Snow Tha Product, A Movement Unregistered (4/9/2019)

Ricardo Lezama --- Snow Tha Product has carved out her own lane within hip-hop. Her musicality and identity is unique within an industry that discourages both, particularly, for women. With her impressive own online presence, Snow has no major platform or big break to thank for her success. Essentially, she has bootstrapped her following, though at one moment, she was signed to a major record label.

This has lead to the misperception that she does not have key assets to show for her talent. Indeed, she likely has more equity long-term: views, engagement and tour numbers do not lie. This holds for many other rappers too. She's her own woman.

While at a major label, Atlantic Records, Snow Tha Product learned about developing infrastructure for distributing her content. On the surface, it may seem like she languished, but the short-term a check from a major label made her further music possible.

On camera, she's well aware of who she is, but like many of us, fully embraces being comfortable in her skin to not have to assert her own identity all the time.

Lyrically, Snow The Product's content has been consistent in quality.

Snow Tha Product On How (Lack Of) Sexuality Limits Bandwidth For Her Reach

The originator of the term 'Woke', Snow is ironically very much against dogmatism. In a recent, Vlad TV interview, she mentioned how people can go in circles trying to out class one another on whose politically more proper.

Despite this, she is still able to strike a balance between constant political agitation and completely self-centered musical production.

I maintain that while there is a place for both, it's always more interesting to see someone who can speak the language of the political world, while still sounding as adventerous and care free as much of hip-hop's better produced music tends to be.

In effect, Snow has emerged with a dominant presence in the hip-hop industry that is as overlooked as it is undeniable, paradoxically.

If a comparison must be made, the cadence Snow adopts at times is reminiscent of Eminem or Meek Mill, with her ability to rap quickly always at reach in a song.

When it comes to speed, you never know when she's going to leverage that talent within a beat.

Just because we think Snow is not pigeon-holed to gender or family roots does not mean that Snow is somehow too generic to be interesting; she somehow transcends these elements but embraces them at the same time.

In fact, I know she's a Mexican woman because she tells me so in her music! As a listener, I enjoy that.

A good listener learns to assimilate that perspective as one more reality to acknowledge. Before her music, I think I simply could not pay attention to these things as much and that is the type of change her music inspires.

Gaslight is an interesting song about (male) partners passing off their problems as that of the women in their life.

Even so, with all that "wokeness" in 'Gaslight', Snow's also funny as hell. Her humor permeates from her personality and, ironically enough, there is not much of that in hip-hop anymore.

Snow is more casually funny through her lyrics than most social media savvy artists are consciously.

In the cuts, 'Vaquero' and 'Telemundo', all the fantasies and fears that my female friends would muse about come full to the fore.

They are amazing to observe musically because in doing so you realize she's the only artist that talks about those things.

In Telemundo, her indictment of the Spanish language channel's hot actresses is hilariously retold in the form of a complaint that her boyfriend is accidently exposed to the channel only to covet the women more than her:

And then, they walked in /
I seen his whole attention go to them/
(what are you looking at?)/
....

Can I relate? Sure, maybe not literally, but she makes smart lyrics that rhyme so you listen. And her stories are so well thought out that you have to commend her artistry.

As a relatively young artist, Snow's career moves seem to lead to longer term accolades independent of the industry marketing machine.

In other words, she may just be better off being concerned with her legacy, not her short-term visibility. When you consider how her 'alleged' competition arrives at their notoriety, Snow appears better off as is her community.

Indeed, we qualify her competition as 'alleged' because musically she really has created her own lane. The only direct commonality is that she is female, but that's pretty much it.

If you need a US centric reference, Snow has a bluesy, but raspy, voice that reminds me of Etta James for whatever reason.

The rasp, though, makes her familiar to most California based listeners, one that has deep origins in Mexican music, the sustain in her notes, lyric reference and even her cadence is definitely California MX.

"I've been waiting" is sung at the final bars of the song. It's amazing, but when she abruptly stops, she shows her growth musically is just beginning. Maybe it's a bid to show discomfort with being too serious about singing when indeed her voice is as strong as her rapping.

Fortunately, the only limit to some well-deserved megalomania is her self-imposed humility. In this sense, she may be her own enemy. She's limited her ego to the substance surrounding the art-form: she can rap, that's all she wants to talk about.

However, in an age of viral media where she could use her platform to ride controversy into chart success, she's opted to concentrate on her art.

In a way, she has limited her overall and immediate success to only substantive things: a strong fan base, touring and a unique artistic imprint. Snow has that work. While still having some of the trappings associated with stardom, like a major social media following and strong aesthetics, Snow's also somehow insulated herself from the visual commitments flash-in-the-pan fame implies. Her success wont age, but rather it will solidify and turn into something else.

What has changed is how varied her musical palette is displayed on tracks like "Get Off" or "Gaslight", her latest singles. She can still do a true to form song where her rapping ability is the main attraction, but her bridge in 'Gaslight' is impressive, registering a different modality for her expression e.g. she can actually sing!

That's the good news, but left for her to define is what new lanes she's going to create through her craft. We're excited to see this unfold.

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