Written, recorded, mixed, and produced by Decuma

Guitar on track 4 written/performed by yska
Cello on track 11 written/performed by Issei Herr
Lyrics on track 11 edited by Katie Grossman

Released by waveform alphabet


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Loving music is at its core about emotional response, right? Some artists aim for the rafters, hitting big loud beats they know will resonate across demographics—music for blockbusters. Then there are artists like Detroit multi-hyphenate artist Decuma, who make intensely personal works meant to be listened to carefully, in the foreground. let’s play pretend!, which sits at the intersection of hip-hop, ambient, and experimental music, is quietly devastating, and a frontrunner for my own personal records of the year list. Throughout, Decuma reflects on his own childhood trauma—racial violence, physical and sexual abuse, the particularly horrible nexus thereof—and its many echoes throughout the process of growing up, trying to heal. (Obvious heads-up on content, but “basketball,” which features experimental guitarist yska—you may know her from her collaboration with Lucy Liyou—is one of the most affecting and effective depictions of how traumas compound I’ve ever heard.) Decuma’s poetic lyrics toggle between vivid imagery and almost stream-of-consciousness address, and he raps over and through haunting, beatless environments with crisp acuity and raw directness. let’s play pretend! is elegantly assembled and detailed, but nothing about it feels forced or buttoned-down. This is music at its most meaningful—not because of the heftiness of its subject matter, but because of the way it handles it. Challenging, breathtaking, necessary.

–jj skolnik "Essential Releases, March 17, 2023"
daily.bandcamp.com/seven-essential-releases/essential-releases-march-17-2023

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Rapper and producer Decuma‘s let’s play pretend! melds ambient and minimalist classical influences together. “Thin line between help and harm / Years short, but the seconds long / I can’t help that I get attached / You lose things and can’t get them back,” says Decuma on “talent show,” one of the album’s introductory moments that serves to usher in recurring themes of trauma, dislocation, and grief. “Why is every love I’ve ever known conditional? / Every pain I’ve ever known centrifugal? / Every religion, physical?” Adding a layer of musical depth to Decuma’s immersive production, yska brings aggravated guitar lines to the fervent mid-section of “basketball,” and Issei Herr uses elegiac cello notes throughout the penultimate moment “telephone,” a track where the twisting narrative culminates with Decuma saying a climatic chorus line: “Philosophy became a complicated game of telephone—we’ve all lost, we’ve all bled.”

Phillip Mlynar "The Best Hip-Hop on Bandcamp: March 2023"
daily.bandcamp.com/best-hip-hop/the-best-hip-hop-on-bandcamp-march-2023

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I can’t claim to be super methodical with my genre blending. … My emotions just well up in me and spill out in whatever form my brain decides," Decuma once said. The rapper and producer was being modest.

2023’s let's play pretend offers the best possible explanation for his blend of hip-hop, ambient, and experimental genres, as if inspired by Xiu Xiu’s white-knuckle intensity: "I write ambient music because life feels like one long, dissonant drone," he raps in fourth track "basketball."

This genre-blending is how Decuma expresses, with admirable precision, the trauma that stems from physical, sexual and racial violence. It also underscores lyrics like, "I'm so alone with my secrets, and so I shared them with this f— stuffed tiger just so something can hear it." How it felt to be robbed of his innocence could not be made more explicit.

- Christina Lee "6 Artists Expanding The Boundaries Of Hip-Hop In 2023: Lil Yachty, McKinley Dixon, Princess Nokia & More"
www.grammy.com/news/6-artists-pushing-the-boundaries-of-hip-hop-kassa-overall-lil-yachty-princess-nokia-videos
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