Earlier last week, I awoke to a text from my younger godbrother, who’s my designated person to go to for his opinion on the latest music impacting the culture – you know, the type of youth who relates more to Playboy Carti than Jay Z. I rely on his opinion when it comes to younger people’s music because, between the current state of the world and the current state of hip hop, it is harder and harder to keep up with up-and-coming talent. He sent me a project called Moments Before Success (talk about a hell of a title) by QP Knockout.

I heard about QP Knockout through frequenting Wild Days rooftop parties and hearing people talk about him with mysterious reverence. Like someone who people say is there but you never actually see, his music reflects that. He is someone who talks about street hustle and not street antics. His project is not made up of the reckless young energy we most associate with hip hop these days but energy that is concise and focused, energy that is represented throughout Moments Before Success.

“The Ambassador,” the album’s opening track, is the complete opposite of modern-day hip-hop project intros. Instead of being raucous and energetic, it’s jazzy and melodic, talking about hanging in Uptown DC but being in the “South too”. QP is only twenty-five years old but makes me reminisce about Camp Lo, but if they were from KDY in DC. Its lyrics bring you into a fully-fledged picture developed by QP. Even on “Master Manipulation”, a song produced by Look Damien! (who has one of the best producer tags in the game), he is able to leave you with an understanding of things that happened even without breaking it down word by word, a trait shared by a lot of past rappers such as Prodigy and AZ.

QP has a way of making things sound like a 70s heist movie throughout this album, especially on songs like “SVR” and “Luke Skywalker”. It’s like he’s rapping as a Michael Caine character in the middle of the DMV rap scene. On “SVR,” he’s accompanied by Von Dre, who has the ability to be a Ghostface Killah to QP Knockout’s Raekwon rapping in rapid-fire cadences with slick talk is a recipe for success. Then on “Resourceful”, he uses a familiar sample (The Slyvers’ “How Love Hurts”) and is able to bring out the slickness of the sonics while being accompanied by his equally slick raps. He also has a great feature from fellow DMV rapper Anklejon on the song “Great Lakes”, which is a great precursor to the talent and impact that these two rappers can make for the future of DMV music. The project ends with “Hustle Addiction,” a song that is surprisingly upbeat and is littered with dirty 808s and has QP KO talking about “my daughter’s getting smarter and getting taller.” It serves less of a conclusion and more of a “to be continued” for his next project.

QP KO is incrementally getting better with every project, which should not be taken for granted in this age of instant gratification and Tiktok chasing artists. If this is just us looking into the crack of the door of QP KO’s life, I can’t wait until the door is completely open.