—;; In Mushvenom's Tone ❞

ꗃ   キ    w e l c o m e ៸៸   k a   ﹆   ᥀   ♡

﹀ . ﹀ . ﹀ . ﹀   ────── 𓏳 𓏳 𓏳

× in mushvenom's tone “✦ #spellbind﹗

Hello and welcome, lovely people of ka!

This blog has been coming for a while

now, I actually started it while watching

SMTM 9 because that is when I started

falling for Mushvenom. I knew him from

before and I knew about his unique tone

but surprisingly I never tried to actually

listen to his songs, but when I saw him

on Show me the money, his personality

is what really drew me in, and all the

while, I came to love his old man voice

and rapping style immensely. Let us get

right into it!

P.S; If you're curious about the blog title,

it's a reference to his song "Take it", and

Justhis says the line jsjsjs.

Mushvenom, aka, Lee Teamin, has been around for a while as an independent artist. His stage name has two meanings. One translates to a “stylish looking guy” and another one stands for “mush” for mushroom and “venom” for poison, together making it a toadstool. (Cr. KProfiles). He became most known for his appearances on Show me the money 8 and 9.

Before getting into his rapping, I started by iring the individual that is Lee Taemin. While watching SMTM 9, he showed me a side of him that I've come to utterly ire. He's the kind of ideal individual, a role model to follow and an inspiration to look up to. The first thing I noticed about him is how composed of a person he is. He seems so calculated, always having the solution to any issue right in his hands. He's fast at thinking on the spot and that's something I cannot always do because I panic so much, especially while being in the spotlight with hundreds of eyes on me. A small example would be when Mirani made a mistake during their stage and resumed her part late, so by the time the beat was over, her rap wasn't. It was such an unexpected situation, but Mush's quick thinking really saved them, as he encouraged her to keep going and proceeded to beat box once the instrumental faded out. This instance alone proves how much of a professional he is on stage, he instantly managed to come up with something in a situation with so much pressure.

Another time would be when Owen dropped out of the show one day before their performance. They had practiced as a team for two weeks and at only one day left, the mkit rain news dropped and he had to leave, so they were left with two people. I can't imagine their morale at that time, but yet again, Mush decided to do another verse when he could just have cut off the song at Owen's part. He managed to prepare and memorize an additional part and successfully completed it. Not only that, but he even took the extra time to pay attention to the details and brought in replacement for Owen to fill the stage. He brought... a horse. A stuffed one, but I think everyone really enjoyed his masterful thinking on that. He has this level of maturity I only aspire to reach, which makes him a good leader, one of the multifarious reasons why he was always chosen as the leader when they needed one for missions.

This brings me to my next point, he's such a creative individual. I Groovyroom saying something about how Mush thinks of every performance as a piece of art, and I couldn't put it better, honestly. He oversees every aspect of his performances, be it something as tiny as where the led lights are placed. He's always involved in the setting up of his stages and always wants to show his audience only the best. Mush easily comes up with the best ways to go about things and thus surprises us with every performance, with him, there's never a dull moment, never an event that you can predict because once he gets onto the stage, he makes it into his kingdom and effortlessly attracts the attention towards him. The fact that he's so confident in himself only adds to that, as it makes his stage presence even more majestic.

The next argument might be a strength or a weakness, honestly. He does everything by himself. Mayhaps it's because he doesn't have an agency, so he's used to doing all the work that otherwise his staff would have done. As I mentioned earlier, he even sets up his stage by himself. He was often shown to be refusing help on SMTM, he was actually the one helping others, I think even the producers were frustrated because of it. Along with absolutely perfect work ethic, he's also firm in his beliefs; he knows what he wants and how to accomplish it, and he doesn't let anyone influence his thinking. There was this one time they were preparing for a stage and reached the halfway check when the producers usually check their progress and give and advice on how they can improve for the actual stage. But Mush, our oh so self-sufficient Mush refused to show his performance to the producers, he was so sure of himself that he wanted them to see the final stage directly. As someone who constantly needs validation about my work, I would never even have thought of doing something like that, heck, I would probably have asked someone else to jugde my progress before the producers so as not to embarrass myself, so Mush's actions are beyond me, yet they're irable. The saga of Mushvenom being over-competent doesn't end here though, you know how people always want features? Well it's quite normal, with someone popular on their track, there's a higher chance of people liking the performance and voting for them, but while everyone was contemplating about who to feature, Mush decided by himself that he wanted to go out on the battlefield alone and do his thing.

The previous paragraph might make you think that he's somewhat of a loner. But he's not, he's actually a little social butterfly and naturally makes friends with his witty personality. This interview with Jessi is an instance of how he easily makes people laugh. When it comes to ing the others, it's not only Mirani, throughout the show, you could always find him motivating his teammates, he's an extremely ive friend and always brings along uplifting spirits with him. This is less related to his professionalism and more to him as an individual. He truly seems like such a kind, genuine individual who knows how to appreciate others. Everytime the camera cut to him during other contestants' performances, even if it was his own opponent, he seemed to be enjoying the performance at its fullest. I feel like music for him is something to be treasured. Sure, he gets competitive like everyone else, yet he also doesn't lose the essence of what makes him a musical artist, that is, being able to enjoy the music he's listening to. It's like he lets himself fall into it, without a thought of how he's going to have to go against that person.

Mushvenom is what I would call a lyrical genius, his writings are sophisticated, sometimes to the point where they're not easily understandable by just listening, you have to immerse yourself in them and really make an effort at finding the connections. He often uses deeper subjects, we know the k hip hop scene often has shallow songs (not generalizing of course, but the flex marathons are quite in trend) but a lot of Mush's lyrics depict topics like appreciating oneself, working towards his goals or the people who are precious to him. Not to say that he doesn't also put out the occasional clapback to the haters though. He's simply on a different level. Songs like The beauty of void really prove my point.

Along the way, I became somewhat attached to his old man tone. This 26 year old has made sounding like a grandpa trendy and it's amazing how he made it into his own brand, adding more distinctiveness to his already unique works. His flow is always on point, be it in the more laid back tracks or the more intense ones. Mush has something new to show every time, and it's amazing how versatile he is with that tone of his. He's an excellent rapper, for sure, and the way he plays with the beat speaks for itself. He doesn't just rap over the music, but it feels like he analyzes the beat and matches his bars to it perfectly, while also bringing in clever rhymes and wordplay. In general, it's so satisfying to hear his raps, especially with how he pronounces his words and the overall feel that he puts into it, it really sounds like he's having fun with rapping, which makes the experience of listening to him even better.

For the songs section, I'll mostly be talking about his SMTM releases or stuff related. I think Groovyroom managed to bring out his full potential as a rapper; as top tier producers, they did justice to his abilities. His songs before the show aren't bad either, though I wouldn't say they're my favorites.

This stage. Ahhh. Not to compare in a bad way, but it gave me similar feelings to when I watched Nafla's Bite and y'all know how much of a sucker I am for Bite. It aroused same excitement, the same feeling of being hyped up and the same sentiment of jaw-dropping astonishment at the raw skill being displayed. The way it gradually intensifies is simply exquisite. Exquisite might be too delicate of a word to describe this endeavor, because Mush went in and made the stage his with the sole power of his charismatic presence. I think there's something about these artists going out without any feature and dominating the stage all by themselves. Nothing could have prepared me for this. Tricker starts off quite strong already, with the victorious music and Mush rapping in a talk-rapping style. This was a creative stage from beginning to end, I love the live chorus and the drum-like things they were hitting. There are also the effects Mush himself adds into his performance to make it more interesting, like the pouring sound as he raps about pouring and emptying. The best part of the song though has to be when he gets more aggressive towards the end and simply goES OFF, until he is rapping almost acapella over just the drum-like thingies. Tricker is a pretty loaded song, it has its troll moments, but it also tells us about the burden he bears as an artist coming up. Not to forget the Naruto reference lmao.

Take it is a song he released with Groovy and Justhis after SMTM and when I tell you I'm in love with this song, I'm in loVE WITH IT. Groovy's productions are always among the best, but I especially love this odd combination of trumpets, trap beats and melancholic piano here. The instrumental is a whole ride, I don't how they even came up with it but it's genius. This quality is what really suits Mush's voice. This song in itself is so addicting, and the chorus is just as weird as the instrumental, so they make a perfect pair. As we reach the first verse, he gets into the actual rapping and again his tone shines here too. Justhis adds an amazing touch to the song; his rapping turns it a tiny bit down from Mush's more upbeat parts, and the piano during his verses make it all the more dramatic. As for his rapping, Justhis being a veteran in the field, I don't think I even need to talk about his extremely smooth flow or his flawless rhymes, he owned it. The MV is a whole other story, with Mush's concept being cute with children dancing in his merch while the cute just didn't cut it for Justhis. Shoutout to Swings' appearance, also.

More songs by Mushvenom that I'd recommend would be as follows, I really hope you do check them out and end up liking them;

O1 ────── VVS w Mirani

O2 ───   Godok ft Superbee

O3 ─────────   Came

O4 ────── Let me know

O5 ─Go ft Simon D, The Quiett

O6 ───────── Runnin'

×

There we have it! Hopefully you liked

this little blog and are interested to

check out this amazing artist. Until

next time, KA!

P.S; it feels really weird having edits

this plain for a blog but I'm burnt out

on editing after the spring banner so

I hope you bear with me hsjsjshs

.    .    .