Lex the Lexicon Artist is an up and coming emcee from the Bay who has been making some big splashes in a short amount of time, including being one of Scratched Vinyl’s favorite acts of SXSW 2018. After putting in the work, playing shows, writing songs, and building a following, the time has finally com for her debut album, Raging Ego.

Lex is an interesting artist for a lot of different reasons, including her background, which she gets into a little bit over the course of the album. The short version is that Lex immigrated to the U.S. from Taipei as a youngster, went to Berkeley, and is now paving her way as a nerdcore/alternative hip hop artist. While we don’t have many emcees that are young Asian American nerdy women, that only gets you so far in understanding who Lex is and what she’s doing as an artist, which is a lot. As an emcee, she’s clearly put in the work to develop a high level of verbal dexterity, and she does a great job on a technical level of switching up her flows and developing some great rhythmic patterns with her bars. You can also tell she’s put in the work playing live shows, as there is a great amount of energy on the album, and several sing along moments as well. The real key to the album, though, is the different ways you get to know Lex through her songs. There is a good portion of the album devoted to the creative process and making your way as an independent artist, with songs like “Artist Anthem,” “The Curse of Creativity,” and “Peep Game.” There are also a few songs that are devoted to her coming to terms with her background and how people perceive her, such as “Psych Major,” and “Glasses,” and “Mistakes.” There’s a good mix of humor and heart as Lex takes the time to put these songs out to declare to the world who she is. My personal favorite is “The L Word,” a very personal and vulnerable song in which she pores over how she’s had to learn to express her love as she’s grown into adulthood. It’s very moving and direct in its delivery. Over the course of the album, we get production from a range of producers, including Mozart Van Robot, Klopfenpop, Incooperative, Ron Graves, Baron Cuts, J.W. Friedman, Mikal kHill, Noah RB, and Mag.Lo. From these different artists, we get everything from intimate boom bap to alternative rock to EDM to synth pop. On the one hand, I applaud Lex for being so daring and taking a lot of risks in working in this many styles and showing us all of the different things that she can do, but at the same time, the album can feel just a little disjointed at times, like not all of the tracks are in conversation with each other. This isn’t a problem that’s unique to Lex, though – it’s common for debut albums to have this as an issue as you figure out how to make all of your different influences come through in your voice.

There is a great deal to be excited about as Lex the Lexicon drops her debut album. She’s shows great skill, great energy, and she’s very adventurous in tackling different styles of music across the track list. She also does a great job in letting us get to know her, showing us different sides of her personality as she moves from the really personal and tender to the funny and entertaining. There are some minor bumps as might be expected from a debut album, but I know as she gets more experience under her belt, she will really learn how to make all of these different influences come together in her own personal style and she’s knock it out of the park sooner rather than later.