This gleeful ode to that fresh kicks feeling has been my favourite aus rap song of the past few weeks. "New Shox" shines in its simplicity, with Gleesy's gentle, autotuned "new shox, new shox, new shox, new shox" refrain melding with the bouncy west coast beat to create a airy, undeniable groove. The lighthearted blend of sounds provide a wholesome take on the lad fashion which usually takes on more menacing connotations in aus rap.
In the wake of linking up with 2026's hottest ug aus rapper fokelore on a recent tour, 4orttune has dropped a couple of snippets of a song that sounds very fokelore influenced. I'm not pointing this out to accuse anyone of plagiarism but rather to highlight the influence that fokelore and their footscray friends are starting to wield over the rest of the scene (see also Jonny Chopps in their comment section, and the stream of bigger artists posting up in 7th Arthur jewelry). Overall I think it is a great thing for artists like 4orttune and Jonny who have paved their own sounds to keep their ears open to other innovative up and comers - especially for 4orttune who I think would do well to spend some time exploring sounds beyond the Lonely Souljaz sphere. However 4orttune is a great experimenter in his own right on his SoundCloud and it does feel like a slight let down for is first foray outside the jerk sound that blew him up to be so similar to something already being made by another artist. I also do despair that many who hear 40rttune's fokelore-influenced tracks won't be able to trace the sonic heritage back to its origins but based on what I've heard this is by choice on fokelore's part and so I rejoice in their dedication to paving their own path and maintaining their authenticity in the face of seemingly imminent stardom.
[edit: Sleepr points out to me that both these songs are indebted to US artists like Gucci Mane which is true ofc shout out the United States of America but on roots we like to pretend that the rest of the world doesn't exist]
[edit: this is all especially interesting given the recent rise of Villy.MP3 whose whole sound is just 4orttune's original sound. Now Villy does the 4orttune sound very well and 4orttune does the fokelore sound very well but I think the overall point is why would I listen to the second person to do the sound unless they are doing it in someway improving on the first, which I think is not the case in either of these examples. The fact that people like Villy are now doing 4orttune's sound is a good sign for 4ort to move on to something else but idk why doing a sound that someone is making waves doing is an improvement on the situation. Overall this speaks to interesting ideas about trends and being ahead of trends and behind trends and above trends and where is the best place to position yourself as an artist, giving you the best chance to make good music that also appeals to people. I am not anti trend because I think its good to be influenced by people making good music with a good attitude (that's why I am excited that someone like fokelore is becoming a leader in the scene) but ig its just not as exciting when an artists takes the leap into pushing a new sound without actually bringing their originality to that sound]
Part of the inspiration for this website was seeing a kind of website micro trend going around among some of the more free spirited aussie ug rap artists. One example is Bammer2k's neocities website which was very pretty and allowed you to stream and buy his tapes (unfortunately I can't find a link to this website anymore so idk if it's still up).
Another is Miss "I'd rather kms than make social media content" dexter with her stunning verse on "go out Side" from late 2025:
"3 beats for 50 like I'm selling weed, even drop it off to you / on a USB or even a CD / if the world ends and we don't have internet I'll give you a beat on a USB / Making money out of MP3s it comes way too easily to me / I could teach you bout it, I'm tryna make a website / And I'll write about it on my website / And maybe you can even buy beats on my website / I'll take my songs off spotify and you can download my new mixtape off my website / I don't really know how to / I don't really know how to do that shit my brain's too fried / Such a nice day I'm bouta go outside"Ironically dexter hasn't made this song able to be embedded from SoundCloud so I provide a link here along with my strong encouragement to listen to that track and its accompanying project Step Out the Cycles: dexter "go out Side" on SoundCloud.