MIDWXST: RISING BUT GROUNDED

Midwxst is a 19-year-old rap, and hip hop artist raised in Indiana who encapsulates the experiences in a teenager’s life in this day and age in carefully-crafted, relatively short musical pieces. Even in songs like Care, he manages to create relatable and emotionally moving stories for listeners in only a matter of 1 minute and 25 seconds.

His work as an artist has resonated with many people, as he has garnered millions of plays on his songs on Spotify alone. His most popular track is his single Trying, which he released in 2020. When this piece was published, his song had over 11.6 million plays, which is incredible for any artist this young and new to this industry. Thus, he has also secured over 870,000 monthly listeners on this platform.

The artist took some time to develop his craft, however. He met other artists on SoundCloud, which helped him understand the nuances of this particular art form and how much it could offer him in terms of creatively expressing some of his most personal thoughts. He grew up in a small town, making it difficult for him to fit in with others his age. Some of this situation is also expressed in the lyrics of his songs.

While Midwxst may still be young, he has managed to address challenging situations during teenage life with maturity, giving his take on relatively common experiences more complexity and depth to his work.  

What’s interesting about this artist is that even though he continues to release a lot of material in quick succession, the quality of his work stays consistent—even increasing in some cases. In these four months of 2022, he has already released three singles and an extended play (EP) of 9 songs, two of which are the singles he released this year. The ability to create high-quality art consistently and frequently is rare, and it is one that we listeners genuinely respect.

His latest release, the EP better luck next time, is an expression of teenage romance, particularly a case of a bad break-up between two partners. Every song in the EP stays true to this theme. So, while Midwxst constantly reiterates tropes of being abandoned by his ex and its effect on him, his performance is where the EP shines.

Listeners are immediately delighted with the striking poignancy in his voice, making every word delivered feel completely honest and moving. His work has an almost visceral quality, and that rawness is more than evident in this particular release. He also is not afraid to jump from one genre to another to perfectly suit the feel of each song, giving every song of his a unique quality yet feeling true to the artist.

Even though Midwxst is a young artist, he has impressed millions with refreshing takes on experiences most people have gone through or continue to deal with.