Neighborhood Nip killing it on the Funk Flex show a couple of weeks ago. I’m always a sucker for the ‘If I Ruled the World’ beat and this was a great use of it.
“Bullets got blue tips like they Crippin’ nigga, F&N got 30 in it and I’m tripping nigga, refrigerated cupholders when I’m sippin’ nigga, fuck work sell words it was written nigga, see the Staples Center from my kitchen nigga, on the phone with Forbes asking how I did it nigga”.
Something about the imagery of the refrigerated cupholders and seeing the Staples Center from his kitchen is such dope use of imagery and just paints such an evocative picture to me. I’m not sure if he means refrigerated cup holders in his house or in the whip but either way I want them now. Nipsey can’t miss right now!
“$30,000 for the pythons, rocking knee-highs, sipping white wine, listening to ‘In My Lifetime, looking at the city skyline, getting sky high.”
It’s been a wild month over here, and this month’s top 10 will reflect that. I went down a lot of different wormholes whether it was a Tupac nostalgia trip brought on by my birthday and feeling old, to randomly bumping a lot of 80s R&B which rarely happens either, to a journey through the new Memphis to exploring a bunch of stuff I missed from the Griselda label and ultimately checking out a bevy of quality new releases from Nipsey Hussle, Kodak, Ralo, 6ix 9ine, and more. Hey any month that you can headbang to 6ix 9ine and slow dance to New Edition in the same month is a month worth living if you ask me. So here’s my February top 10, we’re a day late but let’s do it…
Benny’s got me feeling like throwing on a Buffalo Sabers jersey (the red and black one with the evil-looking buffalo, of course) with all this fire he’s releasing. I posted about Benny last week after seeing a really nice freestyle from him and this song ‘Fat Dom’ is my favorite song from his ‘Butcher on Steroids’ tape with Green Lantern that came out in November. Between Green Lantern shouting out his name and ‘Invasion’ over the tracks, to the flashy coke raps and the next-level lyricism, this tape (and song) really brought me back to another time and place, like the mid-2000s Dipset golden age and that is a very good thing in my opinion. Benny is like an Upstate NY, modern-day Diplomat. I’m going to feel like an idiot, but a grateful idiot, when one of my loyal readers points out to me what this beat is from since I know I’ve heard it before and it’s probably something obvious but I just can’t remember what it’s from, but in any case Benny kills it. This tape was great, and his project that just came out about a week or so ago entitled ‘Stabbed & Shot’ with his fellow Upstater 38 Spesh was really good as well (and features one track with Benny & 38 trading bars with Styles P and Jadakiss in typical Styles and Kiss fashion)
6ix 9ine ft. Tory Lanez, Young Thug
Much to the chagrin of rainbow-grill haters from coast to coast, the 6ix 9ine debut album (mixtape?) finally came and while it was short, it was economical in that it packed a lot of bangers into just under a half hour. Everyone already knew Kooda, Gummo and Keke which were amongst the best songs on it, but perhaps the best of all of them was a new song called Rondo. Rondo features a trio of collaborators in 6ix9ine, Tory Lanez, and Young Thug that is as unexpected as it is potent. I feel like Young Thug basically was the 6ix 9ine of a few years ago, with people up in arms about him wearing a dress and having a nose ring so it’s perhaps only right that these two kindred but very different spirits came together to bring some serious heat. I’m usually not really down with Tory Lanez but I have to admit his vocals on the chorus here were sick and really brought the whole song together. Like most of 6ix 9ine’s other big hits so far, especially Keke, really the only problem with ‘Rondo’ is that it’s way too short for such a dope song especially when you have 3 different guys of this caliber on it. Whether you love 6ix 9ine or hate him, or fall somewhere in between, I challenge you to bump Rondo at top volume and not get amped up about it.
Nipsey Hussle – Grinding All My Life
I actually posted this song in my top 10 a while back probably in September or October, but after appearing on Nipsey’s highly-anticipated ‘Victory Lap’ it’s back in this month’s 10. Nipsey was talking about Victory Lap for literally about a year and a half and it finally came out for All-Star weekend in Los Angeles. There were a lot of dope tracks on it and I have to say, I don’t think I’ve seen an album get this much love/anticipation both from the internet whether it was blogs, social media, or forums AND people bumping it outside in real life in quite a while, so good for Nip. There were a lot of good songs on it and it’s a nice, cohesive album where he really hammers home his vision of entrepeneurship and empowerment, but Grinding All My Life is still my favorite after all this time. I like his flow and bars better in the first half of the song than in the second, but either way it’s a banger.
“Don’t know a nigga like myself. I say self-made meaning I designed myself. County jail fade you could pull my file yourself. Spot raid, swallowed rocks I’m getting high myself.”
“Damn right I like the life I built, I’m from West side 60s, shit I might got killed, standing so tall they think I might got stilts. Legendary baller like Mike like Wilt, ’96 Impala Thug Life on wheels. Up against the wall, squabble at Fox Hills. Like a motherfucking boss ask me how I feel, successful street niggas touching their first mill.”
“Look I’m married to this game, that’s who I made my wife. She said I’d die alone I told that bitch she probably right. One thing that’s for sure, I’m not a stranger to this life, got a safe that’s full of Franklins and a shoulder full of stripes.
Nipsey Hussle ft. Kendrick Lamar – Dedication
Another highlight from Victory Lap. I’m usually not crazy about Kendrick but this song was incredible and it was cool to see him and Nipsey on a song together. Nice beat, great verses from two of the biggest modern-day LA/West Coast rappers, and furthermore it’s actually a pretty uplifting/positive song. Favorite line… Nipsey – “This ain’t entertainment. This for niggas on the slave ship. These songs are the spirituals that I swam against the waves with; made it to the shore to their amazement.” That line is so real it legitimately sent a chill down this old jaded blogger’s spine.
The intro to Moneybagg Yo’s new project ‘2 Heartless’ goes hard as a mother. It’s under a minute and a half long but it packs quite a punch. I wish it was a full-length 3 or so minute song because it ends right as he’s really heating up. The beat is harsh and I’m always down with rappers starting mixtapes with clips about themselves/their crimes/shootings etc. from the radio/news. I’m also down with Moneybagg including a clip of a guy yelling ‘Man, fuck Moneybagg!’ on his own tape. “Niggas turned hippie, they want peace, hit ’em with the iron get ’em creased, hottest nigga moving through these streets, all in my shows with the heat, dealt with more crosses than a priest, I ain’t let it break me with the lease.” The ‘niggas turned hippie they want peace, hit ’em with the iron get em creased’ is one of my favorite rhymes in a while it’s so simple but so effective. The hippie line has me picturing Moneybagg Yo’s opps in Memphis walking around with bell bottoms and tie-dyed shirts and something about hit ’em with the iron get ’em creased just sounds so brutal. I love the way he says ‘iron’ with that Tennessee drawl; ‘eearun‘.
As I predicted a couple of weeks ago, Drake wasn’t down at the FedEx Forum taking in a Grizzlies game with Blocboy JB because he wanted to take in Mario Chalmers NBA return or to see one half of the Harrison twins. Drake knows exactly what he’s doing – while it may look like he’s trying to help out a less famous up and coming artist, he actually needs Blocboy more than Blocboy needs him – he sees the hype Blocboy JB is getting and the love he’s getting on the streets, so he jumps on a song with him and rides the wave with him. I’m not even hating on it it’s actually a great business strategy and as much as I’m not usually a big fan of Drake as a rapper I will say he does have a great ear/eye for talent in terms of a lot of the guys he’s co-signed over the years and would make a great A&R.
I’m down with the Jordan jumpsuit Drake is rocking in the video; I’d be in full favor of clothes like that making a return instead of the women’s jeans and designer man-purses that a lot of rappers are sporting today. Drake’s dance actually isn’t bad in this video, but it’s no surprise that he’s upstaged by Blocboy, the guy who has all kinds of college and pro teams copying his dance from Shoot. And speaking of the fashion in this video, anyone of you readers out there know what the cargo pants w the orange stripe on the side that Blocboy is sporting are? Those are pretty fresh. P.S. I think he’s also wearing a Green Day ‘American Idiot’ shirt?
The ‘blow you like a flute’ line was kiiiiind of suspect but hey for the guy that made ‘Rover’ and ‘Shoot’ we’ll let it slide, Blocboy has earned himself a few slip-ups. He gets back into more typical excellent Blocboy form shortly after with this dope line – ‘Came a long way from sitting in the nosebleeds. Now a nigga on the floor talking to the ath-letes, man I’m so close to the game that I could steal the stat sheet.”
Drizzy is feeling grapey after his Memphis Vacation and who can blame him?
6ix 9ine – Billy
‘Billy’ is just so, so aggressive. It’s almost more of a hardcore song than a rap song. Apparently the video shoot for this got shut down in NYC today. I had thought there was a clip or version of this with Cuban Doll in it but I guess it didn’t make it to the album? I don’t know who is giving the speech in the beginning but it definitley sets the tone for the rest of the tape. A lot of high school kids are going to get punched in the face at parties with this song on in the background. I kind of want to make a mixtape with this, Kooda, and Knuck if You Buck just on a continuous loop.
Even 6ix 9ine’s harshest critics have to indirectly give him credit for at least getting Casanova to make ‘Set Trippin,’ one of the unfriendliest songs out of NYC in a long time, which then indirectly caused a wave of Set Trippin remixes all over the city and beyond, my favorite of which may honestly be this OG ‘Top Dolla’ trying his hand at it. I don’t know much about him and he only has a couple of songs over the last few years but I’ll take him over half the rappers out here these days, the man has charisma and stage presence.
I love the skit at the beginning. To summarize; Top Dolla and his boys are cooling out on the block when an erstwhile Blood is unlucky enough to stumble across their path. Top Dolla disappointedly asks him when/why he turned Blood and chides him for turning Blood in jail when he didn’t even have a long bid. Top Dolla’s henchman also takes his flag out of his pocket for wearing it on the wrong side. But then ultimately in a surprise twist, Top Dolla acts fairly magnanimously and decides to spare him because they grew up on the same block, their moms know each other, and he basically watched him grow up. Knowing he’s no match for him, he lets him cross the street and leaves it to the Damus down the block to deal with him.
The navy blue and gold Pelle Pelle jacket he’s rocking looks sick and goes well with his standard Yankees hat, always a timeless classic. There are a lot of dope clothing choices in this video amongst his crew, whether it’s his boy in the Seattle Mariners pullover from the skit, or the guy with the New York Islanders jersey. Perhaps best of all is the rarely seen Minnesota Wild hoodie.
I like the raw aggression/energy and just sheer gravity Top Dolla brings to his version of the song, you just feel an added weight with some of the lines since you know he’s lived what he’s rapping here in his unique take on the song. He mainly talks about being in the minority as a Crip at Rikers Island and the NY State prison system, and standing tall whereas many other Crips were afraid to claim in jail since they were vastly outnumbered.
I love his spin on the chorus; ‘Throw your hood up, nigga bang, on Rikers Island a lot of niggas they was scared to claim, Neighborhood nigga that’s the gang.’
‘Young top Dolla a known threat; 18 Years, Neighborhood, only been one set. They tuckin from the streets to the jail, nigga I bang mine, the Six is like kids around tax time, I claim mine. What I hate is tuck and tell, knowing well, they get in a spot with some Crips, they claimin’ other jails.’
‘Some niggas pick and choose when they rep, we gotta fix that, if you reppin over there adn not over here, you gettin’ bitch slapped…on Rikers I was making it known, they can’t forget that, and up north, I was keeping it funky like where the Rips at?’
SOB X RBE – God
Amazing song from SOB X RBE. Only caught this at the very end of the month but this is so good. ‘God’ is off their new album Gangin, which is apparently being called a debut album – I thought that last year’s self-titled one was their debut album but I guess that was a mixtape. Last year’s album/mixtape was one of the best projects of the year; I have to really get into the rest of this album and listen to it in full while I have time but so far it sounds great. SOB X RBE is definitley one of the top groups in the game these days and individually these guys all have some great solo stuff too. After being on the Black Panther soundtrack I’m sure they’ll blow up even more and they certainly deserve to. It’s too early to say because this was a last-minute change right before I put this article up but so far I’d go as far as to say ‘God’ is one of my favorite songs from the SOB X RBE camp so far to date.
Kodak Black – Why You Always Gotta Go
The new Kodak Black album was kind of hit or miss to me but when you really try to try some new things and push the envelope some things are going to miss so I can’t fault Kodak for that. I almost feel like this new album HBK was him going avant-garde. I picked ‘Why You Always Gotta Go’ as my top song from it and my 10th song for the month after a couple of listens of the album but really it was a close choice between this and the couple of other songs I liked from HBK, namely Acting Wierd, Laudy, Running Outta Love and When Vultures Cry. I loved the ‘I made my first $100,000 in my Soldiers’ line.
This Set Trippin remake actually goes hard and puts a bit of a unique twist on it.Even 6ix 9ine’s harshest critics have to admit he at least caused Casanova to make ‘Set Trippin’ which then caused a wave of Set Trippin remixes all over NYC and beyond, some better than others, my favorite of which ultimately turned out to be this one from this OG ‘Top Dolla 60′ trying his hand at it. Until some further research I actually wasn’t even sure if Top Dolla 60 is an actual rapper or if he’s just doing this as a one-time thing to get a few points across but damn it I’ll take him over half the rappers out here these days, the man has charisma and stage presence, so now I want to check out the rest of his material.
I love the skit at the beginning – almost feels kind of Jim Jones-esque; I feel like we need more skits/vignettes in the beginning/end of vidoes again. To summarize; Top Dolla and his boys are cooling out on the block when an erstwhile Blood is unlucky enough to stumble across their path. Top Dolla disappointedly asks him when/why he turned Blood and chides him for turning Blood in prison upstate, presumably for protection, when he didn’t even have to endure a long bid. Top Dolla’s henchman also takes his flag out of his pocket for wearing it on the wrong side. (Also, note at 0:59 the old Italian-looking guy is loving this skit!) But then finally in a surprise twist, Top Dolla acts fairly magnanimously and decides to spare him further punishment because they grew up on the same block, their moms know each other, and he basically watched him grow up. Knowing that this small fry is no match for him, he lets him cross the street and leaves it to the Damus down the block to deal with him as they see fit.
The navy blue and gold Pelle Pelle jacket he’s rocking looks sick and goes well with his standard Yankees hat, always a timeless classic. There are a lot of dope clothing choices in this video amongst his crew, whether it’s his boy in the Seattle Mariners pullover or the guy with the rarely-seen New York Islanders jersey. Perhaps best of all is the even rarer Minnesota Wild hoodie. I’ve got to just be upfront and say it, I’m not saying one is better than the other and I have no dog in this fight, but it seems like Crips seem to have a better and wider overall selection of teams to choose gear from then the standard Chicago Bulls or Philadelphia Phillies stuff that you usually see in vidoes from their counterparts on the other side of this divide.
I like the raw aggression/energy and just sheer gravity Top Dolla brings to his version of the song, you just feel an added weight with some of the lines since you know he’s lived what he’s rapping here and feels strongly about it. To him this isn’t a fashion statement or a trend like it is to many, this is his life. He mainly talks about being in the minority as a Crip (and more specifically a Neighborhood Crip) at Rikers Island and the NY State prison system, and standing tall/keeping his head held high about who he is whereas many others were afraid to claim in jail since they were vastly outnumbered, a theme he hammers home again and again… “Some niggas pick and choose when they rep, we gotta fix that, if you reppin over there adn not over here, you gettin’ bitch slapped…on Rikers I was making it known, they can’t forget that, and up north, I was keeping it funky like where the Rips at?”
‘Young top Dolla a known threat; 18 Years, Neighborhood, only been one set. They tuckin from the streets to the jail, nigga I bang mine, the Six is like kids around tax time, I claim mine. What I hate is tuck and tell, knowing well, they get in a spot with some Crips, they claimin’ other jails.’
I love his spin on the chorus; ‘Throw your hood up, nigga bang, on Rikers Island a lot of niggas they was scared to claim, Neighborhood nigga that’s the gang…Who loc’d you in, how’d you turn cuz? You went up North and you turned blood?”
“Got a real community over here, my Neighbors with me”
I like the fact that he includes some Bloods in the video that he considers ‘real Bloods’, as he says, “Got Fam that throw B’s but cuz I bring them C’s out”. Apparently even Casanova himself was down with this version of the song, judging from IG.
Man, I remember during Dipset’s golden era Juelz and Jimmy constantly (and usually needlessly) comparing themselves to the Taliban, bin Laden, and all sorts of other global megavillains of the time, so it’s only right that we finally have someone from this new day and age coming up with some Kim Jong Un/North Korea references. I used to love those needless Taliban comparisons because I get where they were going i.e. yeah we ride around in pickup trucks with guns like we’re some crazed mujahadins but overall the analogies really served no other purpose but to most likely shock and alienate a huge number of casual fans and also ensure that the song would never appear on a retail/major album.
On a serious note though this freestyle by up and coming upstate NY rapper Benny (aka Benny the Butcher) is amazing. The beat is hard body and it’s only fitting that somebody spits some serious bars over it.
“In prison, it’s 10% physical, the rest mental, the shit I was cooking had me looking through jail windows…Think I made it out the hood since they saw me on BET. I be ’round the way in the store spending EBT. For 2 ounces of soft, the judge give you 3 apiece. You come home with a scar and a GED. You know all of us risk takers, put coke in water just to get caught up in rent payments.”
“I’m going out with my pistol blasting. On my North Korea shit, sending missiles at ya.”
This video just came out yesterday but overall I’m admittedly late to the party on Benny. I only found out about him a couple of days ago and he’s quickly becoming one of my new favorites. I just checked out his tape with mixtape with Green Lantern called ‘Butcher on Steroids’ that apparently came out in November and I’ve been playing it non-stop, along with his dope new mixtape with fellow upstate NY rapper 38 Spesh (Benny is from Buffalo, 38 is from Rochester). The tape with Green Lantern really took me back to another time and place; I was half expecting DJ Clue or DJ Kay Slay to come in out of nowhere and start screaming their name over the beat. I guess he’s part of a crew/label with fellow Buffalo artists Conway and Westside Gunn called Griselda and these guys have all built up quite a bit of a dedicated following of their own and have some sort of deal with Shady Records now (didn’t even know that was still around!) but it’s all new to me so I’m looking forward to diving headfirst into their catalogue.
Your humble host has been too dormant for the last week or so but now I’m back out here in the trenches with y’all. I’ve noticed that unintentionally, I’ve been listening to a whole bunch of releases by Memphis artists in a row over the last week or two, in between some Tupac while I was in nostalgia mode after my birthday and randomly New Edition’s ‘Gold’ greatest hits collection (I can feel my street cred instantly plummeting as I type this) so I wanted to put up a post rounding up some of my favorites from some of the new stuff going on down there with some quick-hitting thoughts on each. Between all the love Blocboy JB is getting, the new Moneybagg Yo project that just dropped, and new mixtapes from both Key Glock and Jay Fizzle, Memphis is on fire right now – they’ve got me feeling like a Memphis Grizzly right now. A hibernating Memphis grizzly, but a grizzly nonetheless.
Moneybagg Yo – Black Heart
The intro to Moneybagg Yo’s new project ‘2 Heartless’ goes hard as a mother. It’s under a minute and a half long but it packs quite a punch. I wish it was a full-length 3 or so minute song because it ends right as he’s really heating up. The beat is harsh and I’m always down with rappers starting mixtapes with clips about themselves/their crimes/shootings etc. from the radio/news. I’m also down with Moneybagg including a clip of a guy yelling ‘Man, fuck Moneybagg!’ on his own tape. “Niggas turned hippie, they want peace, hit ’em with the iron get ’em creased, hottest nigga moving through these streets, all in my shows with the heat, dealt with more crosses than a priest, I ain’t let it break me with the lease.” The ‘niggas turned hippie they want peace, hit ’em with the iron get em creased’ is one of my favorite rhymes in a while it’s so simple but so effective. The hippie line has me picturing Moneybagg Yo’s opps in Memphis walking around with bell bottoms and tie-dyed shirts and something about hit ’em with the iron get ’em creased just sounds so brutal. I love the way he says ‘iron’ with that Tennessee drawl; ‘eearun‘.
An intense and heartfelt song by East Oakland’s Cookie Money about the death of his father. You can really feel both the sense of sadness and loss as well as the feeling of resolute determination to carry on the family legacy and shouldering the burden of making sure that the rest of his family is straight no matter what it takes. You can really feel where he’s coming from with the unique mix of angry defiance and deep sadness that’s hard to describe. Apparently his father was a serious hustler during the crack epidemic of the 1980s and then spent a lot of time in prison but he and Cook remained very close. I usually don’t watch Vlad TV that frequently but the Cookie Money interview on it was pretty good and delved more into Cookie Money’s background/life story etc it’s long but I would definitely recommend it. It seems like he’s lost a lot of people close to him recently over the last few months from his dad to his grandmother to some of his homies so hopefully he can find some peace and things get better for him soon.
I don’t think Cookie is doing anything crazy lyrically but he’s a real, genuine artist who can really make you feel what he’s saying, which makes it even more impressive. He’s not doing it with crazy wordplay or rhyme schemes he’s just doing this with pure heart.
“All my chains on I don’t tuck none, I’m tryna tell them that they fucking with the wrong one, call me Simba bitch you fucking with the king’s son.”
“My daddy died last week bruh this shit hurt. I never thought he’d be the one who had to leave first. I gotta hold my brother down I gotta take the torch, show these niggas what this East Oakland shit is worth.”
“Ready to kill any pussy nigga that look at me wrong. Broad day, no mask, whole clip to his dome. I would never question God I can’t say that he wrong, you were more than my father bruh it’s hard to move on. How the fuck you tell (???) that her Papa is gone, I hear your voice late night ‘Lil nigga be strong, same name do your thing keep the legacy going’, I lost my best friend bruh y’all didn’t even know him.”
The big cuz O.T. Genasis hitting us with some surprisingly wholesome fire here. This is some inspirational ‘chicken soup for the trap star’s soul’. ‘Too Blessed’ is too inspirational and too catchy to ignore.
O.T. Genasis is Belizean but it looks like his hood pass is good in Haiti. Best music video shot in Haiti since Kodak and French Montana went down there for Lockjaw?
Is that O.T. Genasis considering buying a painting of O.T. Genasis at 1:05??
That ‘Haitian Veteran’ hat is intense. The floral Adidas shirt the other dude with him is wearing has got me jelly too. There are a lot of things to love about this video, from O.T.’s dance moves and how happy the kids are breaking out theirs, and the smiling old lady, and when O.T. points to the sky as he yells ‘My lil nigga coming home soon.’ This is O.T. Genasis’ best song of his career so far in my opinion, and very early on my favorite track of 2018 so far.
Blocboy JB – Rover
So Grapey. Blocboy JB is hitting so hard right now he’s got Drake down in Memphis taking in Grizzlies games. Rover is an absolute monster and has me abusing the grape emoji on my phone keyboard.
Ray Mula ft. Dave East, Don Q – Wassup with the Wassup Remix
This is what NYC rap should be sounding like nowadays. Done perfectly. The original Wassup was great but the remix takes it to a whole nother level. All 3 guys kill it…
“Shorty sleeping on the hookah so we made her pay for refills. I’m still taking her home, but if she throw me on the Snap than I’m breaking her phone.”
“Used to wake up for the count now I wake up just to count.”
“8 Ball rolling, nigga no pool, trap house jumping more scales than Whole Foods”
No homo but I love Mula’s voice it’s perfect for this type of song.
“I was fucking all these hoes way before I started trapping, looking like a rapper way before I started rapping. Yeah I’m from the 8 talk about it make it happen, we could get it poppin, we could get it crackin… Harlem world AKA money making, hoes started liking, niggas started hating. Tried to keep it funky, niggas started faking, grip on deck but we can still get it shaking.”
Dave East:
“I was on some broke shit, roaches by the mattress, on some Loc shit way before I started flagging.”
“All this double G be on me got me fucking nigga’s wives. Came home without a scar, could give a fuck about your life.”
Don Q:
“I be walking through the fire when the smoke clear. Tell my niggas open fire when the coast clear. Yeah that block was on fire but I post there. Don’t stand by that car tire we got coke there. Fuck a prince nigga I got king status. Stuffed $200,000 in a queen mattress. All my ice bright nigga I done seen darkness, my lawyer got pistol cases looking like weed charges.”
I almost want to include the original version with just Ray Mula as another one of my top 10 songs but I feel like that would kind of be cheating.
Cookie Money
Heartfelt and hard-hitting song from Oakland hustler Cookie Money. You can really feel what he’s saying here. I’m not going to say much here because I’ve been meaning to give this it’s own post which I’ll put up in the next couple of days.
“Killas in the motherfucking circle… I bang the C, half a circle”. Blocboy JB has got me feeling GRAPEY with this one.
Something tells me that this is one Santa Clause that you don’t want to end up on the naughty list of.
I first heard Blocboy JB on Somanyshrimp’s end of year top 50 list with ‘Shoot’ which was a great song in its own right, and ever since then I seemingly can’t get away from him, with the dance from Shoot blowing up and now his followup Rover which is an absolute monster.
The Memphis rapper goes hard as fuck on Rover and people are already starting to go nuts about it. A recent cosign from Drake will only push this to higher heights even though it didn’t even really need it to grow into a behemoth in its own right. (I’m not a big Drake fan but I have to say, the man knows good music when he hears it and certainly knows which waves to hitch his wagon to. It looks like they also recently caught a Grizzlies game together, and the Grizzlies are absolutely terrible this year so I’m sure Drake was there more for recruitment/getting his A&R on as opposed to that he was dying to see Mario Chalmers’ NBA return tour).
The dope Tay Keith-produced beat (same guy who produced Shoot) and Blocboy’s menacing flow make this the perfect song to blast in the whip. Even if you’re just driving around in a falling apart 2007 Nissan Sentra like me, this song is the perfect cure for driving a lemon because you can still feel like you’ve got a decent amount of sauce when you pull up at the light bumping ‘Rover’.
Between Blocboy JB and Jay Fizzle, it seems like Grape Street Crip rappers from Memphis are having quite the moment in the sun right now. I also love the fact that in true Grape Street fashion JB’s EP on Spotify is called ‘The Purple M&M’ a la the similarly awesomely titled ‘The Blue M&M’ and ‘Blue M&M King Sized’ by Peewee Longway although regrettably there’s no ridiculous cartoonish purple gang-banging M&M posted up on the cover. Maybe for his next tape! The tape was good but it was short, and since this guy already has two absolute bangers in such a short time I’m definitley looking forward to hearing more.
Ray Mula ft. Dave East, Don Q – Wassup with the Wassup Remix
Had been wanting to throw up a post about Ray Mula’s ‘Wassup’ for a week or two and hadn’t gotten around to it, and now a remix of it just came out with Don Q and Dave East jumping onto it in addition to Ray’s first verse from the original.
The song title had me feeling like it was going to be like a 90s Budweiser commercial but Ray kills this. He has his own style but also almost brings an AR-Ab type of presence/quality (which is a very good thing in my opinion) in terms of both his voice/delivery and the fact that he has non-stop quality bars which mix in both humor and grittiness. This is what NYC rap is supposed to sound like.
“Shorty sleeping on the hookah so we made her pay for refills. I’m still taking her home, but if she throw me on the Snap than I’m breaking her phone.”
“Used to wake up for the count now I wake up just to count.”
“8 Ball rolling, nigga no pool, trap house jumping more scales than Whole Foods”
No homo but I love Mula’s voice it’s perfect for this type of song.
“I was fucking all these hoes way before I started trapping, looking like a rapper way before I started rapping. Yeah I’m from the 8 talk about it make it happen, we could get it poppin, we could get it crackin… Harlem world AKA money making, hoes started liking, niggas started hating. Tried to keep it funky, niggas started faking, grip on deck but we can still get it shaking.”
The original was already a banger and then when I was getting ready to catch up on some posts I saw on my recommended videos on Youtube that there’s already a remix out now from a couple of days ago. The original ‘Wassup’ only came out in November so these guys definitely jumped on this remix fast because they know it has the potential to be big. I like that they didn’t change up the video for the remix; they still just shot it in front of the same housing complex; all that’s really changed is the more appropriately-heavy looking jackets since it’s been absolutely freezing in New York this winter. Mula switches from a bright green windbreaker to a yellow and black North Face, and there aren’t any dirt bikes out this time.
Dave East has been a busy man lately between releasing Paranoia 2 and adding a sick verse to this remix.
“I was on some broke shit, roaches by the mattress, on some Loc shit way before I started flagging.”
“All this double G be on me got me fucking nigga’s wives. Came home without a scar, could give a fuck about your life.”
I’m not sure what Dave East’s chain is but it’s looking super frosty here.
Don Q makes the trip down from the Bronx and puts the song over the top with his verse..
“I be walking through the fire when the smoke clear. Tell my niggas open fire when the coast clear. Yeah that block was on fire but I post there. Don’t stand by that car tire we got coke there. Fuck a prince nigga I got king status. Stuffed $200,000 in a queen mattress. All my ice bright nigga I done seen darkness, my lawyer got pistol cases looking like weed charges.”
I liked the simple but kind of harsh beat for this song and these guys went 3 for 3, all obliterating it with their verses.
Even the little details of this video like putting the rapper’s name on their screen as they start or the fire graphic that comes on the screen when Don Q says ‘I be walking through the fire when the smoke clears’ give it that classic feel.
Ray and the team definitely deserve to start getting some heavy rotation on NYC radio and beyond with this one.
Crazy new song/video from Brooklyn’s Seqo Billy who starts 2018 with a splash. The beat is sick and Seqo snaps on it. I also highly approve of his use of a friendly and loyal-looking airedale terrier as the dog in this video instead of the usually far more prevalent pitbull which is normally the ubiquitous choice in these types of videos. Even the dog is flamed up with his red bandana. Watch this once or twice and you won’t be able to get the chorus out of your head, at this point it’s probably my most frequently played song of January.
“Red chucks low cut laces on the floor I’m really 9Trey, B-Hop all over a nigga’s face if he ever disrespect the gang. Always red flag when I billy rock, paint the town red make the biddy hot, bang like the niggas from Cedar Grove, trip on my set and get pita rolled”
And just to top things off we also get a brief non-rapping appearance-only cameo from one of his affiliates who just so happens to be one of the most divisive rappers out right now!
PINK CHARDONNAY 