The Scythe – Strictly 4 The Scythe
The Scythe arrive with a debut tape that’s frenetic, punchy, and more than the sum of its parts, even when some of those parts don’t pull their weight
The backstory matters here. Curry spent years building one of the most consistent discographies in contemporary rap — Imperial, TA13OO, ZUU, Melt My Eyez See Your Future — only to keep finding himself filed under “underrated” while a different generation collected the laurels. After King of the Mischievous South Vol. 2 reconnected him with the choral, spontaneous energy of his Raider Klan days, he doubled down: established a group, brought in Working On Dying as the production backbone, and called the whole thing The Scythe. The lineup is TiaCorine, A$AP Ferg, Bktherula, Key Nyata, and Curry himself, all bound by a shared investment in the Southern sound, from Memphis trap to Miami bass to New Orleans bounce. The cover’s purple hue and dripping effects are a deliberate callback to those early mixtapes. This is Curry reconnecting with where he came from.
Eight tracks, no filler mandate, produced entirely by Working On Dying (BNYX, BeautifulMvn and crew), the tape splits roughly in two. The first half leans into Memphis and horrorcore: “The Scythe” opens with a chorus chant that sounds lifted from a Three 6 Mafia session, Scratchings from “Anyone Out There” audible in the mix, TiaCorine and Ferg flowing easy over the beat while Curry lands the best line on the record: “We take from the rich and we give to ourselves / What’s the point of me robbin’ hood?”
“Lit Effect” slows the tempo, goes more ominous, and gives Bktherula a hook so effective it carries the track past a flat Lazer Dim 700 verse. Then comes “Phony”, where Curry, Key Nyata, and Ferg stalk through organ strokes and ring bells before Juicy J walks in and turns the whole thing into a generational handoff: the Three 6 Mafia founder as comfortable on this beat as he’s ever been. “Mutt That Bih” is the peak: a whistled melody with cinematic weight, a beat switch on Key Nyata’s entry, and 1900Rugrat delivering something cozy and contagious in a register that owes something to Kodak Black without copying him.
The second half shifts register: “Hoopty” goes for New Orleans bounce with chipmunk soul samples and a completely unhinged TiaCorine feature; “You Ain’t Gotta Lie” leans Miami bass with a Supersaw synth in 454’s post-chorus that hits harder than it has any right to; “Tan” hands the mic to Bktherula and TiaCorine on a dreamier trap beat; and closer “Up” tries for an autotune ballad but lands softer than everything around it, Rich The Kid’s contribution going a bit swampy in the mix.
The weak spots are real. “Up” drains the energy the tape built up. The “Tan” rework recycles Bktherula’s original verse wholesale while TiaCorine writes new material and outshines her — a structural choice that makes one of them look lazy by comparison. A few guest appearances (Lazer Dim 700, Luh Tyler) don’t rise to the level of the core five. And eight tracks is a short runway for a group still finding its internal logic. You feel the potential more than you hear it fully realized.
What carries it is TiaCorine and the Working On Dying beats. TiaCorine is the tape’s real revelation: she opens the record, holds her own against everyone on the mic, and outperforms Smino on “Hoopty” without trying particularly hard. The production is consistently sharp in the first half especially, with enough cinematic detail in “Mutt That Bih” to suggest Working On Dying have more range than a pure banger outfit.
What kept pulling me back was the “Phony” sequence — that organ-and-bells backdrop with Juicy J arriving like he owns the room. It’s the moment where the tape stops being about subgenre tourism and starts sounding like an actual collective with a standpoint.
Strictly 4 The Scythe isn’t a complete statement, and Curry isn’t trying to make one. It’s a first pass: a supergroup establishing itself, mapping its range, and getting maybe two-thirds of the way there. That’s enough to make it worth your time, and exactly why it’s here.
