Bani: Signing Bonus - Fast

A fast version of Bani’s album was created after listeners demanded quicker tracks. DJ Cut Up Fonks sped up the songs in a DAW, producing an even better “Signing Bonus - Fast.” The release is a reliable rap tape with sticky hooks designed for loud playback and fast driving. Detroit-style production, when sped up, becomes a complex chain of keys and percussion that blurs everyday scenes into a high-velocity slice of life. Bani raps with breathy, half-sung vocal doubles inspired by Broward crooner Loe Shimmy. The sped-up swampy vocals and hard beats can feel meditative, with tracks like “Pretty Boy Glo,” “Stay the Same,” and “Deeper Den Da Mafia” supporting zoning out. The album centers on everyday hustles, heartache, mixed signals, and hustler-to-travel stories.

"A couple weeks later, his go-to remixer DJ Cut Up Fonks threw the songs in a DAW and blew on their embers, giving us the even better Signing Bonus - Fast. This is a reliable rap tape full of sticky hooks, meant to be played loud, windows down, and going fast. Like many Florida rappers, Bani favors Detroit production, which, sped up, transforms into a Rube Goldberg machine of keys and percussion."

"You can practically see the speed lines whizzing as track borders smudge together, blurring mundane vignettes, hand-to-hand transactions, gleeful aspirations, and flashes of paranoia into a feverishly paced slice of life. Bani raps in a fog of breathy, half-sung, half-there vocal doubles, taking cues from Broward crooner Loe Shimmy. He makes day-to-day shit like kicking it with a girl and having a smoke sesh sound so cold."

"The high-speed rush of swampy vocals and smackin' beats can feel surprisingly meditative; songs like "Pretty Boy Glo," "Stay the Same," and "Deeper Den Da Mafia" are tailor-made for zoning out and taking in the geyser of words. Bani hails from Hollywood, Florida, a town you'll pass if you're driving north on I-95 from Miami to Fort Lauderdale."

"In interviews and on wax, you get the sense that he's a student of fast music, someone who's lived with the DJ Frisco remixes of Rod Wave, Kodak Black, and NoCap ballads and learned to reverse-engineer their frantic feel. He writes songs about heartache like "Text Back ILY," where big feelings and mixed signals are even bigger and harder to parse in the fast versions."

Read at Pitchfork