Album Review: B Wise - Area Famous

It’s easy to drift into hyperbole when you hear a new, exciting voice in Australian rap. There’s a uniformity about the genre that makes new leaders stand especially tall. B Wise is one such leader. Area Famous is a triumph. This is grown-up shit.

Feel Something deserves its reputation as a searing shot across the bow; it is something genuinely different. It is not merely that the song’s subject matter is underexplored. It is not merely that the tune reflects an understanding of where rap is internationally and where it’s heading. It is that Wise sounds – for want of a better word – cool. Most of us don’t listen to rap to plumb insecurities, or reflect on losses and hatreds. At its most basic, we listen to rap to hang out with the cool kids. B Wise is certainly one of those. The Code is definitive proof of Wise’s coolness, the sort of song that is difficult to imagine coming out of Sydney before hearing it on this record.

For fans of rap made in this country, certain releases stand out as landmarks; moments when the scene shifted, expanded, opened up. Area Famous is the most recent of those moments. Get on it.