Come on this needs more than 200 views. A typically solid, yeoman effort from Lil AJ off of his new ‘Lash Money 4’ mixtape. You always know what you’re going to get with Lil AJ, nothing crazy but just solid, workman-like bay area rap. The hook from Clyde Carson is great too and I love the synthy beat. There are a couple of other slaps on this tape, my other favorites aside from this one were ‘Livin’ with cameos from Lil Blood and Joe Blow and the Nef the Pharaoh-assisted ‘Pain.’ Overall a solid mixtape from Lil AJ. Side note – is it just me or have these mid-level Bay rappers like AJ/Joe Blow been talking about trips to the UK in every other song lately?
Vallejo youngster ShooterGang Kony has all the makings of a star – He’s got a great flow, some nice lines, he’s charismatic on camera and he’s in good company with Mozzy and Nef the Pharaoh rocking with him, but perhaps most of all, what I’m most impressed by is ShooterGang Kony’s Club America tracksuit. In fact, I’m in awe of his entire crew’s impressive collection of Liga MX Sportswear, from the aforementioned title star’s Club America ensemble (which, I may add, I couldn’t even find online to buy so he definitley went to a real tienda to grab it), to his friend’s Cruz Azul jersey, to the guy’s coat at 0:15 (not sure what team that is or even if it’s a team at all from the logo). Even Nef himself is getting in on the footy-inspired sportswear with his Kappa hoodie although unfortunately he didn’t commit to a specific Mexican top flight team like his more worldly Vallejo brethren.
On a side note, I love the setting for this video, some sort of haunted/abandoned ranch or alfalfa farm outside of Vallejo? Not to mention the slick dance moves and the cameos from Nef as well as the Mozzy chain.
“I ain’t go to college I’m a blood like a Treetop, went to one class in my bag was a knee Glock”
“You Mysterio my pockets on Bautista”
“Bitch I’m King Tut, switch lanes tell em beast up”
“Nigga, fight who? I’ma give you hella heat rocks, weed stop, always in the hood like a street knock”
The chorus is of course him stunting but it’s also a message of self-reliance and individuality. “I’m the number 1 stunna I don’t need nobody’s help, you wake up every day trying to be somebody else.” This almost sounds like it could be a Nef-style brag.
You can also never go wrong with a Chif-Fil-A mention.
I’ve been bumping Kony’s new Kony Ginobli mixtape all Labor Day weekend and since he’s fairly new to me I’ve also been going back and listening to his previous tapes March Madness and Still Kony. This is my favorite song by him so far but he has plenty of other slaps, like the Rap Music Hysteria-highlighted My City, as well and I’m sure there are plenty more to come.
On a side note, is any region having a better summer output-wise than the Bay Area/general Northern California area as a whole? Between ShooterGang Kony, Nef the Pharaoh’s new album, ALLBLACK, and even a new E-40 album, (and even though he’s from LA I almost want to throw Greedo into this mix because of the other project with Nef and all his collaborations with ALLBLACK).
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.”
Willie Joe, Benny, YL Next Up – Mo Guap Mo Problems
You wouldn’t think that attempting a remake of ‘Mo Money Mo Problems’ in late 2017 with a bunch of youngins from Cali and adding in a whole lot of auto tune would be a good idea… but it’s actually kind of fire?!?! Yhung T.O -nemesis Benny and his merry gang of DripSquad cohorts fucking kill it here (The DripSquad logo of the anthromorphic water droplet is actually pretty dope). I’ve always been a sucker for this beat and remember the original Biggie version being one of the first songs that ever caught my attention/that I liked as an earnest young elementary schooler.
I can’t lie, I’m definitely a little jelly of the guy at 0:27 that’s rocking that super clean long-sleeve Samoa rugby 7’s pullover.
Benny brings the heat on the melodic hook which goes surprisingly well with the Mo Money Mo Problems beat; “Blue paint on the new drop, too hot Gucci’d down to the tube socks, 19 young nigga with a bank roll, mo money ain’t a problem with a draco”. Props to Benny for making the motion of fanning himself off when he says ‘too hot’.
I like how Willie Joe changes the ‘no info for the DEA’ from the OG version to just ‘no info for the DA.’ “N-O, S-O nigga, D-A, H20 no info for the DA, Yanni got the draco got you running like a relay, bruh locked up his BM had us on 3-way. It’s Joey though, started from the bottom like we OVO, somebody sleeping in the bed it ain’t Nokio, rappers doing all this lying like Pinocchio, I’m a fly nigga rocking Bape straight from Tokyo.” (Side note – first time I heard Willie Joe was on ‘Top Ramen‘ this time last year which had a great hook from Lazy Boy). I’ like how DripSquad henchman YL Next Up just keeps snapping harder and harder as his short verse goes on. (Side side note – most of these same guys Willie Joe, YL Next Up etc. are in another dope song ‘Cruisin’ that Corolla Club highlighted in his monthly top 10, which also features another pretty sick Samoa rugby jersey).
The white dude with the dreads and the gnarly beard isn’t even named in the title of the video but through EXTENSIVE research (me lazily clicking around on Youtube while I’m supposed to be working) I believe his name is ‘Stony Bobby’ and he seems to be a DripSquad affiliate. (Is Stony Bobby the Bay Area’s answer to Kid Rock?) (Edit/Update: After more Youtubing, it’s also possible that the white dude with dreads and the black dude with dreads are called YL Next Up as a group, and Stony Bobby is someone else entirely?! Very mysterious). What he lacks in shaving skills he certainly more than makes up for in the sheer energy he brings to the track and his general over the top theatrics he uses to act out what he’s saying. Come on, look at the look on his face at 2:47 or the exaggerated running motion at 2:56; how could you not love this guy? And like he says, he’s just trying to push that Porsche Panamera with the leather, and who can begrudge him of that?
Tweezie brings back that throwing ‘bos in the club type music and takes the crown for top song of October with ‘Really’…
“PC Tweezie opens strong and makes his presence felt right away, pummeling the opening verse, “I was really in the trenches with them wolves, I really tote a .30 hit the gas if I get pulled. I’ll really beat your ass run up on you like a bull, I’m really getting fat them hos say I’m getting full.” I love everything about this verse – The hit the gas if I get pulled line just sounds badass AF, while in the days of rappers talking about their nose rings and desinger messenger bags it just feels refreshing to hear PC Tweezie rap about doling out a good old-fashioned beating and literally taking food off of other inmate’s plates. Lastly, I definitely respect that his hos are admiring his weight gain, because usually when I put on some extra pounds I end up just getting fat-shamed into jogging so he definitely has some serious clout.
In possibly my favorite rhyme of ‘extension’ and ‘extension’ ever, Tweezie deftly deploys it in two different usages and some pretty evocative imagery that shows he’s absolutely not fucking around: “I really keep a 40 glock that came with the extensions, I’m quick to bat a bitch and drag a ho by the extensions.” (Made even better by the ‘I’m silly’ ad lib right after).”
A big added bonus here is the headlines on the newspaper graphics in the video i.e. “Tensions Rise in Local Prison” with the byline “PC’s First Day in Lockup Didn’t Go So Well for the Other Inmates”
Ball Greezy ft. Mike Smiff, Kase 1, Major Nine – I Deserve it All
Some more Florida smoothness from Ball Greezy and co., via Rapmusichysteria , the undisputed expert on Ball Greezy and Florida slaps in general.
“Like Kodak Black, who combines new-gen meme literacy with older rap styles, Ballgreezy stands between movements but remains outside them, continuing in a post-jook mode while softening its Dionysian edges with grown-man world-weariness. At times he resembles one of the mournful songmen of today; this might be the case, and yet Greezy was crooning before Wayne and Kanye broke down the R&B doors and liberated moping for the kids of today.”
Ball Greezy kills it with a heavy but resilient verse, half rapping, half singing…
“Niggas wonder why Greezy don’t smile… I’ve been through the ups and downs, the back and forths the round and rounds. A real food stamp baby, born and raised in Little Haiti, I can’t lie the streets ain’t been the same lately. Niggas don’t keep it G no more, see they don’t make ’em like me no more. Red and blue lights behind me, where the heat gon go? Surrender or shoot it out? I heard they don’t care about you and I. I’m tired of even living like this. How the hell do you raise kids like this.
“They told me that I would never ever be shit, now my watch and my chain make them seasick”
“For whatever reason, I have to admit I’ve been sleeping on Que and have never really gotten into him/checked out much of his stuff. I guess I had heard OG Bobby Johnson back in the day and wasn’t super into it/didn’t see what all the hype was about and then kind of forgot about him. But let me be the first to say, I’ll be DAMNED if his Class Clown EP isn’t a great project with some nice slaps on it. Paramount amongst these was ’90s Baby’ which I’ve been playing over and over again all month. “I’m a ’90s baby, I keep a little .380, it’s hard to tell it’s on me, that boy thought I was naked,’ Que warns potential foes who may be debating whether or not to run up on him. Even when he’s by himself he’s never lonely because he has his little .380 with him. Delving deeper I’m not sure what being born in the 90s has to do with keeping a hidden .380 but either way I love this song. ‘He got beside himself, and got to talking reckless, he must not got the memo that me and my niggas PETTY!’ Que continues. As one of the pettiest people you’ll ever meet, I can definitely get behind this type of message.
‘He said he don’t fuck with me, well nigga vice versa… said when he see me… said he was gon do what, to who my nigga? How? You just a class clown.” I like the idea of just telling people that don’t like you ‘vice versa’ and I love how ultimately dismissive it is, ‘To who my nigga how? You just a class clown.”
With all the crazy stuff going on out here in the world lately, sometimes it feels good to reminisce about a simpler, more carefree time, for example, by taking a trip down memory lane with Key Loom, who affably leads us on a guided tour of his hood in those golden days of youth where you could “give a knock a rock for a book of food stamps.”
Key Loom really sets the aesthetic in his dope 2016 song ‘Succa Free’; “Back then, orange juice with the old E, on the turf soaking game from the OG’s”. Everything from the picture he paints with the verses and the scene he sets to the infectious chorus are top notch; this song isn’t new but I’ve probably listened to it about 30 times this week.
Another notable moment is Key Loom staking his claim to being the “flyest gang bang nigga that you’ve ever seen.” In most of the videos I’ve seen, Key Loom seems to favor more of a sensible, utilitarian fashion such as Dickies and plain t shirts and perhaps a winter hat (not to mention the obligatory blue bandana), as opposed to some of the more daring “fly” designer gear favored by many of the younger rappers, but hey I have no reason to dispute his claim to that title. For example, see below for a quintessential Key Loom look…
(*Side note, I feel like this is a pretty underrated album cover/artwork)
There are a bunch of other standout lines like…
“From the era of the D-boys, with a closet full of Air Maxes, in the trap counting stacks on an air mattress”.
Before he throws an absolute haymaker with this strong verse towards the end…
“Burner glove* full of gun shot residue, stay ready what you bitch niggas better do, couple holes in my body but I’m still stepping, thank God every day that’s a real blessing. Still keep my eyes peeled ’cause I’m on shit, fuck them suckas if they throwing up the wrong set”.
*Note that burner gloves are another go-to staple of the Key Loom wardrobe
P.S. – Can we get a Berner/Key Loom collaboration album??
Forget accolades like best up and coming young rappers or best Bay Area artists, Yhung T.O is up there as having one of the strongest 2017’s of any artist, period, regardless of region or age bracket. Between his output with SOB X RBE, some of the slaps on his debut project On My Momma like ‘Love the Way’ and his recent collaboration Try Sumthin with OMB Peezy, Yhung T.O just can’t miss right now. Even with all those jams under his belt, ‘Been Through’, off of his new Before the Fame EP, may be his best song to date.
You can really feel both the pain and triumph in his voice on the resilient ‘Been Through’:
“Feel like I deserve a trophy, ballin for my homies, gotta keep a 30 in my 40, cause you don’t know what I’ve been through,” croons T.O over an almost melancholy piano-driven beat, as he more sings than raps on most of this track.
“Lately, sh*t been drivin a nigga crazy, I gotta watch my back cause they hate me, so how could you blame me, for putting 50 in this drakie? I gotta make it home to my baby.”
A very compelling track by one of the most charismatic artists in the game. It’s early but I think ‘Been Through’ is going to join OMB Shawniebo’s ‘4 Minutes All Me‘ and Berner’s two new gems with Young Dolph ‘Win Big‘ and ‘Knuckles‘ as early candidates for my favorite couple of songs of 2017.
You guys thought I was done over here? Nah fam, I was just hibernating and bumping the new Berner & Dolph mixtape on repeat for the last week. In other news, OMB Peezy continues his streak of very solid releases with this menacing ode to those who dare cross him, ‘The Hard Way’. Nothing fancy here but the foreboding beat, great chorus, and good verses is a surefire and time-tested combo. Just another really good release in Peezy’s overall body of work, I don’t think he’s released a bad song yet. What’s more, Peezy shows a knack for tasteful wall art at his home and even more importantly that pillow he’s lounging on that makes its debut at around the 0:37 mark looks comfortable AF, almost like he’s chilling out on a fluffy white cloud. I’m also loving the self-appointed moniker ‘Overkill Peezy’. He’s also teasing another song on Instagram called ‘Pressure’ which should be dropping soon so I’m fully expecting his streak of hits to continue.
Ohhhhhhh yeah. Stop the presses, stop the presses! We interrupt this broadcast to bring you good tidings and news of Berner’s new collaboration with Young Dolph and Gucci Mane, ‘Knuckles’. Seriously could there be any better news for an erstwhile, newly out of the closet Berner fan such as myself than news that not only does he have a new song with The King of Memphis and Wop, but that he has a whole EP coming out with Dolph? (Berner is carving out quite the niche market for himself with these ‘collaboration’ albums/mixtapes he’s got projects out with everyone from Cam’ron to The Jacka, including his most recent ‘Vibes’ project with Styles P which was a very solid release). I feel like Big Bern’s stock is at an all-time high right now. Ask the rap gods for new Berner material and ye shall receive. Honestly at this point I may need to make a new category on this blog for Just Berner. At this point it’s too early to say but Knuckles may be my favorite Berner song, and you’re talking to a man who listened to a good 4 Berner albums on a long drive last night.
According to Dirty Glove Bastard, the upcoming project with Young Dolph, entitled ‘Tracking Numbers,’ will have features from Gucci Mane, Peewee Longway, OJ Da Juiceman, Juicy J, Philthy Rich, and more. I can’t wait to hear the one with Project Pat. I loved DGB’s tepid/noncommital reaction to news of the Berner/Dolph project – “Berner & Young Dolph were probably the last 2 people you’d expect to collab for an entire project, but here we are.” You’ve got to love the ‘But here we are’ as the way to end your thoughts on something that you’re just not sure what to make of. Also, are the ‘Tracking Numbers’ referred to in the title referring to shipments from the Cookies clothing line that this hard-working fashion entrepeneur is senidng out to his customers, or to ‘cookies’ of a more illicit nature? Only time will tell when the album comes out.
I was excited enough just to see an unexpected collaboration between these 3, but the beat by TraxxFDR (who has collaborated with Berner previously and whipped up some magic with him on my previous favorite Berner song) is absolutely delicious and takes this song to a whole different level. I’m curious who made it and what the sample is from. It has me feeling like I’m at a roller rink in the 70s with Berner, Dolph and the crew just casually skating around, smoking some cookie, chatting up the roller girls. If I do a ‘beats of the year’ type article at the end of the year this one has staked a strong claim to the top of the list.
File this one under unlikelist of trios I would have expected to link up and make a song together. Not only do these guys join forces, but unlike some other unexpected combinations where the actual track underwhelms and is less interesting than the combination of names itself, these tres amigos bring the fire on Hunnid.
Yakki (nee Yakki Divoshi) absolutely manhandles the chorus on this one as he gleefully booms out ‘I can make a hundred in a daayyyyyy’ and between Hemsworth’s bouncy, summery beat and Yakki’s catchy chorus this song really should get big and be one of the songs of the summer. I feel like Yakki should start blowing up to and start getting even more buzz than he already has, with a couple of bangers under his name now like ‘Trust Issues’ with PNB Rock and the Lil Uzi-assisted ‘Xans’ from his recent album ‘Yakkistick’ which was a pretty enjoyable project. “Every night I’m eating steak and shrimp ’cause I ain’t going back to Church’s”, howls Big Yak at the end of his verse about grinding day and night and then ungrateful people wanting things from you.
Approaching 50, E-40 has shown an amazing knack for longevity and staying relevant in the rap game. I’d imagine life is pretty good for the Sik Wid It CEO right now, with his young bols on the label like OMB Peezy and Nef the Pharaoh making a ton of noise over the past year, but on ‘Hunnid’, like a grizzled player-coach that can still step off the bench and hit a few 3’s in a pinch, E-40 shows that he’s still got it. I’m feeling the Backwoods hoodie E-40 is rocking here too; as one of rap’s elder statesmen he’s not out here rocking skinny moto jeans or some designer shirt with sparkles and rhinestones on it, he’s just keeping it simple and relaxed wearing a comfortable hoodie and winter hat with shades, which is more befitting of a legend of his stature at this point. Shout out to E-40 for the casual, self-aware swagger.
I don’t know much about this dude Hemsworth aside from the fact that he’s from Canada, he produced this sick beat, and apparently he’s one of Yakki’s coworkers at the autobody in the video. From the looks of it this song is from his own album that he’s working on. It looks like he does work both inside and outside the rap genre, which I actually think is a good thing because it gives artists different types of beats to work with and brings in some different perspectives, and between this and working with Adamn Killa on his other recent rap foray ‘Commas’ I’ve definitely got to give the guy credit for having good taste in rappers.
I also like the choice of the yellow Firebird for the car in the video; an underrated American icon in my humble opinion, and the Nef the Pharaoh cameo rocking out with the Sik Wid It chain. I wish they added in a verse from Nef at the end since he was there anyway, but I guess we can’t get TOO greedy since it was already a great song.
