Joshua Hamilton, 24, started making music under the alias, Brahman and took inspiration from artists such as Kanye West, Odd Future, Kid Cudi, and other lyrical artists. He took on a quiet, mellow style and focused mainly on his message and lyricism. His beats were self-made and consisted of drum samples, guitars, keyboards, and synthesizers.

He released around 7 albums and EPs between 2015 and 2017. He started using the alias “Lil Darkie” in 2018 with the release of the song “No hands.” Since then, he has released 8 albums under the name, as well as numerous singles varying widely in genre, mood, and lyrical content.

His most recent album, The Lost Songs, features 18 unreleased tracks from time between 2019 and 2022. They are mostly cut songs from former albums, as well as random singles. Most of these songs are a lot more chill and instrumental-focused, a trend that the artist has followed this year with his previous album, The Small Dark One. This album is a large contrast from his earlier albums/mixtapes from 2018 and 2019, in which he took up an anti-censorship position and prioritized being as offensive as possible over being liked or accepted by the mainstream. Since then, he has gathered a cult following and has taken the artistic liberty to branch out from his loud, bass, drum-heavy, yell rapping and instead stretched out to several different styles of music, including lo-fi, rock of many genres, country, and more mainstream trap style of hip-hop.

Back on his new album, Josh starts the album with the track “Mary Jane,” in which he sings about a beautiful girl with the same name as a personification of marijuana. The song dances around the topic of a troubled relationship, which symbolizes his problems with weed dependency. This is one of the only songs on this album that genuinely talks about a deeply personal issue that Josh has dealt with. He also speaks on issues with race, self-anguish, and other mental and societal issues. These come mainly in the last 3 tracks, while the middle part of the album is a mix of genres and eras that darkie is experimenting with. 

To me, the album deserves an 8/10 due to the variety and overall style. Many songs seem unfinished and don’t fit together. However, I feel that that adds to the “unvaulted songs” aesthetic. The reinvention of Lil Darkie has been a long journey, starting with a few songs on each album and developing into a whole new personality of the artist.

Darkie’s online community has been very mixed about this album. On one hand, there were those who missed the message the album was targeting, such as a user from Album of the Year, who said, “A lot of the songs on this mixtape are really bad. It sounded as if Lil Darkie didn’t even try, which seems to be the case with a lot of his songs these days. Some songs had potential but then he ruined them, such as Time of the day and Borat. The instrumentals carried but then Darkie ruined it with trash [expletive] bars, especially on ‘Time Of The Day’. ‘Mary Jane’, ‘Sould’ and ‘Homophone’ are great, I think they’re probably the only songs Darkie tried on. ‘Tats on my lean’ just sounds like a sad parody of Playboi Carti or Yeat. I personally think Lil Darkie doesn’t enjoy making music anymore which is why a lot of his songs have been so bad these days. I’d rather he take a hiatus and come back when he’s ready instead of releasing stuff such as this.” He got a response from the other side of those who understood. 

Another user replied, “Bro. This review right here is next-level garbage. You literally said that “tats on my lean” is a sad parody of carti even though the point of that song was to mock and make fun of playboi carti. You can’t just miss the entire point of a song and then go on to proclaim how bad it is. You then proceed to make the same mistake of missing them when you talk about the album as a whole. You talk about how he doesn’t try with these songs. This mixtape isn’t Lil Darkie tryharding to make swamp 2 this is a compilation of his rough unfinished songs that never got released. You also made a gross generalization of Darkie’s recent projects. You do realize Lil Darkie’s songs “these days” includes “RUN” and the small dark one he is far from not trying and not enjoying making music.” It is obvious, based on reading reviews, that many missed the point of the album and focused solely on their expectations. I hope more people in the world consider the things they are reviewing critically before they write a review regarding it to maintain validity and accuracy.

Overall, I am very excited to see where Josh takes his career next and what the following months will bring. Usually, he will drop 3-5 singles between each album, so for now, it’s a waiting game to see what’s next.