Before becoming an ambient trap pioneer, Xang was content to be a loose thread in the tapestry of DMV hip-hop. “I felt like I wasn’t the main character, like I don’t really need rap,” the 24-year-old Maryland rapper tells The FADER. The plugg music he was making before 2022 was standard issue in a scene saturated by its woozy melodies and thumping beats. By comparison, ambient trap was fresher, its sonics built on unpredictable drum patterns and cinematic synths. Xang was already finding fresh and cohesive new directions for ambient trap by the time he dropped his excellent mixtape WOMB in early March. But he wanted the project’s various energies to be starker, more undeniable. “I wanted to show people that I’m not a one trick pony,” he says. “I can make ambient songs in five minutes if I wanted to, [but] that’s not why I got in the game.” His desire to leave it all on the table makes WOMB one of 2025’s most sonically vibrant projects, boasting a broad stylistic range and the skill to...