Shock value and a punk-inspired approach to hip-hop set rapper and producer Lou the Human apart from most other artists in late-2010s New York. Since building an underground following with self-released material, he put out the seemingly uncompromised album Painkiller Paradise (2019) through major-label Interscope.

The Brooklyn-born Staten Island transplant began rapping while in fifth or sixth grade, but by the eighth grade he was growing bored, so he branched out into beatmaking. In true D.I.Y. fashion, he studied the music production software FL Studio before moving on to Logic, and even began to learn the piano. By this point, Lou the Human was intent on becoming a producer, but gradually the urge to rap reintroduced itself. He made his debut in 2016 with the single "Brink," which would also feature on his brief mixtape Humaniac, issued the following year. The track was characteristic of his proclivity for minimalist, gritty beats, shocking and comedic rhymes, and a flow that was indebted to Eminem -- who he readily admitted was a major influence on his work. A string of singles including "Lou's Dead," "Slim Buddha," and "Macklemore" followed the next year and led to a deal with Interscope. The switch to a major label didn't commercialize Lou's sound, as heard on the full-length Painkiller Paradise, issued in 2019. ~ Bekki Bemrose, Rovi