It’s wonderful to hear someone spew some bars over a cool beat every now and then as hip-hop continues to adapt and mutate into its ever-growing plethora of styles and formats. Symba’s UPROXX Sessions rendition of “Ain’t Saying Sh*t” is a wonderful refresher on punchline-forward, swaggering battle rap, as he goes for broke exposing all of his virtues and pointing out all of his adversaries’ many shortcomings.
Symba, a native of the Bay Area, switched in his hoop goals for microphone abilities in middle school, naming himself after a well-known source (The Lion King) and attempting to establish himself as monarch in his own right. He’s also one of those artists who comes into the game with a certain amount of hard-won financial expertise from previous experiences in the industry. He returned to the independent grind when a deal with Columbia Records fell through in 2017, generating enough excitement to land another deal with Atlantic.
Symba is part of a new breed of rap-first hip-hop artists who are poised to flood the game sooner than you might expect, thanks to a viral LA Leakers freestyle and a notable 2021 BET Hip-Hop Awards Cypher verse, as well as his 2020 mixtape Don’t Run From R.A.P.
