Social media can be a great promotional tool for an up-and-coming rapper, and Maryland’s Foggieraw is proving to be one of the best at using it to its full potential. Over the past few months, his Instagram Reels, consisting of super short, high-concept “music videos,” have gone viral for all the right reasons: The music is distinctive, the cinematography is excellent, and the overall quality is consistent. Foggieraw himself appears to be a charming, laid-back figure, finding an appealing lane outside of the usual bounds of rap archetypes.
Here are a few of those videos:
So, who is Foggieraw?
Foggieraw moved to Maryland from Ghana at just five years old and began rapping at 18. Although he was initially more of a backpack rapper according to one early profile, he soon began to develop a more unique style, somewhere between the cerebral, “everything-must-rhyme” style normally exhibited by adherents to the more traditional genre and the freewheeling style of then-nascent “SoundCloud” or “mumble” rap.
He released an EP, The Foggie Pound, in 2016, and a full-length debut, Fogtavius Vandross, in 2018. Like many young artists, it appears that the pandemic slowed his output, but then came back strong in 2021 with The Foggie Pound 2 and spent 2022 releasing singles such as “Back Home,” “HVNSNT,” “Nothing Usual,” and “Independent Like Webbie.” Throughout the latter half of the year, he shifted focus to his visual rollout on Instagram, garnering supporters like R&B star Ari Lennox along the way.
Foggie’s a rapper on the comeup and it looks very much like he’s due to blow up at any moment. Get on the bandwagon now because it’s only a matter of time.
