Boldy continues to strenghten his grip as one of the best rappers in the game right now. This guy released about four albums last year so I wasn’t expecting another full-length project from him so early in 2023, but Indiana Jones has been a pleasant surprise and Electric Blue is my favorite song off it. It seems like Boldy’s recent MO has been releasing entire albums with one producer, like last year’s projects with Nicholas Craven, Cuns, Futurewave, and Real Bad Man. This project continues that trend as all of the tracks are produced by RichGains.
I don’t know what the fuzzy sounding sample here is (or if that’s who Jonathan Chapman is) but it’s got me feeling wavy and Boldy sounds dope rapping over it. Almost sounds like it could be taken from some 80s new wave joint or even some 2000s emo but I have a terrible ear for this kind of thing so I could be way off the mark.
Boldy is apparently recovering from a broken neck and in the hospital after a car accident so hopefully the Big Creature rests up and gets back on his feet soon.
“City of Detroit like a wrecking ball, pick your drug of choice I can sell them all”
The second verse has to have what’s already become one of my all-time favorite sequences…
“Me and Streets we some dog fighters, turned a half a key to a masterpiece, remember that was me pulling all nighters. On a hell block had to peddle white, selling yay where every day was devil’s night.”
Steve Da Stoner, Lil V, Mook G, Mack Daddy Gorjis, ABM Keke, Big 4, J Clay, Richkid Avery, Rubberband Bootsy, Big Jay, Baby Montana – Still Champions Cypher
My man SLICK is a fool for this one! I’m absolutely loving this. A+ for the choreography/acting here, I would definitley work in this office just making cold calls with a real hustler like Slick.
But it’s not just the gimmick/novelty of the beat/imagery, Slick is spitting some fire here…
“Don’t come to my hood and get blew on, I don’t got an attitude when I got this Rude on”
“Fuck your last nigga that nigga a cornball, paintings all in my house like Andy Warhol”
“I be grinidng like there’s two but there’s one of me, you’re only mad cause you ain’t financially when you want to be”
“Woke up in the morning like life’s crazy, gallery pants with the splatter cost $980”
“My fiend scared of pitbulls but he said bring that dog with him, a nigga play with RTF he better bring God with him”
I love the imagination/imagery of the lines about the fiends i.e. “My fiend 57 with a mullet like Joe Dirt, before I ask for help I went and hit the road first” ‘or “I used to be fucked up, on zero, watching my fiends’ kids play Guitar hero”
I found this off a co-sign from Lil Chicken, I feel like this needs to blow up. With under 500 views right now this might be the most undervalued track of 2021. And I’ll go out on a limb and say this is the best Pittsburgh song since Black and Yellow.
I’m feeling the message at the end too
P.S. I like how this came out now 9 years after the Office ended in the U.S., I’m picturing Slick sitting in the trap discovering the reruns on Netflix lmao
For this year I have a few choices from the dying embers of 2019 like my top song, Mozzy’s Big Homie from the Hood, and some of the albums/songs like Chicken P’s stuff that came out in late 2019 but that I didn’t start listening to until 2020 but I’m not going to leave them off this year because a. they slap and b. they left a big impression on me in 2020. Same for FMB DZ Ape Season which came out on 2019’s album of the same name but the video came out in early 2020. Also the YNW Melly album/songs from it here, which seems like it was from a whole different world and a lifetime ago but was just from November 2019 so just over a year ago. (I have a feeling the same thing might happen again next year since there’s albums from Cash Kidd and Lil Chicken that came out this month that I haven’t gotten a chance to listen to yet) I didn’t get to put any of them on last year’s list since they fell in between when I posted it and when 2020 started. I just want to highlight dope music that came out so I’m not going to be overly scientific about if it’s the end of 2019 or 2020.
Happy holidays and happy New Year’s to everyone who read my site this year and hopefully 2021 will be better than 2020 for everyone. Shout out to some of the people I read, talk to on here, and find great music from, and interact with, which is really what makes the sense of community that makes it worth keeping a site like this – Martorialist, Crimedawgbylaw, Ray Garraty, Hotbox Social and a couple of others!
This beat by Marc Boomin, the man behind some of my favorite beats of the last 2 years, has me going absolutely crazy in the house by myself right now. This man needs to start getting more acclaim.
YN Jay’s flow is crazy. Fresh off his surprise hit with ‘Coochie’ and an unexpected collaboration with Lil Yachty who seems to be taking up a residency in the Mitten a la a late career rocker in Vegas, here he is with another slap. I love YN Jay’s voice. “You sittin’ at home in the crib with your kids you the family man, I just pulled up with some doonies in a family van, bitch want me to send her my location we in candy land” I’m kind of feeling the Dallas Cowboys hat. I love the sheer level of disrespect of “Old lady walking cross the street too slow I’m finna hit your granny, I’m the real Coochie Man I’ll hit your granny.” YN Jay was not lying when he coined that moniker for himself.
Is YSR Gramz wearing an Animal Chin t-shirt?? “A nigga playin’ YN Jay nigga I’m gon kill him, FN 57 308’ll knock down a building”
I love the shade for Matt Stafford in his own city lmao
BabyTron is rolling super deep, working with RMC Mike and KrispyLife Kidd a couple of weeks ago and linking up with YN Jay and YSR Gramz here. “Shooters hitting baskets at the funeral we gonna hit his casket”
Missed this one from a couple months back from Mr. Reliable; CML. Here he links up with Oakland’s YID of ‘Keep it On Me’ fame for a track that just runs you over like an 18 wheeler.
CML really is the hook god of these simple but catchy hooks; I love the straightforward bluntness of ‘I’m a felon, nigga’
Is that CML’s boy at 1:33 rocking a newsboy cap??
“On my dead homies, I ain’t never caught a body, ask your dead homies” OUCH
Even the cops in CML’s hood are throwing up gang signs? (2:02). Maybe it’s some sort of peace offering to CML to be able to pass through.
YID seems to be adhering to CDC guidlines and sensibly wearing a face mask. On the other hand, CML unsurprisingly seems to be unconcerned about it.
Rio da Yung OG x LCF Kari x Big Homie Dada x HBK Teezy – Free Charles (2020)
Pop Smoke ft. Roddy Rich, 50 Cent – The Woo (2020)
Pop Smoke ft. Rowdy Rebel – Make it Rain (2020)
YN Jay x Louie Ray – Coochie (2020)
Pop Smoke – Bad Bitch from Tokyo (2020)
Rio da Yung OG x LCF Kari x Big Homie Dada x HBK Teezy – Free Charles (2020)
It feels like it’s been a while since I posted a Rio track on here but that’s probably more because he’s so prolific at this point that it seems like he has a verse in someone else’s video coming out on a daily basis at this point. This one that Ray Garraty posted is actually unquestionably my favorite out of all the recent output. And I’d actually say it’s as much for the verses from the three young bols as it is for Rio’s verse, which you can’t often say about these types of tracks. He may be Rio the Yung OG but here he plays the role of Big Homie Rio. I hope he did this verse for free because these guys earned it.
Literally all three of these kids can REALLY spit. I went from clicking the link just expecting to wait for the Rio verse to being like ‘Alright, alriiiight, first kid can spit’ to ‘Damn this second kid has some bars too’ to ‘Wow this third guy is spitting some absolute flames all three of these young bols are on their game.’ The beat is simple but goes super hard and is perfect for this type of track.
I’m not sure who’s who or if these guys are from Detroit or Flint or somewhere in between but I’m feeling it. All three of these guys have a lot of heart. I want to actually search for some more of their stuff. The first dude’s flow/voice is just like a blunt instrument.
I love the second guy’s verse especially starting with the elongated”Shhhhh I can’t hear these niggas, we’ve got straps why the fuck would we fear these niggas?”
Third dude kills it “Free my baby brother Charles he made 20 down in West V, I done passed niggas to the point where they can’t catch me, I really move the bag tell the plug come and bless me, Glock with a ladder in case an opp try to test me.”
“I went broke and got it back, I don’t cry about them losses”. True hustler right there.
“We the reason these niggas in the house fuck corona, if this loud burn out I’ma drive to Oklahoma.”
Pop Smoke ft. Roddy Rich, 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. I didn’t think 50 would make an appearance on one of my top songs lists in 2020 but here we are.
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
Pop Smoke ft. Rowdy Rebel
I MAKE IT RAIN ON WHOEVER
Man this song had me ready to fight someone and I’m a total square who admittedly couldn’t bust a grape in a fruit fight.
It was awesome getting a new Rowdy Rebel verse in 2020 and I love that they included his phoned in verse from jail on one of the big singles for the album. When are these GS9 guys coming home anyway? Feels like they’ve been gone forever. FREE ROWDY
YN Jay x Louie Ray – Coochie
Like Hotbox Social said, nice to see Rio/RMC Mike’s boys YN Jay and Louie Ray have a surprise sit on their hands. This is the Louie Ray that Rio says ‘this is my tenth time hitting a bitch off of Louie’s name. This flow is crazy and this beat from Energy Beats is nasty, as always. This is really blowing up with 8 million views without having Rio or Mike in it and now these guys have a song with Lil Yachty too.
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.
Rio and DZ showing that the grind doesn’t stop just for a quarantine or a stay at home order.
My favorite rapper from late 2017/2018 linking up with my favorite rapper from 2019 (and 2020 so far).
FMB DZ is flowing with such urgency over this beat. “I’m not a rapper I’m a motherfucking street nigga. If you ain’t tryna get no money I can’t eat with ya.”
“I’m out West with it, with my Vatos, me and Chino counting $50,000 eating tacos”
I just started bumping ‘The Gift 3’ and there are a whole bunch of bangers on it so far, definitley FMB DZ’s best work in a while; he’s spitting with high intensity on this.
I love the transition from DZ to Rio with DZ using that wierd effect on his voice and then Rio casually walking into the restaurant (LA Coney Island).
Before we even get to Rio’s verse, let’s take a moment to appreciate the fact that this man just dropped a great album, ‘City on My Back,’ then released a dope track with RMC Mike and Lil E (Still Spice Talkin’) and now still had enough gas left in the tank to release ANOTHER classic verse here as a feature on FMB DZ’s album. This guy is rap’s iron man he literally doesn’t stop.
Now let’s get back to Rio’s verse.
“Drop a nickel on your ass I got cheap killers, everybody got a body if you see them with us.”
Then Rio yet again shows that he’s probably the most inventive, ingenuous mind in rap today with this sequence where he adds bouncers to strippers as the nightclub personnel that he is a clear disdain for, comes up with a creative way of robbing a dealer in Colorado, and flexes on us by saying he doesn’t need to use a mask when he’s robbing because he’s an out of towner.
“I’m in the club with some shit that will drop a bouncer, robbed a bow man in Colorado, made him climb a mountain. I even robbed a coke man for an ounce of powder. I did that shit without a mask, I’m an out of towner.”
Oh, and did I mention that he has kamikaze bombers?
I also like that Rio seems to be amongst the more humble rappers in the game and doesn’t seem to have much use for stunting or flexing for social media etc. he’s just 100% about his money, consistently saying things like this…
“I didn’t act like I was rich, I was humble poor. You ain’t learn nothing when you was broke, what you struggle for?”
I’m always a sucker for rappers talking about the security at their spots…
“HD cameras on my house watching down the street. Your hemi slow as hell I’ll chase you down on feet.”
PINK CHARDONNAY 