Darkness can leave room for a joke, and heavy music can still move. On “Rustbelt Rejects“, Akron artist Zmack puts that relationship to work through abrasive textures, grooves and odd humour.
His original album brings hip-hop into contact with Memphis trap, Horrorcore, industrial, funk-metal and phonk. Yet the aim is not genre display.
The range accommodates memory, loss, anger, pride, relationships and Irish-American identity. It gives a changing place, and a life shaped by it, several ways to speak.
Zmack made the beats and recorded every vocal himself, so authorship sits at the heart of “Rustbelt Rejects”. Dave helped with production, mixing and mastering, while work moved between Zmack’s home setup and Dave’s Northeast Ohio setup.
However, the album is not a solitary credit story. CJ, Zmack’s late best friend, shaped his craft through years of rapping and beat-making together from middle school.
That shared practice makes the album partly a memorial, but it also frames continued growth. Mitchel offered tips, while long-time friends Charles and Jordan served as sounding boards.
Rianna, Zmack’s girlfriend, encouraged him to put music out, and Rob helped promote and review his work.
Rap shares space with occasional melodic singing over heavy grooves, reflecting his interest in funk-metal’s expressive possibilities. Meanwhile, distorted slap-bass sounds act like percussion or synthesizer parts, and power-tool textures become rhythmic or atmospheric details.
Dubstep-style bass adds another low-end influence. Instead of polishing every edge, Zmack keeps roughness and unpredictability in play. The choice gives vocals and beats a shared resistance to rigid categories.
It also makes Akron matter as an attitude, not a postcard
The three named tracks give the album’s range a useful frame. “Rust Sound” addresses the Rust Belt environment and its overlooked character, with its frustration, pride and decay.
“Blood of the Irish” turns toward Irish-American identity, history, pride and aggression. Meanwhile, “Dirty Muskrat” brings a grimier and stranger face forward, with humour beside the darkness.
Its structure draws closer to rock and metal than hip-hop. Together, these tracks describe a set of snapshots rather than one straight narrative.
That approach lets place, personal history and absurdity occupy the same album without competing for control.
The project recalls a handmade zine passed between friends, where jagged type can sit beside a private note and an awkward joke. That comparison suits its harsh mechanical sounds, distorted textures, phonk influence and Memphis-inspired drums.
Zmack treats those ingredients as materials for collision, so the friction carries meaning. Heavy, ugly sounds sit beside grooves meant to be fun.
The result is a deliberate refusal of neatness, rather than an attempt to make every part agree. For an independent rap release, that attitude gives “Rustbelt Rejects” a clear identity without demanding a fixed genre tag.
“Rustbelt Rejects” presents an independent artist whose subject matter reaches past geography. Akron’s change and decay feed the record, but loss, relationships and making sense of life give it a broader human pull.
Zmack’s growth after prison adds context, while CJ’s memory gives the project real emotional weight. Still, the odd humour matters because it stops the album from reducing its concerns to gloom.
Instead, Zmack makes room for aggression, play and personal reflection. Listeners drawn to dark hip-hop, Memphis trap, industrial and funk-metal may find a receptive artist here.
He lets those pressures meet on his own terms.
For new music followers, “Rustbelt Rejects” offers an invitation to follow an artist still developing his approach. Its creative choices allow humour and hurt to share space without cancelling each other out.
That relationship makes the three highlighted tracks useful entry points. How far can Zmack push this Akron-rooted approach while keeping its strange human spark intact?
