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.