01 Sunday Aug 2021
Pop Smoke ft. Rah Swish – Brush Em
Made a quick stop at the vaunted Vince Lombardi service area on I-95 in Jersey the other night during a business trip and was pleased to see a couple of local hard rocks blasting this at car-shaking volume out of a Toyota right outside the entrance. One old head was just marching around the car fist pumping during the “GDK and I don’t even play about it” part lol
I KEEP A GLOCK, WHEN IM IN CHURCH
NYC summertime music of a different variety, RIP Pop Smoke
11 Sunday Apr 2021
Posted in NYC
DMX – Slippin (1998)
Rest in power Dark Man X. The soul of a true modern day poet. “To live is to suffer. To survive is to find meaning in the suffering.”
This isn’t the type of paint by numbers hit from the record label you can just throw together in the studio, this is the oddyssey of someone who has been down a long road in life putting pen to paper and turning their experiences into a true work of art. Slippin hits harder than almost any other song that comes to mind, ‘How We Be’ was ‘concept’ music that a poet laureate could spend their whole career trying to create and then of course bangers like Where the Hood At or Ruff Ryders Anthem are classics that could get any party, with a huge array of ages and demographics started, or actually not just started but also particularly out of hand. DMX was the troubled but resilient soul of a wandering poet, truly a modern day master of his craft and artistic genius.
RIP to a real one.
02 Friday Apr 2021
Posted in NYC
22 Gz – Fallen Bixkys
I’m a little late here but this one goes hard as fuck. THIS BEAT Is MAKING ME WANT TO SPIN THE BLOCK AND I DONT EVEN HAVE ANYTHING TO SPIN IT WITH
Would it be too much to ask the Nets to play this as the intro music for home playoff games this spring??
13 Saturday Feb 2021
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Fivio Foreign – Trust
Sorry to leave you all for so long, I’ve been super lazy about posting lately and have had a lot of my attention tied up with a lot going on (mostly good things dont worry). I’m back in the saddle now, didn’t realize I hadn’t posted in almost 6 weeks, probably the longest I’ve ever went without a post! I also just celebrated my 34th birthday this week, where does the time go? It seems like just yesterday I was a youngster listening to Dipset, Max B, Gucci Mane, Waka Flocka Flame for the first time and that was probably about 15 years ago now. Still have to post my January list although it will be shorter than usual.
Haters will say that Fivio raps in bullet points… does it really matter when the bullet points are all fire? Fivio really is the king of New York right now, and has been since last spring in my opinion (although he mentions in the first verse here that he could care less about who holds this title). This AXL beat has me ready to go to war and I’m a nerd.
This first verse/hook is flames… one of the hardest I’ve heard Fivio go… they may be bullet points but he’s turning the bullets into an art form, and as far as I’m concerned that’s called being an innovator…
“War
Everybody on the floor
We don’t knock we shoot through the door
We give a fuck who the king of New York
I say what I mean when I talk
the hood ain’t showing no remorse
gun fights in the hall
bullets going through the walls
My niggas cripping for a cause”
P.S. I grew up as a Mets fan but I kind of want that blue and green Yankees hat Fivio’s boy is wearing at 0:49, so hard
12 Sunday Jul 2020
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Pop Smoke – Bad Bitch from Tokyo
Damn I’m feeling this 48 second intro from Pop Smoke’s album. Add this to the list of ‘good’ album intros. This goes hard af, there’s just something captivating about it that grabs your attention and I love the way it blends into the next track too, which is exactly what an intro is supposed to do. Whether he’s referring to ‘his’ killer i.e. one of his guys or ‘his killer’ meaning someone who might kill him, the “I look my killer in his eyes, we talking face to face” line is super eerie in retrospect given what happened.
I’ve been listening to this album a lot over the past week and change and while there are certainly a few tracks I would to swap in other tracks for and some filler, as you’d expect from a major label release, I’d say it’s definitley one of the best ‘major’ albums I’ve listened to in quite some time. The Roddy Ricch/50 Cent flamenco song was fire, Make it Rain was hard AF and it was awesome to hear Rowdy on a track again, albeit through the jail phone, and I respect that they included his phoned in verse on the album’s lead single. This intro was dope, and Aim for the Moon and the Thief in the Night song definitley grew on me. Got It On Me was cool too. I was hoping to hear a Fivio verse on this album/surprised not to hear one given their connection and how big Fivio has gotten but Fivio has told fans to be patient so I’m assuming they have something on the deluxe version whenever that comes out. RIP to the young artist.
05 Sunday Jul 2020
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Pop Smoke ft. Roddy Ricch, 50 Cent – The Woo
SHE WANNA FUCK WITH THE WOO-OOOO-OOO-OOO
The Woos are really taking center stage here
I’ve been bumping the new Pop Smoke album all 4th of July weekend and damnit Pop Smoke singing over this flamenco guitar beat is absolute fire.
As if that wasn’t enough, then you have Roddy Ricch swooping in sounding damn near like an angelic choir when he’s singing “inside of the cooo-oooo-ooo-uuupe”. Is Roddy Ricch the new Young Thug at this point?
I’m always down to get a new verse from Godfather Fif, who also executive produced the album.
RIP to the young king this guy, you can see this guy was going places and taking his game into all kinds of interesting new directions, and didn’t even get a chance to expand further. You can see with this kind of material on this album, I think if he hadn’t been killed, I could picture this guy eventually becoming one of the biggest pop stars on the planet.
P.S. this was actually a surprisingly good article on Pop in the NY Times the other day, I think my favorite part is him meeting Marylin Manson and not knowing who he was because of course he wouldn’t lol
10 Sunday May 2020
Posted in Long Island, NYC
Stove God Cooks – Rolls Royce Break Lights
I keep going back to the well of this Stove God album. This guy can really paint a picture but he’s not boring like the average ‘lyrical’ rapper and actually makes actual music that you want to come back to. (Case in point, even the god of function music himself, Martorialist, was feeling Money Puddles, calling it a Faux Marciano song with chutzpah, which all in all is a pretty apt description). This is just bar after bar after bar on the album’s opener, Rolls Royce Brake Lights.
I love the reprisal/flip of Drake’s ‘I just want to beee successful’ taking it from someone corporate like Drake and flipping it into the ambitions of a young stove god just trying to cook his way up in the game.
“I’m the truth, I’m the light I’m the way. Niggas broke, niggas fake, they in the way.”
P.S. after quite a few spins of the whole album I’m kind of intrigued by how many space/planetary/religious references there are are here and there sprinkled in amongst the drug raps.
02 Saturday May 2020
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Fivio Foreign – Drive By
One of the tres amigos behind last year’s ‘Waka’ is back with a new project, ‘800 BC’, and while the project is not as fun as Waka, and is in fact a very different, MUCH darker vibe, the whole project is fire, highlighted by the opener, ‘Drive By’.
It seems like since ‘Waka‘ (the post on Waka is actually by far the most read post on this website, believe it or not), Fivio Foreign has only gotten bigger and bigger, for example releasing probably the biggest Brooklyn drill song to date (Big Drip), getting a Meek Mill feature on this project, to now going where perhaps no Brooklyn drill rapper has gone before, getting a feature on Drake’s new album. Say what you want about Drake, but he’s the unparalleled expert of latching onto the buzz of new rappers and scenes right as they’re blowing up (i.e. Lil Baby, Blocboy JB), so this certainly solidifies Fivio’s star status and perhaps that of Brooklyn Crip rappers and Brooklyn drill itself. I had actually been bumping the 800 B.C. tape and ‘Drive By’ in particular all week so imagine my surprise when I lazily clicked to see the tracklist of the unexpected new Drake album on Friday morning and saw that Fivio was one of the few features.
If I had to define Fivio’s ‘identity’ or what makes him unique in the rap game, it would be hard to pinpoint an exact feature but I’d point to his heart, grit, aggression/anger, and that he just absolutely HATES opps. ‘Drive By’ is the perfect example of that. It’s a total tour de force by an artist just coming into his own and reflecting on both the triumphs and losses on the road to get here as well as where he’s going next. The beat is sick and almost a calm backdrop to the anger that Fivio punishes the track with; I’d describe the vibe of ‘Drive By’ as almost apocalyptic, it’s Fivio riding around the ruins of the city in a tank after he won a war there and surveying the damage and carnage of his victory.
“The opps tell me we be going too hard, we be shooting too much we be going too far”
“I’ve got wolves I’m still feeding them off. I’ve got money so I’m feeding them all. Stood tall when they needed to ball. Ten toes, two feet on the floor.”
“Fovvy, boss, now I could by me a loft. But I ain’t satisfied at all. Still got Fetty (?) in the fort. Going back and forth to court. Couple of fights that still need to get fought.” On the one hand he’s enjoying newfound success and touting the money and fame that signing a major label deal brings, but on the other hand he’s still focused on vengeance and settling old scores.
“Fovvy, I’m different. Everyone know that I’m gifted. 2 shots for the wicked. Pull up, silence, critics. It’s my crib you evicted.”
Also anyone else reminded of Chief Keef’s ‘Now it’s Over’ by the mansion and specifically the staircase?
I’m also loving the plain blue Balenciaga hat
(P.S. interestingly, Fivio was somehow left off of the ‘Waka’ remix featuring Waka Flocka himself?)
14 Saturday Dec 2019
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Griselda ft. 50 Cent – City on the Map
I’m not a huge Griselda stan like some people so I’m not extensively familiar with all their work but I do like these guys especially Benny (I wish that they had given Benny a verse on this track) and I’ll check for their stuff, and it was nice to hear a new verse from the Godfather in 2019. I wasn’t sure what to expect since he hasn’t exactly been the most frequent rapper in recent years but he does a nice job here, kind of taking on a boss bad guy type role. “Chill, play it cool, til I come and get frostbit, let the D’s find the strap in the snow after I toss it.” I love the callousness and just casual disdain of ‘Let the D’s fine the strap in the snow after I toss it,” that’s trademark 50 right there. This isn’t something that I’ll put on every day but it’s nice east coast winter time type music for when you’re driving around with the heat on and wearing a hoodie with a hockey jersey over it or under your winter coat and some Timbs. (This song and the album as a whole).
12 Wednesday Jun 2019
Posted in Dipset, NYC, Uncategorized
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Jim Jones ft. Jadakiss, Philthy Rich – Don’t Know what They Took Him For
This Heatmakerz beat is unbelievable. Almost makes me feel like I’m in the 80s watching some type of promotional video from one of those sketchy self-help gurus where the actors are talking about how good their lives are after they paid him to walk over hot coals in his sketchy desert retreat and made his suggested life changes, or like a corporate training video from the same era telling you how to be a good employee. Or maybe even some sort of anti-drug PSA where the kids are talking about how great their lives are by not doing drugs. So many good Heatmakerz beats on Jim’s new album but this might be the best.
“On birthdays was the worst days, now I might pop $80 grand on a Thursday”. I love the over the top ‘Grrr’ ad lib after he mentions goons his goons purging which we’ve also seen previously in ‘Dipset Forever’ (the second coming of it). Ad lib game on point as always, and Jim does very well with the hook.
I’m never opposed to hearing what Jadakiss has to say and I obviously welcome the Phil feature. Jadakiss sounds like he’s in a very good place here (‘Count my blessings get my lessons out the Good Book’). Jim and Philthy have done some good work together before on ‘East Side‘ with Peezy. (Wish he would have gotten a Peezy feature for this album!) It’s kind of random that the Jim Jones album ends with a Philthy Rich verse but again I’m down with Philthy so I don’t really mind.
Harlem to Yonkers to Oakland
Side note: is Nef the Pharaoh locked up or is Philthy talking about a different Nef?
