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The Musically Erratic GoldLink Remains Ahead of his Time as ‘ENOCH’ Imbibes Global Electronic Nuance to Shatter Auditory Expectations

June 25, 2025 | Evan Dale + Alberto Aliaga

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There’s nothing about GoldLink that has ever come up short of being exceptionally experimental. His 2015 debut tape, And After That, We Didn’t Talk – along with its stacked collection of remixes from 2016 – served as introduction to an artist that thrived – and continues to do so – in the grey areas. A rapper who keeps pace with the best lyricists – a top tier of which he has ceaselessly proven himself to be an at-times outcasted member of – without ever being a bridge removed from flexing his melodic prowess, he’s long been capable of spanning gap after gap, like that between hip-hop and R&B. Just listen to Palm Trees from his debut and hear his quick and effortless meandering from rapper to vocalist and back again


But those were never the only two musical spaces he was linking. 2019’s acclaimed Diaspora wove through a predominantly West African, Afro-Caribbean, and diasporic barrage of drum patterns, production, featuring artists, and flows. And from GoldLink's very start – just listen back to his collaborative feature on KAYTRANADA’s Together from 2016’s 99.9%, or the beat from And After That, We Didn’t Talk‘s Unique – there has been an undeniable infusion of electronic nuance in his sound. In production, he has never ceased to favor up-tempo beats that most other rappers have avoided for a mosaic of reasons. Maybe other artists couldn’t keep pace with the tempo, maybe the beat was too much of a risk for an artist pursuing a more traditional sound, or maybe they just never even thought of something so outside of the box. But GoldLink has always proven himself not only willing, but thriving off the risk-taking nature of pulling his sound in so many daunting new directions.


With his most recent project, ENOCH – his first since 2021’s HARAM! which itself received confused, mixed reviews on the expectation of directionality that GoldLink has always defied – he’s diving deeper into that particular edge of his influence than he, or almost any other rapper, has ever pursued before. If any other modern names do come to mind that can reach so deep into house, bounce, drum and bass, without losing the organic heading of their wide-ranging sounds rooted heavily in hip-hop and R&B, they, too, seem particularly of the DMV. With a necessary light shined on PG County Maryland’s IDK, Baltimore’s Naeem, and longtime GoldLink friend and Collaborator, Maryland’s own Brent Faiyaz – who has long teamed up with established electronic producers to give his sound a uniquely modern yet emotional edge – the musical tether between GoldLink's native D.C., Baltimore, and all the terrain in between is one knotted with club influence that seems indissoluble from the heavy hip-hop, R&B, and Neo-Soul roots that likewise define it.


ENOCH might be the new magnum opus of that musical intersectionality. Where GoldLink's past collections have all been defined more by the exploration of grandiose musical motifs at a project-sized scale, ENOCH is also perhaps his magnum opus of the concept album where concept itself is rooted only in aesthetics rather than any sort of thematics. If you’re looking for a storyline, dig deeper than the protagonist’s in-your-face lyricism, because although sharp, ENOCH’s poetic cup overflows with the tongue-twisting pace of braggadocious and all-too-familiar hip-hop cornerstones that should be taken at face value. The story – the conceptual depth – instead, is the shape of the music itself.



ENOCH takes a shape that even when whittled down to its electronic club shades in both production and subsequent flow, would be challenging to define within any one subspace of production or BPM. Instead, it imbibes riotously across global trends and subgenres, failing to settle into a rhythm long enough for a listener to find comfort in the expectation of what far-reaching electronic pulse might be next. That’s the GoldLink way. That’s the closest the erratic, unpredictable artist will ever come to a blueprint. And that’s what makes his music so important in a modern scene oft defined by short lived trends rather than brash creative independence.


The opening track, I SEE, sets the tone with a warning that this CD may damage your audio system – a fitting introduction to the unhinged journey that lies ahead. His signature vocals float over a pulsing house beat. SHOTTI transports the listener to London – a city that’s long influenced GoldLink’s sound – where he navigates a hi-hat-heavy UK drill beat with silky vocals and sharp bars, showcasing his versatility. On AVENTADOR – produced by KAYTRANADA – a minimalist house beat gives GoldLink space for his lyrics to breathe, something that may be missing on other tracks where production tends to take center stage. METATRON taps into his East Coast roots with a boom-bap rhythm, softened by velvety vocals from Lola Maxom on the hook. It’s a standout that blends nostalgia with innovation. The closer, AFRICAN, is a thunderous trap-infused banger where GoldLink fully embraces his identity as a hard-nosed lyricist, flexing poetically while cementing the album’s auditory self-assuredness and stylistic indefinability.


Like every evolutionary chapter of GoldLink's storied and boundary-shattering career, ENOCH is sure to receive its fair share of critiques founded in preconceptions of what a listener thinks a GoldLink album shouldsound like. But at its core, ENOCH is a reflection of GoldLink’s creative evolution and global journey. It’s another inevitably volatile addition to his discography, a project that leans into its artist’s genre-defying nature to fully showcase his creative vision. And while elements of ENOCH may share musical DNA with GoldLink's other projects and certain tracks may reminisce on earmarked moments of his path, the album’s illusive definition strangely simultaneously signals something of a more focused direction – one completely devoid of rules or measures.


GoldLink has always been a bit inconsistent – even erratic – but that’s part of what makes him so compelling. Love it or hate it, ENOCH demands attention. And once again, GoldLink has crafted something daring and uniquely his own that years from now will – like all his work before it – be said to have been ahead of its time.



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