Ybenfy?’s new album Who Hurt You?  combines soulful, cinematic synth melodies with hard‑hitting yet understated vocals/lyrics to deliver an honest, textured collection of experimental rap tracks.

By Katie Stewart

Solo stands out for its low‑key tempo, drifting and flowing forward with an ambient steadiness that almost forces listeners to sit within it; indulge in it; move through it as it progresses. It’s thought‑provoking, gentle, and intricately layered.

This immersive quality runs throughout the record. Unique, atmospheric percussion techniques create depth and a sense of space, asking to be explored. The titular track, Who Hurt You?, is a particularly potent example of this effect.

Near-archaic pulses of hollow drums, simple staccato‑like plucked keyboard tones, and lingering melodies form a light, airy soundscape that grows and shifts to become darker, brooding. Longer held organ‑esque notes support Ybenfy?’s soft‑spoken vocal, while retro synths and a radio‑static effect evoke memory, immersing listeners into an un-charter-able space, an interspace that feels as though it’s filtered through a film lens.

Peppermint, a balladlike track on the album, continues this sense of time‑drift, of being transported somewhere both timeless and emotionally suspended. Cathartic, cascading notes oscillate behind a pressing, urgent spoken vocal that builds the song’s rhythm, feeling at once like a structured, poetic, cadence, and an unfiltered spilling of consciousness.

There’s this captivatingly dual sense of stillness and momentum. It feels almost intrusive; an invasive glimpse into Ybenfy?’s state of mind, and inner monologue, which is raw, honest, regretful, courageous.

An extended metaphor presented throughout, with a compellingly methodical rhythm, lays bare Ybenfy?’s mental struggles, and his restless suppression of them. The track is deeply melancholic, its emotional weight amplified by an effective and affecting musical backdrop. And yet it’s a joy to fall into; it’s audibly tantalising, sadistic, and unavertable.

Wasteland is a personal favourite, beginning with a more energetic, quietly powerful set of notes that feel both light and confrontational. It pulls you in with a sense of inevitability (with the same abandon of uninvited thoughts), evolving gently throughout the track.

There’s a diverse set of dynamics created by the track – a maze of unique instrumental elements individually and collectively presenting an entirely new emotional atmosphere. It’s a perfect example of how all the songs on Who Hurt You?  can reflect and embody mental states: abstract constructs presented in ways that feel familiar yet completely unexpected.

The album is an entrancing reminder of music’s exceptional ability to echo the things ordinarily difficult to articulate. Every listener will experience it differently. Ybenfy? is an independent artist who has expressed his desire to create unconstrained, unique music. Who Hurt You? certainly achieves this artistic mission.

The album is out 30 June 2026.