Cabus and His Fangs
This week’s up and coming artist hails from Dallas, Texas and has already put in work, sharing the stage with acts like Erykah Badu, Ghostland Observatory, Washed Out, Alabama Shakes and many more. This is not to mention the festivals that he’s performed at, including Jimmy Kimmel Live!, SXSW, ACL Live, and the Vans Warped Tour among others. If you couple this resume with excellent production and vocal performances within his music, it is surprising that he hasn’t already reached mainstream. The artist in question is Cabus, and he sincerely wowed me when I discovered his music.
I don’t usually start off with praise to this degree, but I must say that the maturity within Cabus’ craft is something that I don’t often come across with an artist that isn’t mainstream yet. The Texan’s music is pop inspired, and within that genre, artists have to have a polished sound in order to compete with the bigger acts or stand out amongst the newer ones, so the maturity of the sonics within his music shouldn’t be surprising, but his sound sticks out from what would traditionally be considered pop.There is a roughness around the edges aspect to Cabus’ music that is blended well with great mixing and production that not only makes it feel organic, but reachable to the masses in a way that mainstream artists can’t duplicate. Being primarily focused on hip hop, when listening to Cabus, I’m reminded of the grittiness of an underground rapper but with the polished attributes of a pop star. The song that I discovered encompasses everything that I’ve described so far.
The song is called fangs and is his latest and most popular song at the moment. The one thing that I didn’t mention earlier was how much soul Cabus exudes. The guitar riffs could be on a track alone and the song would still be an ear catching tune that evokes emotion, but the drums add the proper amount of rhythm to really inspire movement. His vocals are layered with a raspy voice and a heavier one to create a juxtaposition that blends well with the rest of the instrumentation. The track see-saws between an in your face and laid back vibe that always keeps you on your toes, even if you know what’s coming next.
The amount of genre bending displayed of indie and electronic pop, as well as soul is astonishing, but is justified when realizing that Cabus is a real musician, playing the piano and guitar since he was in middle school and recording since the beginning of high school. His first single to gain traction was the 2021 smash Call and he hasn’t looked back since. Fangs serves as a single to his debut EP, PSYCHO, which drops in September 2022, and is sure to start a chain reaction of growth within the industry. Make sure to follow him on Spotify so that you won’t miss the drop from this soon to be mainstream artist.
