When I was 16 I wrote poetry about politics and love and plenty of other cliched stuff. It was rubbish. But then I was only 16. At 16 you are not supposed to know how to be good or even what makes something good. You are responding to the world through a limited frame of reference, seeing it like a horse with blinkers.
Donny Oh is a Brooklyn rapper who is 16 years old. And he is good. Seriously good. He has effortless flow, lyrical dexterity, agile wordplay and an ear for a beat. There is an intelligence and confidence belying a man much older. In short, he is nothing like a 16 year old me. Or any 16 year old I know. The amount of potential he possesses is scary.
You can hear the influence of Kendrick Lamar on Parables and there is a hint of the leftfield hip-hop stylings of Edan across the tracks showcased on his soundcloud – https://soundcloud.com/donnyoh. Donny Oh can switch styles and flows with apparent ease though – check out the two fantastic cuts Fencing and Bag Fries for proof.
In the young New Yorker there is a coming together of the current rap scene’s preference for dense lyrical content and the soulful dynamism and masterful flow that defined Nas and Jay-Z in their mid-nineties prime. It’s going to be exciting to watch Donny Oh develop and mature in the next few years and see just how he can shape the genre. Without doubt, a hip-hop star in the making.
Donny Oh is now performing as Medhane.
