To call GoldLink an aspiring rapper would not do him justice. The DMV-bred emcee accrued over three million plays on his Soundcloud and captured the attention of an entire industry with the first project he ever released.
GoldLink’s sound doesn’t throw it all the way back to the boom-bap, New York style, nor is it entirely a product of digital production. Instead, the music mixes the buttery grooves of 90’s R&B with classic hip-hop breaks to give it an essence of nostalgia, and then turns on its head with bouncy, forward-thinking production style led by the likes of Ta-Ku and Kaytranda. Add that to GoldLink’s ability to fill every pocket of the dynamic instrumentals he tackles with a roller-coaster delivery, and suddenly your head is bobbing to the self-proclaimed “future-bounce” genre.*
The racing mind of a 20-year old is usually not a romantically stable place, so you will often hear GoldLink battling the worries and woes of his love life. However, with the mental and social acuity of someone far beyond his years, it is not out of the ordinary to find GoldLink tackling a larger social injustice. Whether it be dealing cocaine, gun-toting friends, an absent father, or the general hardship of growing up in the ghetto, there is substance behind the sound.
With a catalog of less than twenty songs under his belt, GoldLink has still been able to receive the support of outlets like FADER, Complex, Noisey, and XXL. The recognition spread further than the web though, as GoldLink played several showcases at SXSW, a Los Angeles debut alongside future-bounce Soulection conglomerates, as well as numerous other concerts in New York and elsewhere on the horizon.
The short career of GoldLink thus far has shown him relative success, and with a summer filled with new music right around the corner, we are all excited to watch, experience, and dance to his progression.
