Luh Tyler Brings A Fresh Sound To A Nostalgic Style On 'My Vision'

As the street rap zeitgeist’s taste trends toward nervy, Detroit production and the paranoiac influence of drill subgenres, the debut album by Florida emcee Luh Tyler is a breath of fresh, marijuana-laced air. Floating on jazz samples and authentic plugg beats by BeatPluggz member Polo Boy Shawty, he channels the carefree finesse of mid-2010s SoundCloud rap, shuffling through a deck of stock flexes with a nonchalance that feels like bass-heavy easy listening music.

He’s not alone in his affinity for plugg. The movement has been subject to many re-interpretations in recent years, inspiring the baroque trap that has flourished around ATL producers like Popstar Benny and the PluggnB wave, but Tyler’s sound on My Vision is uniquely nostalgic for the underground rap that dominated in 2016, when the now-teenage rapper was only 10 years old. Songs like “Ransom” and the album’s title track would’ve felt at home among the flood of YouTube uploads Rich the Kid and Famous Dex dropped in the wake of their Rich Forever II mixtape or sharing playlist space with Humble Haitian and Kodak Black’s “Boomerang,” a pioneering Florida plugg tune that partially laid the blueprint for Tyler’s artistry.

Despite the distinct hoarseness of his voice, he has a knack for intentionally disappearing into the pockets of dreamy instrumentals, the textural juxtaposition creating a strangely hypnotic effect. On standout track “Hit the Top,” Tyler’s delivery lilts and trails off at the end of each bar as if accompanied by an aural ellipsis or question mark, fading into a backdrop of electric keyboard and cozy woodwinds like clouds. It’s pure decadence—pretty enough to write off the relative banality of Tyler’s lyricism as an aesthetic decision. On paper, there’s nothing about the stanza “now look at us now / yeah, now we at Rolling Loud / zaza got me in the clouds / we at the top, know mama proud,” that’s particularly impressive, but in practice, Tyler’s effortless triplet flows pick up the slack. Knocking Tyler for lack of substance on a cut like this would be like criticizing Brian Eno’s Music for Airports for underutilizing dissonance. Too much complexity would detract from the experience.

Babytron’s presence on the remix to early single “Fat Racks” proves this theory. The Michigan guest star outraps his host in a technical sense, layering punchlines about DC superheroes, ‘90s NBA stat lines, and his February arrest, but his skill never outshines the charisma Tyler exudes while name-dropping weed strains and his Instagram crushes. Local collaborators SCY Jimm and Wizz Havinn complement Tyler much more effectively on “Gettin’ Fishy,” lending groggy, yet nimble verses to a sinister, piano-driven beat. Jimm and Wizz act as gritty counterparts to the unbothered Tyler, yet their drill-adjacent bars are delivered with the same attention to atmosphere that makes his solo music effective.

Still, Tyler sounds best in his own element. “Moncler on My Coat” delves deep into his taste for the ornate, built around an instrumental that’d make you believe he crammed a small string ensemble into the recording studio. The 808s hit with a muffled thump, and hi-hats flicker, then quickly fade into obscurity. It’s a gentle, elegant track that acts as an extension of Tyler’s unflappable swag: “any beat I hop on, that bitch a hit,” he sighs, dripping confidence that backs up his assertion. His voice and arsenal of flows make themselves at home on any production with a hint of tranquility.

An immersive, often serene debut project, My Vision asserts Luh Tyler’s status as an outlier in rap’s current landscape. His music’s too downtempo to fall in with the post-Detroit crowd, even when he hops on beats with vaguely Midwestern drum patterns, but it’s not experimental enough to lump in with the new wave of underground artists pushing plugg into alien territory. It’s more like comfort food for those who pine for a time when Kodak Black, Rich the Kid and Wiz Khalifa could hop on any beat—easy listening with 808s. Luh Tyler doesn’t push himself or his influences hard enough to transcend these comparisons, but in 2023, you’d be hard pressed to find a better mixtape to unwind to.