At just 12 years old, North West is entering music under a spotlight most artists spend years trying to earn. After appearing on “Talking / Once Again” alongside ¥$, north4ever feels like her first genuine attempt at carving out an artistic identity outside of the massive shadow cast by her family name. Rather than leaning into polished mainstream pop or obvious industry-safe trends, the project dives headfirst into distorted trap beats, glitch-heavy production, metal riffs, internet-era aesthetics, and the chaotic DIY energy that has become increasingly popular in younger online music spaces. The result is messy, inconsistent, and often unfinished, but there’s also something undeniably sincere about it. north4ever doesn’t sound like a manufactured celebrity side project—it sounds like a young artist experimenting in real time, chasing ideas that genuinely interest her even when they don’t fully come together.

“H0w Sh0uld ! F33l” opens the tape by immediately establishing its sonic identity. Blown-out bass, glitchy percussion, distorted autotune, and gloomy guitar passages crash together with little concern for traditional structure or cohesion. The production creates an atmosphere that feels cold, detached, and intentionally rough around the edges, especially once the darker guitar textures begin creeping into the mix. At the same time, the song often feels more like a demo than a finished track. Ideas appear briefly before disappearing, transitions feel abrupt, and there’s little sense of progression tying the sections together. Still, the instrumental choices themselves are memorable enough to keep the song engaging despite its scattered nature. There’s an obvious fascination with texture and mood that carries the track even when the songwriting struggles to do the same.

“D!e” immediately sounds more focused. The trap rhythms feel tighter, the pacing is cleaner, and the metal influences integrate into the beat more naturally instead of competing for space. North’s heavily processed vocals still feel rough and unpolished, but the production finally gives her enough room to settle into the song instead of being swallowed by the chaos surrounding her. Her detached vocal delivery becomes one of the track’s more interesting qualities; at times it comes across as intentionally emotionless and cool, while in other moments it simply sounds underdeveloped. That inconsistency ultimately defines much of the project. Even so, the playful ad-libs and strange vocal layering add a weird charm that keeps the song from feeling sterile. Rather than sounding like someone trying to imitate a trend perfectly, it feels more like someone learning how to shape those influences into something personal.

The title track, “#N0rth4evr,” pushes the hardest into the metal-inspired side of the tape. The guitars become heavier, the basslines darker, and the drums hit with more force, giving the instrumental a much larger sense of scale. Unfortunately, it also exposes some of the project’s biggest weaknesses. North’s airy, almost emotionless vocal performance feels disconnected from the instrumental beneath it, and because the vocals sit so loudly in the mix, the lack of energy becomes difficult to ignore. Meanwhile, the guitars and drums themselves sound strangely muffled, preventing the song from fully exploding the way it clearly wants to. There’s still potential buried inside the atmosphere and guitar work—particularly during the solo sections—but the track never fully decides whether its detached tone is intentional irony or simply inexperience.

“This T!m3” is where the project finally starts to click in a more convincing way. The distorted, drill-inspired production feels purposefully ugly instead of accidentally messy, allowing the blown-out bass and muddy textures to work in the song’s favor. The atmosphere becomes darker, catchier, and more immersive, while North sounds noticeably more engaged vocally than she did earlier on the tape. Instead of leaning entirely on flat spoken-word delivery, she experiments more with melody, which gives the track a stronger sense of movement and personality. Some of the distorted background vocals become repetitive after a while, but overall this is one of the clearest examples of the project’s aesthetic actually coming together successfully rather than feeling like disconnected ideas thrown into the same song.

“W0ah” shifts the pacing entirely, slowing things down through creeping synths, softer production, and a simpler overall structure. That restraint works surprisingly well. Instead of overwhelming the listener with constant layers of distortion and glitch effects, the song allows its atmosphere to breathe naturally. North’s vocals benefit heavily from this approach as well. By sitting lower in the mix, her performance feels less awkward and dry, blending into the song rather than awkwardly floating above it. The guitars themselves remain fairly simple, but that simplicity helps create one of the tape’s strongest moods—moody, hypnotic, and genuinely immersive in a way some of the louder tracks struggle to achieve.

The closing track, “Aishite (愛して),” fully embraces the kawaii-inspired internet aesthetic hinted at throughout the project. Japanese ad-libs, slower bass-heavy production, and glitchy textures combine into one of the tape’s most stylistically distinct moments. The instrumental itself is genuinely strong, built around deep low-end and a slower, harder-hitting rhythm that gives the song real presence. Once again, though, the vocal mixing becomes an issue. North’s voice frequently gets buried beneath the production, making parts of the song feel distant when they should feel intimate. Still, the track works effectively as a summary of the tape’s overall identity: a fusion of trap, metal, internet culture, DIY experimentation, and niche online aesthetics filtered through the perspective of someone clearly immersed in current youth culture.

As a complete project, north4ever feels far more like an experimental sketchbook than a polished debut. The songwriting is inconsistent, the performances are shaky, and several tracks feel unfinished in both structure and execution. Yet those flaws are also part of what makes the tape compelling. North West isn’t making safe, heavily polished celebrity-kid pop music designed purely for branding opportunities or viral moments. Instead, she’s gravitating toward abrasive production, distorted textures, underground internet aesthetics, and chaotic experimentation that genuinely seem to interest her. That curiosity gives the project a level of authenticity many debut releases from artists in similar positions completely lack.

The biggest issue holding the tape back is simply experience. Many of the songs sound like collections of ideas rather than fully realized compositions, and the vocal performances often struggle to carry the same energy as the instrumentals surrounding them. Better mixing, stronger structure, and more confident vocal direction could dramatically improve these songs without sacrificing the rawness that gives them personality. But even with those shortcomings, there’s still something refreshing about hearing a project this weird, rough, and unfiltered coming from someone in North’s position.

Ultimately, north4ever succeeds less because of flawless execution and more because of the curiosity and sincerity driving it. It’s chaotic, uneven, and undeniably immature in places, but it also feels honest in a way many heavily manufactured debut projects do not. Rather than chasing mainstream perfection, North West seems more interested in experimenting with sounds, aesthetics, and moods that resonate with her generation and online culture. That willingness to explore—even when the results are messy—makes north4ever more interesting than it probably has any right to be.