Rayhan brings the past into the future with "G SHOCK"

Toronto's new underground is booming again, and this time, Rayhan and ILoveYouApollo are bringing back the past just to flush it forward. "G SHOCK" is a time machine merging throwback grooves and razor-sharp contemporary production. It's the first in a series of tracks to precede Rayhan, introducing his new body of work, a rap-centric album, "uDOPE," part two of the ambitious "Untitled" trilogy.

Grounded in the rough textures of Scarborough, "G SHOCK" lands like gritty elegance. That beat is like a disoriented ride through Toronto as gritty, cinematic, paranoid. That unease is intentional. It's a song about betrayal and the subsequent caution, but instead of staying mired in the dark, it turns that into a moment of power reclamation. "G SHOCK" is a metaphor for resilience, wearing scars like streetwear and navigating the world armed with rhythm, memory, and your chosen community.

Rayhan's bars are reflective but laser-focused, and he also nailed the balance with ILoveYouApollo's feature. They transport you to a futuristic-yet-nostalgic head space that somewhat seamlessly teleports you back to 2013 when Drake was in his Nothing Was the Same era, "G SHOCKS," and Foxtails were stock fashion accessories, and that was the uniform. This is recollections, not for memories's sake. Grounded in now, "G SHOCK" has an aural sheen that's simultaneously digital and profoundly human.

This record has an intellectual bite, a feeling that every bar contains more than rhymes. "G SHOCK" foreshadows "uDOPE," a love letter to the rapper's past and a professional course on lyrical candor. But with a cult following of deep feelers and creative misfits now tapped in, "G SHOCK" announces a new chapter and overhauls the narrative in stone. If Rayhan's last single, "No Tomorrow," was the party before the plunge, then "G SHOCK" is the hard landing and the bounce back.

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