MESSIAH!’s penetrating and personal the villain wins sound like long-lost diary entries that have been excavated for the benefit of future generations. The Charlotte, North Carolina rapper and close MAVI collaborator has been building to a work this cohesive and precise since he began dropping tapes in the late 2010s, and it’s thrilling to see him master the material of his mind like he does on the villain wins
The project ranges from barely edited freestyles to narrative-driven opuses that sound like the words of great thinkers. Like philosophers have been telling us for generations, MESSIAH! has come to a realization that animates the project: the world is a cruel place and we don’t wanna leave. We have an innate urge to make things better, to be the change that too often eludes us and is actively sabotaged by the people elevated to power. Take his thoughts on the album’s second track, “wide down music,” which is one of its most poignant missives. “The world is burning, but rent is still due and Ben Frank is still blue,” he shares regarding the track. “It’s really a survival ballad.”
To understand where MESSIAH! has been and where he’s going, we had him break down all the songs on the villain wins. Stream along and find his commentary below.
1. “my eyes!!”
I was working with TwoTone a couple times a week and I would challenge myself to punch-in a song in, like, 15 to 20 minutes at the top of every session. I was in a real dark headspace that day. They played the beat, dimmed the lights, and I basically just talked to myself out loud into a live mic. Twenty minutes later this came out.
2. “wipe down music” (feat. Niontay)
“my eyes!!” establishes the idea that as fucked up as I felt, I couldn’t allow myself to stop moving forward. “wipe down music” snaps out of my internal dialogue to give you a glimpse of my external experience. The world is burning, but rent is still due and Ben Frank is still blue. It’s really a survival ballad. Shoutout to Niontay—he walked this shit down and really captured what I was trying to get across.
3. “our daily bread” (feat. MAVI)
We still in survival mode on this one. This session was the night before my 25th birthday. I remember I’d been punching in so much that this was my first time trying to sit down to write a verse in months. I was nervous thinking I lost my groove. Harrison fell asleep with the beat playing, and I’m like, “Fuck, it’s taking me way too long to do this.” So I wrote the first half, then me and MAVI just started going back and forth freestyling in the booth. “Shit on the line so I play the game!” to sum it up. A gas birthday present.
4. “in the mourning”
This is one of the first songs I made when I moved back to Charlotte in 2023. I was going through a breakup, chain smoking spliffs, and turning my hustle back up. It was a time where I was forced to really look at myself, so this is me questioning a lot of my pretend passiveness the year prior. It revisits the idea from “my eyes!!” that I don’t have the time or patience to stop and cry. I’m turning my tears into streams.
5. “burden of truth” (feat. Malaya)
I made this song to show that my commitment to not slowing down is more out of humility than ego. The burden of truth to me is the idea that my own life is bigger than me. I’m getting as high as the ceiling of my love for my people, because I know I owe them victory for their sacrifices. I’m carrying that burden everyday. So if I have to sing, dance, and get high to ignore my pain and get us where we’re going, that’s what I’m going to do. Watching Malaya layer her vocals and write at the same time was incredible—she’s really a mastermind.
6. “dancing in the dark”
This is the last song I made for the villain wins. After marching forward for so long without stopping to tend to my wounds, I looked back at the canvas of my life and realized I was leaving behind a trail of my own blood. But it turned into a piece of art that I’m performing and presenting to the world. Sacrificing myself for the program.
7. “dirt don’t hurt”
This is the turning point of the project. This is where I go from questioning the things I’ve been through to embracing them. This is where the villain starts winning.
8. “song cry”
Shoutout my 116 twin.
9. “god’s fav”
I think this is the feeling of crossing the finish line in first place. It’s the daily mantra and reminder of who I am and what I’m capable of. Vayda brought out the perspective of what victory look like to her as a Black woman, which is so tough to me. It’s just a pop-your-shit anthem.
10. “can’t stand it!!”
My victory lap! Sonically, it’s a deep breath. It’s where I get to pop the Clicquot and stand on couches with my dawgs. But it’s also a reminder that there’s more to do. It’s a look at what I had to do to get where I am, and motivation for me and my people to keep going. It also ends the project foreshadowing my next career steps a little bit, because it’s like, “Bro, stop playing with me, I’m really the one.”
