandcamp-local-tag deep dives. Their album “Corduroy Cowboy” was on my best of 2021 and I had them on my list for a ZUZU feature ever since. Unlike many of the artists featured here, I didn’t know who was behind these songs which means I’ve no personal anecdotes, but dang! This is really my kinda sound.
Up until recently, Mikey Malikwoski had been focused on producing rap records with his pals in the IVYLEAGUE collective. “Salo is still very new,” they say in our instagram thread, “I started working on it during the pandemic and fell in love with how independent it was compared to feeling like I HAD to be in bands to make anything of worth.”
I can identify with that feeling and it takes a bit of force to break out of that thought, but we’re all so glad they did because now “Tex” exists.
Those three (three!?) chucks on the muted acoustic are just enough of an entry-point for the voice, progression and odd visualization provoked by the lyric “Just got passed by a grandma in a Lexus, what color are cop cars in Texas?” There’s a break that calls to mind 90’s hip hop and it forms the spinal column of the song - only dropping out for a breath and coming back in to beat you up in the outro.
I’m still just getting to know Salo’s work but I’m excited to know they’re here in Buffalo doing their thing. Just like all these other great creators featured here, it's a reminder of the gift that lives in our backyard.
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