In Rotation: WHATMORE

Five former classmates from LaGuardia High School are currently rewiring New York’s underground rap scene. WHATMORE is a five-piece collective—Cisco Swank, Yoshi T, Sebastiano, Jackson August, and producer Elijah Judah—operating at the exact intersection of hip-hop, jazz, and indie rock. You might recognize Cisco Swank from playing keys on Noname’s Tiny Desk, but inside this group, he’s part of a completely different machine. Since dropping their self-titled debut album last October, they’ve been tearing down the walls between genres. Elijah Judah’s production pulls from everywhere. They built early momentum on TikTok by flipping Gracie Abrams and Role Model samples, turning indie-pop source material into Brooklyn cyphers. On their track “eastside w my dogs,” the drums knock with traditional boom-bap grit while the vocal deliveries bounce between melodic riffs and sharp rap verses. It sounds exactly like five kids riding the MTA and passing the aux cord. The industry is catching up to what the city already knew after the band sold out Bowery Ballroom. Their new single “On Site” just claimed the #1 spot on Apple Music’s New Music Daily playlist, while “eastside w my dogs” sits on Spotify’s Fresh Finds Hip-Hop chart. College and indie radio from NYC to Maine are putting them in rotation. The live translation is about to get a massive test, too. They are booked for a heavy festival run in late summer 2026, hitting Lollapalooza in Chicago before crossing the Atlantic for the legendary Reading and Leeds festivals. We needed a crew of NYC kids playing real instruments and actually rapping again. They delivered. Hit play below.