Digging Deeper – Artist of the Year 2023  – Ren

While building the Best Albums of the Year this time around I ran into an odd problem. I wanted to add Ren but I didn’t want to add an album. I wanted to add his entire catalog. That went against my self-imposed rules, and obviously I could’ve just done whatever I wanted, but instead I realized I could do something better. This.

This might be structured a bit oddly, so bear with me some. We’re gonna go through some basic facts about Ren as a person, then his music, and then my own journey through it.

Ren Gill was born in 1990 in Wales. He taught himself to play guitar and piano and loved rap, so he started to make his own, while also practicing singing. He was close to signing a deal with Sony and having his life change. Except it changed in a totally different way. He got sick. Ren spent years being misdiagnosed with everything from bipolar disorder to depression and chronic fatigue. Years later, doctors figured out he had been bitten by a tick. His health has been an ongoing battle, along with depression over knowing he was misdiagnosed and dealing with everything. He’s spent the last year mostly in Canada, getting treatments even as he continues to release music.

Eventually (2016) he released Freckled Angels, dedicated to his friend Joe, who had killed himself back in 2010. After that Ren released the Tale of Jenny & Screech in 2019 (along with a few other singles not on any album), followed by two albums of Demos in 2020. In 2022 he released a single “Hi Ren” and then this year, in 2023, he released Sick Boi, which has since gone to number one on the UK charts. He also busked around Brighton with Big Push until 2022 when his ongoing health issues forced him to stop.

Let’s be clear “released” means “self-released” for every single one of those. He managed to hit number one with a self-produced and released album. Not exactly common.

For my part I had heard a bit about Ren floating around since around the time he released “Hi Ren.” I didn’t hear the song, or any of his music for a while, it was just a name that I’d hear or come across now and then. Enough times, though, and even I’ll get a hint.

So I hunted down and listened to Hi Ren. People who have made this same journey. Any of them reading this, know where this all goes. So, please, if you haven’t heard it yet, stop reading this and play the video.

Yeah that’s a fuck of a thing, isn’t it? Impressive from the musical aspect alone (Those diminished chords, the bends warping a classical line with purpose, the simplicity giving way to complex melodic concepts) also from a lyrical aspect where I am not sure I’ve ever heard anyone put both the creative struggle, and mental health struggles, depression at the forefront, so powerful and relatable. It is, simply, a masterpiece of a song.

It’s also a masterpiece of a video. Ren tends to release most of his videos as one take video/audio productions. Which is fucking hard mode. Hi Ren was actually one audio take, but four video takes (due to not getting permission to be in the space and having to leave before they got the perfect take). Even at that, not many people have the vision and skill to pull this sort of thing off.

Ren’s music, as I dug deeper, was full of discussions of depression as well as economics. Witness Money Game, released as a single (and another one take, that took them over 100 takes to get):

Money Game got a part 2 (that includes one of the best breakdowns of economics that will also make you laugh (darkly))

And then finally a Part 3 on Sick Boi

Taken together you can see, and hear, the evolution of the central idea. And it’s smart as anything. It’s also compassionate, while letting itself be as hard as it needs.

Songs like Animal Flow are fun releases that fit firmer in the realm of modern rap, but the video has structures and images from Animal Farm, and more.

Ren’s lyrics reference everything. The Hunger drops Frankenstein, Willy Wonka, Django Reinhardt, Sinatra, and more all while having a great song of Ren laying out who he is and where he’s aiming. It also features several flow switches that are simply stunning. Not many rappers can master that many flows much less flip between them verse to verse.

There are also songs that pay homage to his youth, like What You Want. The song is full of Beastie Boys references, every verse if not 90% of the lines. The video is also a thing that cuts between Beastie video homages at speed.

Everything Ren does seems to be so carefully thought out it elevates the experience.

Now normally I don’t buy singles, only albums. I lose track of them. With Ren I hunted down the singles not on albums, then grabbed the albums (both from Bandcamp and from his own Store). Every song is, at the worst, immense fun and technically interesting. That’s the worst. The best also explore humanity, mental health, creative vision, and the world around us. Often he’ll do all of that at once.

Also I will say due to his videos being actual art and live performances more often than not, I do suggest watching them first, then digging into the recorded audio versions to buy. The performances are unique to the videos and the visuals add something to the songs that sticks with you perfectly. His YouTube channel not only has updates (either videos or shorts) constantly, but obviously has his whole back catalog as well to dig though.

And if you’ve ever taken a music rec from me in the past, or even if you haven’t: Even if you don’t like rap, even if you think I’m over doing it here, scroll back up and watch Hi Ren. At the very least, please, do that.