Florida rapper $NOT is a restless experimenter, constantly looking for new ways to rap and new sounds to rap over. On his 2024 album Viceroy, he tells stories of cop chases and smoking more weed than his opps but obfuscates these stories with coded metaphors and unpredictable flows. The follow-up to 2022’s Ethereal, Viceroy finds $NOT building his own universe because nowhere on Earth feels quite like home. Take “CRUEL WORLD”, which features little more than skittering percussion and a barely-there melody that floats beneath the surface. $NOT gives his vocals tons of layers, such that it sounds like it’s coming from multiple directions. It’s both eerie and intoxicating. On “BULLY”, $NOT expands his style into the world of plugg, showing how he can incorporate different rap subgenres into his highly personalized flow. Even when he’s rapping over something like the hyper-specific synths of plugg, he approaches it unlike anyone else in the game.