Token, Another Underrated Rapper | Teen Ink

Token, Another Underrated Rapper

May 15, 2019
By GledisG GOLD, Tirana, Other
GledisG GOLD, Tirana, Other
15 articles 0 photos 12 comments

Ben Goldberg, professionally known as Token, is an American rapper who was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on September 24, 1998. Token’s parents are unknown at the moment. Many people assume Token’s net worth to be around 300 thousands dollars, but Token spoke on this on his Instagram story saying that no one knows his bank, which means 300 thousands dollars might not be his net worth. Token’s rap genre is hardcore rap, and hip hop music.

At around the age of 10, Token started writing poems about his daily life and his feelings. At the age of 14, Token took his talent online by rapping. He started off by posting songs on Soundcloud such as Rap God Remix, Talk to You, and Definition of a Rap Flow which were the songs that gave Token some recognition and audience. On October of 2015, Token entered a rap contest called #NOSUCKAMCS3, where he made a song called No Sucka MCs. This song went viral and was the first Token’s song ever to reach 1 million views. As of April 2019, the song has around 4.7 million views. Almost one year later, on September 23rd, 2016 Token dropped his first Album called Eraser Shavings. This album featured the hits Happiness, Exception and Necessary Evil which gave Token a lot of fans. During 2017, Token continued dropping songs that would go viral. He dropped his two hot singles Doozy and Patty Cake, which were received very well by the internet. In May of 2018, Token dropped Code Red. Then on August he dropped Flamingo, and then finally he dropped Treehouse on November. On 7th of December on 2018, Token dropped his second album called Between Somewhere, which had 17 tracks. On that album, Token raps mostly about his life and some private things that no one knows about.

Token is one of the few rappers that is commonly compared to Eminem. Recently, Token and Eminem have had some kind of “drama”, which all started on 2017 when Token dropped Patty Cake. In the song, Token said “I decide what was and is, turn down meeting Eminem before dumba***s call me the new Eminem, suck my d**k”. Here Token is saying that he turned down meeting Eminem, to which some people thought he was lying. Which, if he was, the truth would have come out by now since Eminem is known to call out people when they lie, just like he did with Machine Gun Kelly. A few months later, on December, Eminem dropped his album Revival. In his song Remind Me, Token says “Girl, you’re smokin’ like Snoop Dogg, But you must be tokin’ if you think you’re taking over my quarters” which is a subliminal response to Token. Since Eminem hates it when people compare other rappers to him he says you must be tokin’, which means smoking weed. He is saying you must be crazy to compare him to Eminem. He continues playing the world play since tokens are used at an arcade. This ties in with his use of the word quarters, because these coins are used to play games on arcade machines. A year later, Eminem dropped Kamikaze, and in his song the Greatest he says “This can't be real, you dissed me and I was just tryin' to Give you a shout, now get the f**k out my rhyme book! No more shiners, already too much time tokin' rappers I hear you talkin' sh*t, I'm just too big to respond to it”, which he once again starts using the word tokin’ and also talks about how Token “dissed” him and how Eminem was just trying to give him a shoutout. When Token dropped his album Between Somewhere, in his song Somewhere in Between he says “Mark was tryin' to get me with Em, I told him I wasn't ready Maybe that was a mistake Maybe I would've blown up already Wonder if Interscope was mad that I didn't pick up when they called again Subliminal disses from legends are still compliments”, which Token is just saying that he thinks he did a mistake, and regrets, turning down meeting Eminem since he would have blown up bt now. On the same project, on his bonus track Goodbye, Token says “They thinkin' I'm gonna roll with the troops And I'm gonna diss every rapper who's mumbling Nah homie, that ain't the move  You know when your sh*t getting old? When you dissing everything that is new If you don't f**k with it Shut the f**k up and don't f**k with it They're more mature than you,” which Token is throwing shots at Eminem by saying that he is getting so old he hates everything that is new. Despite all of this looking like Eminem and Token are dissing each other, they actually aren’t. On January 22, 2019, Token tweeted this “Sway called Em and asked. Em said they weren’t intended as a diss... it’s fun sh*t... I guess he saw ppl thinking it was tho... that’s tight lol. Em let me come on his radio station , he’s rocking w me. That’s coming from sway not me. Watch the sway interview. DROP THAT SH*T PLZ”. These lyrics were meant for each other, but they weren’t dissing each other. All this back and forth that Token and Eminem proves that he is underrated. If you have a small audience and Eminem, the rapper who most of the people think he is the greatest alive, is mad that you turned down meeting him and now is responding to your music, it means you have a lot of talent, which Token seems to have.

Token is one of the few rappers that can rap really fast and still sound very good. For example, in his song Self Taught, which was in his album Eraser Shavings, Token has a verse where he raps 91 syllables in 8.61 seconds, which is considered “supersonic speed.” Divide 91 by 8.61 you get 10.57, which is how many syllables per second Token says in this verse. Expect being fast, Token also switches his flow quite a lot, which is something not many rappers can do. In the song Doozy, Token switches his flow at least 5 different times. Token is also very lyrical. For example in his song NOSUCKAMCS Token says “That's why sick is spelled with an ‘I’ and suck is spelt with ‘U’.” The word sick and suck only differ by one letter. Token says sick is spelled with an “I”, making him sick, and suck is spelt with “U” meaning that everyone else in the rap game sucks. As mentioned before, Token is very good at freestyling. Token went on a podcast called Sway in the morning, where token freestyles for 6 minutes and 20 seconds and there are some parts where he raps with a speed which is above average speed for a written song, but very fast for a freestyle. Token does all of this at just the age of 17.

Since Token is a rapper that can actually rap, is very fast and is very lyrical, he can be a very big threat to many rappers. Token has showed to be very good at rapping at a very young age and has won the #NOSUCKAMCS3 contest at just the age of 17. In my opinion, if Token keeps this up he will blow up sooner or later. Many people like to say that he is the next Eminem, but I like to say that he is the first Token.



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