GutterPutter

lulamoon is the online/stage name of the Austin, Texas-based rapper with prior experiences within the Brony phenomenon in which she collaborated with Vylet Pony on her most recent mixtape Gonarch’s Lair. The mostly anonymous emcee broke through with a bit of recognition in 2024 not from her works within the fandom but as an independent upcomer. Opal sticks out as a radicalised work that mixes anti-authoritarianism with both fuzzy home-made production and an intersectional kind of introspection that’s built around her being a trans black woman with socially progressive views and loads of online culture references. She might not be the biggest name in the rap scene, but you would be hard pressed to find anyone with as imaginative a style as her aside from the Dealers of God or Rural Internet.

lambspring marks her fourth studio album since her debut in 2022 and it deals with themes that should come off as similar to her following. Gender dysphoria, euphoria, or performativity is one topic that lulamoon tends to focus on or black power against right-wing populism from a more political/socially conscious angle or even familial trauma from an interpersonal perspective. Over self-produced choppy jazz beats that aren’t quite like the 7th Wonder’s lush archetypes, the record doesn’t fixate on cleanliness nor does it have a musical grand vision. It more so hones in on the borderlines around the emcee’s blend of identities that made her a victim of societal shackles.

There’s a certain variety within the album that helps to broaden the ways that the themes are represented even if the execution might differ in quality. For a more convincing example, ‘antlers & horns’ focuses on a more hardcore exploration of class warfare divided especially through racial lines with the subtext of fearing being stuck in your situation up until your death. It’s an inversive take on the braggadocio topic found in many rap albums by highlighting the pursuit of wealth as an escapism mechanism of most struggling names rather than an end in and of itself. Throw in the dissonant sample of a soothing trumpet solo and you get an intro which pulls no punches in deconstructing the virtue of greed as a honeytrap that erodes the self-worth of the impoverished. Of course, you might also have the weaker example in ‘the boymoder (intro)’ which is aesthetically relevant to the broader focus of the album but comes off more as a filler to flex some more soulful sample usage. 

A notable part surrounding lulamoon’s appeal in lambspring is her rhythmic sense of flow that works almost in tangent with the beat that she produces. The beginning of ‘starfall’ shows her seamlessly go acapella in illustrating her want to change up her habit for her children following a discovery of drugs that her younger sister’s concealing. ‘doe, a deer’ claps with the glitchy mix of pianos and bass with a near-common time pattern of trochees before transferring over to amphimacer to accentuate the ease of slipping into addiction. And then there’s a barrage of assonances of “e” in ‘ethereals / riverside carmilla’ that compliments the more lo-fi beat as lulamoon delivers confrontational verses on conservatism and poverty. The flow thus acts as beams to the beats that in turn accentuate the themes that are explored in the album.

Another aspect of appeal within lambspring rests on the introspection that keeps lulamoon chained to how her personal life relates to the wider issues. ‘splitting’ combines the more neo soul-like production from Little Simz with the vulgar queer exploration of Tyler, the Creator. The way that she described a long-gone relationship that at first appears to be caused by the fleeting feeling of mutual love that had dissipated. Yet, there’s a thematic semantic that points toward rationalising internal transphobia. Note the change in her language in the first verse from the more romantic “[rolling] the flowers” and “[holding] the stars” to the eloquent yet cold-hearted “quantum immortality” and more sophisticated words in “decoherence” and “amaterasu”. 

These emphases add towards the implied dysmorphia at the end which involves lashing out over being unable to maintain a relationship to the point of willingly abusing your body. In turn, it highlights the difficulties of trans people to find normalised acceptance in even close-knit spaces over their anxieties of not being able to be their true selves. Similarly, ‘one year hrt’ also highlights the intersectional struggles trans people face over racial and socioeconomic lines as they’re forced to act different to take advantage of certain welfare benefits or otherwise not get raped in prison. 

There are a few hiccups which serve as a reminder of the small bits of hiccups surrounding lulamoon’s more auteur-like approach towards making her music. Solid as lambspring’s quality is as a whole, the profanity can be overdone, the references oftentimes feel too loose, and the more ramshackle production can blunt the impact of the thematic representation. Punchy as the verses in general can be, there are individual bars that might stick out as feeling off in execution.

‘resonance cascade’ comes off as a filler in the sense that the lyrics struggle to balance the struggle of surviving within poverty lines with more hardcore threats. The featured verse by the mononymous roberto also proves unimpressive as he outlines his lived experiences over both himself and his friend group with braggadocio attempts over his sex life and awkward allusions to Homer’s The Odyssey and the 1952 musical Singin’ in the Rain. ‘the fool (11/05/24)’ is lulamoon at her most personal although it proved itself to be messy in trying to paint a portrait of a person who’s in a moment of transition. The finale in ‘6000 pts.’ at least shows more drive towards blending anti-fascist polemics with critiques of structural racism. There are hiccups however in how she sought to emphasise her threats in the second verse even though her first verse proves damning enough in the double standards over neglecting ethnic/racial minorities in favour of military and law enforcement spending.

As a whole, lambspring is a solid enough work that puts lulamoon one step closer to online notoriety (in a complimentary sense that is). Her flow proves synergistic to her self-produced beats, her broad thematic focus on the intersectionality between trans lives and institutional discrimination is alertingly engaging, and the political context comes off as befitting of increasing racial polarisation. The album’s main flaw is that it simply feels more like a rough draft in how it highlights those themes and while it allows itself to enjoy its own kind of charm, it otherwise feels overboard in its swearing and default broad disses. Fans of more queer hip hop are going to find this to be a nice entry point into more overlooked artists although you would hope that there are much sharper ones. For that, I would recommend the likes of Rural Internet for their more experimental take.

3.6/5