Thursday 6/18: Ashnikko—"Cry" (Feat. Grimes)
Today, we share our thoughts on "Cry" (Feat. Grimes) by North Carolina pop-rapper Ashnikko.
Welcome to Endless Scroll, the brainchild of Eli Enis (he/him) and Eric Bennett (they/them). Since Feb. 2019, we’ve been a weekly podcast about music, the internet, and where those two things intersect. Now we’re, also a M-F newsletter about songs. Our format is simple: a link to a song and a short take from each of us about what we think of it. Each day of the week has a corresponding genre: Monday is indie, Tuesday is punk, Wednesday is hip-hop, Thursday is pop, and Friday is misc.
Today, we share our thoughts on "Cry" (Feat. Grimes) by North Carolina pop-rapper Ashnikko.
Ashnikko— “Cry” (Feat. Grimes)
Eric Bennett:
In the alternate timeline where all live music did not get canceled or postponed, I would have seen Ashnikko open for Rico Nasty in April, a perfect lineup for a college’s spring concert. The North Carolina rapper and Tik Tok fixture’s newest single, “Cry”, begins with quick bursts of guitar that sound eerily similar to those that introduce Rico Nasty’s “Rage”, but also feel like a continuation of the sweeping metal influence slowly taking over pop. The track allegedly features Grimes, though like many of her features, you honestly could completely miss her vocals if your attention vanishes after Ashnikko’s rageful screams of “biiiitch” on the chorus pass by (though the song’s darkness feels at akin to Miss Anthropocene). There’s a lot to the track that elicits a side eye, and makes it feel cynically engineered, but it does honestly slap. A win for Ashnikko, c’est la vie.
Eli Enis:
Is Ashnikko’s “Cry” a rap song? Pop? Metal? Alt-rock? Who’s to say and honestly it’s so confidently unshook by its genre aversion that trying to place it seems moot. “Cry” begins with a blistering, fist-shaking rap verse and then quick cuts into a metallic pop hook straight out of the Evanescence playbook. And Grimes is there, for some reason, being all elf-like with her mystic coo, which honestly doesn’t add much of anything to the song but sounds cool nonetheless. Although “Cry” exudes the sort of unfiltered emotionality of an emo song (emo-rap, rock or otherwise), Ashnikko’s violent threats toward wily fuckboys are too aggressive to stand comfortably alongside the Juice WRLD’s and Wicca Phase’s of the world. But she also manages to skirt the corny metallic trap of Ghostmane, which is probably for the best. Do I like “Cry”? I don’t know, but it’s stuck in my head and I’m honestly kind of scared of Ashnikko, so I guess she succeeded.