22Canelo ticks all the boxes with his hip-hop-archetype-less charisma in Checkmark

Six years from his first lauded mixtape, the Bay Area-born artist 22Canelo let his charisma lead the way in his latest new wave hip hop single, Checkmark. In the same way that Lizzo allows her disposition to heighten every track she contributes to, 22Canelo is a master of the eccentric melodic hip hop earworm.

Too cool for nerdy hip hop, too sweetly eccentric for gangster hip hop, too twee for trap, 22Canelo made the sub-genres of hip hop look like painful stereotypes with his psyche, which will leave you just as psyched by the time the outro has rolled around. Forget the X-factor, he’s got the XXX-factor.

Checkmark will officially release on 08/07/2022. Check it out on his website.

Review by Amelia Vandergast