Trashy, obscene, explosive, the Tommy Cash storm is unleased on the world

The internet still has lots of surprises, and every so often a rare pearl comes to the surface by chance, in between an embarrassing video by a prepubescent YouTuber and a dubious Trump speech… In this sanctuary of the absurd that holds everything most improbable, there’s a music video, just under three minutes, entitled “Surf”. In it we see an enormous hand unrolling a condom over a 30-storey building. The following shots feature collective masturbation in a girl’s school, an enormous pair of pixelated testicles and a man copulating with a non-consenting globe. This short film is the work of Tommy Cash, a 27-year old Estonian rapper who enjoys distilling trashy, obscene and unusual imagery. An excessive provocateur and exuberant contortionist, the artist is bored of the twerking era and loathes trap music now become pop music, stripped of its singularity. Nothing short of a hip hop superstar in his home country, who is this famous Tommy Cash?  

He superimposes his face on to female genitalia and celebrates disability with women whose shins are replaced with sharp blades.

Born in Tallinn (Estonia) in 1991, Tommy Cash grew up in a country whose frontiers are like one-way ice. While the world is just discovering this Northern European nation, for a long time it had no access to international culture. An unfair situation resulting from the collapse of the Soviet Block in 1989. In his neighbourhood, overrun with junkies, all he had was Tom Jones videos and the hard rock of the Scorpions inherited from his parents. He wasn’t happy until he discovered “Gangster’s Paradise” by Coolio (1995), an energetic reinterpretation of Stevie Wonder’s hymn, “Pastime Paradise” (1976). A lone wolf, Tommy Cash never went anywhere without his Walkman, he wore kilts in the summer and fed off the verve of Eminem. In spite of having no crew, at the age of 15 he started hip hop dance.

The Estonian music scene remains a pretty archaic space where risk-taking is rare.  

With his long hair, slim physique and thin Italian moustache… Tommy Cash transcends any boundaries of gender, identity and sexuality. Similar to the wild antics of South African band Die Antwoord, Tommy Cash’s disturbing videos parody the world of rap, hijacking the codes and upsetting stereotypes. Under the roar of a raving hip hop, the artist writhes and contorts his body, the remnants of his dance lessons. He superimposes his face on to female genitalia (“Winaloto”), explores the nuances of skin tone and celebrates disability with women whose shins are replaced with sharp blades (“Pussy Money Weed”). A fan of clothing by Russian designer Gosha Rubchinskiy, whose explosive sportswear draws inspiration from the muscovite youth, Tommy Cash indulges in out-there minimalist costumes with a distinct S&M vibe.

At the end of 2017, Tommy Cash slipped in between Will. I. Am and Diplo in Charlie XCX’s video “Boys”, a video featuring some 50 male celebrities. The Eastern European rapper also helped produce the British singer’s album, “Pop 2”. But while he occasionally collaborates with American artists and is an unconditional fan of Kanye West, he still feels closer to muscovite artists who are in a constant state of experimentation. With the Estonian music scene remaining an archaic space where risk taking is rare, we can safely say that Tommy Cash is doing his own thing.