With his heady mix of digital rap beats and harmonic vocal riffs, Iranian-born, Canada-based vocalist and producer twentythree — who has worked with OsamaSon, been co-signed by Drake and just dropped his debut mixtape, ‘6ix Pop’ — joins SoundCloud’s 2026 Ascending class.
SoundCloud’s Ascending is a monthly series that puts a spotlight on rising artists from around the globe who are breaking through. Previous Ascending artists include DIY alternative rock artists crayon and bunii, dance producers IDEMI and Josh Baker, indie-pop sensation Erin LeCount, alternative-R&B singer SAILORR, and underground rapper/producers like slayr and YT, to name a few.
In 2020, twentythree started producing beats for rage rappers like OsamaSon, Destroy Lonely, Babyface Ray, Dragnutz and SlimeGetEm. With blown-out 808 drums, muggy distortion and auto-tuned vocal riffs, the young producer honed his craft; part of a new generation of producers who cast a dragnet across the SoundCloud rap ecosystem, and pull it all into a heady blend of digicore, trap and EDM.
After grinding it out for a few years, twentythree started releasing original solo material. On his breakthrough tracks “Queen St.” and “Trust Nobody,” he caught the attention of a broad spectrum of tastemakers, from fashion designer Michel Lamy to musical artists Drake and fakemink. In support of his online releases, twentythree has spent the spring of 2026 on tour: first, with sold out shows in Montreal and Toronto; later, with guest appearances at fakemink’s headline show, and kuru and Lucy Bedroque’s joint show, both in Toronto.
Having cultivated a passionate local following in tandem with blowing up online, twentythree kicked off the summer with the June 2026 release of ‘6ix Pop,’ his debut solo mixtape.
Across nine tracks, the fast-rising artist leans into a sparser sonic palette, with more of a melodic swagger and hip-hop backbone to his beats, indebted to the digicore-rage style he started producing and uploading to SoundCloud from his Toronto bedroom. On tracks like “Movie,” the ghosts of hyphy and West Coast g-funk move through the blown out fuzz, while on “IG MODEL,” he flexes his digicore-meets-EDM potential, in the vein of 2hollis.
With ‘6ix Pop,’ twentythree is ready to hit the road — with scheduled appearances at Toronto’s First Class Festival, a headline Canadian tour — and the studio, with a recently-teased session with xaviersobased, another vocalist-producer from this new generation of experimental rap artists. With his inclusion in SoundCloud’s 2026 Ascending Class, twentythree is primed for the next phase of his musical rise.
LISTEN TO TWENTYTHREE’S ‘6IX POP’ ON SOUNDCLOUD NOW
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