Deconstructing Underground Sound DNA: Why Che, Osamason, and Fakemink aren't just "generic clones" (Part 1)

Che

When it comes to Che's music, it's easy to chalk him up as just another "generic rage artist," but I feel like a lot of listeners just hear the heavy and melodic sound space and use their internal biases to ignore what his sound actually is.

The Core Genres:

Rage & "Supertrap"

• MASSIVE, high energy digital sounds that aren't afraid to let heavy bass and chaotic drums serve as the main backbone.

Pluggnb

• Smooth, hypnotic melodies that balance out the vocal aggression, making the chaos feel cohesive and really addictive. (This is what I feel makes Che truly stand out from the ever growing crowd of rage artists.)

Digicore and Electronic

• Glitchy, compressed, and fast paced textures taking inspo from internet-born electronic music.

What makes Che stand out from the endless wave of copycats isn't just that he uses all these genres it's that he truly forces them to coexist to create a beautiful kind of chaos. It's violent, it's loud, but it's DEEPLY hypnotic.

Musical Fingerprint:

Maximalism, "dopamine" inducing, addictive, lush, yin and yang.

Osamason

A lot of casual listeners of Osamason love to just spam the "Ken Carson clone" rhetoric and just move on, but if you actually look at what he's doing, his sound is way more calculated than people give him credit for. He's taking the most blown out, aggressive shit in the underground right now and somehow making it catchy.

The Core Genres:

Blown Out Rage & "Supertrap"

The beats are literally just pure high octane violence. The 808s are distorted to hell on purpose, the synths sound almost metallic, and the drums are as chaotic as the 808s (sometimes a little more). It honestly feels more like listening to a punk rock song than a normal rap beat.

Lowkey Pluggnb Melodies (yes...again)

Even when the beat is fighting for its life through the speakers, there's almost always a hidden melodic layer or a super smooth synth tucked DEEP under the distortion. I feel like that's the secret sauce that keeps his songs from just sounding like random noise and also gives his songs an addictive bounce.

(When it comes to a lot of modern underground artists, pluggnb will be brought up a LOT as that sound is what I think drastically changed what modern hip-hop sounds like today. Before that wave, rap was mainly lyric and beat focused—vocal melodies weren't really experimented with as often as they are today, and definitely not as popular.)

Dark Plugg / Slimesito Inspired

He takes a lot of inspo from that hard minimalist dark plugg scene (obviously). His delivery is usually repetitive, hazy, and detached, which balances out how futuristic sounding all his beats are and how crazy his production is.

(I hope more artists blow up using this style. Digital high-pitched rap is great and deserves its own throne, but there's not as many artists today sticking to "calmer" and darker flows/melodies. In my opinion, that's why a lot of the music scene today sounds so familiar everybody wants to be the loudest or the craziest, but you can only sound so "crazy" without clashing with another artist that also sounds as "crazy.")

The main thing that makes Osamason stand out is how his vocals are mixed. He doesn't just sit on top of the beat—his voice is fried and compressed to the point where his vocals melt directly INTO the drums. He basically treats his voice like a distorted guitar, forcing you to FEEL the whole track for what it is.

Musical Fingerprint:

Punk, hidden melodic, OVER-blown, loud, aggressive, fun, repetitive (SHOUT OUT SOFT CLIPPER).

And last but not least........

FAKEMINK

(Definitely my personal favorite out of the 3 and the most underrated on the list.)

If you look at Fakemink's top 5 songs on Spotify, it's easy to think that you get the whole picture, but I'm gonna be completely honest... his top 5 songs are his most generic and boring versions of his style and don't really do him justice. Musically, he is easily the most innovative in the UK underground right now and it's not even close. He is effectively the prince of digital nostalgia, taking early 2010s aesthetics and turning it into a whole new sub genre of the already existing sub genre of Cloud Rap.

The Core Genres:

Cloud Rap / Digital Nostalgia (Clams Casino Era)

• Fakemink's whole foundation is based off almost "dreamlike" elements floating synth pads, washed out atmosphere, ambient textures. It's like a heavy throwback to that old 2011-ish cloud rap wave but mixed with digital, internet aesthetics and sounds. It feels like floating through space with a computer playing Animal Jam or Poptropica ambient, but grounded.

Bloghouse / Mellow Jerk

• While everyone else is using "traditional" trap drums, Fakemink brings in fast, bouncy bloghouse and subtle jerk patterns for his drums. He frequently brings up the inspiration he's taken from Clams Casino's production style, and if you take a listen to his older tracks, you can definitely hear the similarities. He lets the drums bring the energy but tones it down so it doesn't overpower the overall melodic and atmospheric soundscape.

Classic Plugg and Lo-Fi

• Underneath his newer stuff, you can still hear the heavy influence from his early days when producing plugg beats and lofi beats (SHOUTOUT HOLLY). The chord progressions in his music are usually melancholic, beautiful, and kind of sad, which balances out and compliments his almost cocky and detached vocal style.

What makes Fakemink truly stand out from the whole scene is his cadence and mixing style. He uses this chipmunk/alien'ish vocal effect where it sounds like it should be annoying (a lot of people say it is 💀), but because his delivery and cadence sound so "nonchalant," slurred, and almost like he doesn't care, it sounds incredibly wavy which entirely fits the vibe of that 2010s digital aesthetic.

Musical Fingerprint:

Digital nostalgia, airy, atmospheric, bloghouse, lush, high-pitched, old money meets new money.

(Someone once told me that Fakemink raps like he ran out of studio time and convinced the engineer to let him do one more freestyle over a beat he found on his elementary school laptop... I don't know why, but I don't entirely disagree with that 😭)

Appreciate anyone who actually read this far. The underground is moving so fast right now, and I feel like a lot of upcoming artists get trapped trying to copy exactly what's popping or trying to make a random genre instead of decoding what actually makes these sounds work.

I do these exact types of Sound deep dives for independent artists to help them figure out their mixing space, vocal pockets, and overall sound so they can stop guessing with presets.

If you want a breakdown of your own music to see what your sonic fingerprint looks like, shoot me a DM with a link to your tracks and let's lock it in!

Let me know who I should break down for Part 2!