One morning I awoke and all of a sudden Tommy Richman went from the white boy Brent Faiyaz took underneath his wing to a viral pop-R&B sensation. The observe that carried him there was an deliberately grainy snippet of “Million Greenback Child,” which shot to the celebs on TikTok. Within the clip, uploaded in April, Richman and his crew are within the studio, bumping alongside to the vibey single as the amount is cranked up so loud that the drums crackle such as you’re watching a 360p rip of ’90s Three 6 Mafia footage on YouTube.
The music resonated so strongly that one of many two variations of the music uploaded to streaming companies was labeled “Million Greenback Child (VHS),” made to recapture the best way his frothy melodies are drowned out by the blown-out bounce. Immediately it was one of many greatest hits of the 12 months, finally peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard Scorching 100. It occurred so quick that it drew some outrage, from loudmouthed podcaster Joe Budden who mentioned, “I by no means wanna hear that Tommy Richman nigga once more!” and Scorching 97’s Funk Flex who exclaimed, hilariously, “If you happen to’re somebody that likes this music, you’re a clown!” earlier than taking part in the observe anyway as if he was being held at gunpoint.
As somebody all for shitting on the overplayed pop music of the second, Flex and Budden had been doing quite a bit. Truly, “Million Greenback Child” is fairly cool. It’s about completely nothing however that doesn’t matter due to all of the songs you’re susceptible to listen to on the radio or at a bar it sounds distinct sufficient to face out each time it comes on. Richman takes his label boss Brent’s laid-back falsetto up a notch and mashes that fashionable vocal fashion with a thudding beat that sounds just like the early 2010s Memphis-inspired thunderstorms of Bones brightened with some additional synths. And in the event you squint laborious sufficient, his ghostly croons have a contact of Bone Thugs-n-Concord to them, however, in fact, with out the emotional weight.
The music Richman was making earlier than “Million Greenback Child” had a few of these qualities, too, because the 24-year-old Woodrbidge, Virginia native, who is claimed to be named after the drummer of Mötley Crüe, has been tinkering with these ethereal vocals within hit-or-miss style experiments for years now. One of the best stuff was both borderline beachy indie rock or Brent gone groovy. There’s a sick function he has on the 2023 mixtape of Maryland producer Sparkheem—a co-producer of “Million Greenback Child” standard for his go go-infused DMV crank—that had me questioning if he was born to be a kind of R&B hook specialists in an outdated rap clique, like Doughboy Clay of Doughboyz Cashout or Mo B. Dick of No Restrict. However Coyote isn’t as fascinating as any of that, selecting to tone down a lot of the hip-hop affect for protected, inoffensive playlist-R&B.