This song has me feeling like me, Berner, Dolph, and Amp just won a big, hard-fought battle in an enemy city and we’re now realizing it’s over and it was costly, but we gave it our all, we won, and we’re all still here and we’re all good. We’re taking our masks/helmets/visors off and putting our guns down and we’re just triumphantly looking around and surveying the carnage and taking it all in, looking at each other and giving a knowing nod to our brothers in arms. Or we just won a championship and Berner hit the winning 3 at the buzzer against all odds and now we’re all just basking in the glow of knowing we achieved glory.
I was already singing the praises of Berner & Dolph’s collaboration project ‘Tracking Numbers’ because ‘Knuckles’, the first track they leaked from it, was already easily one of my favorite songs of the year. Little did I know that by the time this 8 track mixtape was over that another song from it would be right up there with Knuckles as one of my favorite songs, and beats, of the year. The beat for this one is so triumphant and honest and perfectly captures the ‘Win Big’ mantra. I have to find out who came up with this beat. Berner is like Jameis Winston right now; he’s been around for a couple of seasons but now he’s entering his prime and ready to take the league by storm.
August was probably the best month of new music in a long time for your humble host, with new projects out by everyone from Kodak Black to Peewee Longway to Berner, and probably two of my favorite songs of the year so far, ‘4 Minutes All Me’ by OMB Shawniebo and Berner’s new joint ‘Knuckles’ with Young Dolph and Gucci Mane. Perhaps most importantly of all we got news of what I expect to be the holy grail in a long list of Berner collaboration albums, his project with Young Dolph, which should be out at the end of this month. Here are the top 10 songs for an unexpectedly great month.
OMB Shawniebo – 4 Minutes All Me
OMB Shawniebo comes out with an early contender for song of the year on here. See previous post on 4 Minutes All Me here. You can never go wrong with this type of combination of wolf masks, baby blue Gap sweatshirts, luscious beats, and 4 minutes of just obliterating one of the tastiest beats in recent memory.
Berner ft. Young Dolph, Gucci Mane – Knuckles
Ever the savvy businessman, Berner teased the release of Tracking Numbers with Young Dolph by serving up Knuckles, also featuring Gucci Mane, as a tasty appetizer for it. In almost any other month, when I didn’t first hear ‘4 Minutes All Me’, the unexpected duo of Bern and Dolph would have taken home the crown for top song of August. As In any case, I have a feeling that this will clock in in my top handful of songs for the year and I’m looking forward to Tracking Numbers at the end of the month. As I said at the time…
“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 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.
I loved Big Bern’s opening salvo “No handouts, I got here with nothing. The bezel and band on my wrist keep busting. I got birds from the Asians, guns from the Russians, VVVS’s on my chain keep dancing all custom” BUT the part of his verse that put it over the top for me and really spoke to me, as a big introvert, was Berner’s bold declaration “Fuck the club, dog. I’d rather stay in. I’ve got stacks to count, plus this batch just came in.” We definitely need more of that attitude in the rap world I’m all for it. I mean I don’t have many stacks to count when I stay in it’s more likely that I’m just eating takeout and watching Shark Week or Drugs Inc. but I’m feeling what he’s saying.”
Ryan Hemsworth ft. Yakki, E-40 – Hunnid
Definitely one of the happiest and sunniest songs of the year so far, this unlikely group of tres amigoscertainly bring the fire on Hunnid. This is another song that in some months could have plausibly took the honor of song of the month if it wasn’t such a stacked lineup already.
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.
You thought we were done with the Berner exploration journey over here? Nah bruh we stay on this Berner grind all summer long, can’t stop won’t stop. I’m not sure if I should thank or blame The Martorialist for inspiring me to go down this treacherous but also sometimes rewarding path. About 10 Berner albums deep, imagine my surprise and pleasure when I saw that his 2015 album ‘Harvest Season’ featured not one but two separate tracks featuring both The Jacka (RIP) and Mozzy on each, along with two other songs featuring the Jacka and one more with Mozzy. Say what you want about this affable Urban Farmer, but the man has an undeniable talent for getting great rappers to work with him and join his projects, as well as getting great verses out of them. I didn’t even know who Mozzy was in 2015 showing that as usual, Berner was ahead of his time.
‘Gone’ has the added bonus of not only featuring the Jacka and Mozzy but also one of my favorite Nor Cal artists who I had gotten into for a while and completely forgotten about, Lil Rue, so it was good to hear him again as well. (Push It and Self Made were both in heavy rotation five or six winters ago I remember bumping them on a New Year’s Eve).
Mozzy raps a bit slower on this track and seems like he has a little bit of a different flow, and it sounds great over the triumphant, battle-ready beat. It actually might be one of my favorite two or three Mozzy verses to date, he absolutely bodies this one…
It’s been a long, hot July out here, but we’re still hanging in there and I finished my top 10 songs in a bit more of a timely fashion this month. This month took me down a lot of interesting paths as I stayed on my Lil Chicken/Milwaukee grind that started last month via Rap Music Hysteria, then a post from the Martorialist on Berner had me go down a huge Berner rabbit hole and after studying his back catalogue as if I was writing a dissertation on him, made me realize that this husky Bay Area renaissance man actually has quite a few jams, then from there I was bumping another large white rapper Jelly Roll for a couple of days to see what he’s been up to lately, checked out the new projects from A-Wax, Meek Mill, and 21 Savage before getting really into Mac J and having him take over the end of the month.
Lil Chicken – No Grease
This song is from the end of 2016 but Lil Chicken wins the award for hardest first verse of 2017 and maybe hardest song in general with ‘No Grease’ – “See the pain in my eyes this sh*t gettin tiring, eyes get bug as hell when I hear them sirens. Money, diamonds, gold, we a bunch of pirates, watching out for narcs trapping out a hybrid. Fiend keep nodding off man he can’t fight it, this dog biting nigga’s ears punching like Tyson.” I’m not sure what I like better the very apt pirate comparison or the image of him trapping out of a Nissan Leaf or Toyota Prius. I also love the weary, almost strained voice that Big Chicken P raps in on this one; the trap has been good to him but he’s also growing tired of the unwanted complications that come with it.
“All these motherf*cking grits I feel like Rich Porter, b*tch we ain’t no small fries we taking big orders, these niggas b*tches I’m finna change my hustle to extortion, phones slapping back to back they sound like walkie talkies.” Lil Chicken just goes too hard on this one.
Berner – Float
As I said in my mea culpa on Berner, “In a more just world, with this type of chorus and vibes, Berner would be making royalty money off of Sandals or Atlantis or one of those other Caribbean all-inclusive resorts using his song in their newest commercial.” After a long journey into this affable weed/fashion entrepeneur’s catalogue, I have to admit the man certainly has some gems I’ve missed over the years; the highlight of which would be the airy and enjoyable ‘Float’ from his 2016 Packs album.
Mac J – Differences
I don’t know much about Mac J and only heard about him after reading about him on Rey’s Cafe a couple weeks ago but he certainly has some absolute bangers in his catalogue, my favorite of which thus far is ‘Differences’. The beat for this one is ridiculous too. Based on the Mac J playlist Rey’s Cafe put together I definitely want to start listening to more of this north Sacramento artist and check out the rest of his output, including his new mixtape ‘Local Celebrity‘.
Lil Chicken – Pitty Pat
“I’ve got it all on me riding round in the foreign, Ballys on, white folks staring at me, make me feel important”
““Me and Max posted up in the stash house playing Pitty Pat, I feel like Chris Brown all these junkies hollering gimme that. Spanish ho like Dora that b*tch pulled up with a mac, said he want 44 watch me pull up with them racks.”
I certainly didn’t think that 2017 would feature a post about Berner on this blog, but that’s where we find ourselves today. Inspired by The Martorialist’s recent earnest decision to give it the old college try and delve into Berner’s voluminous back catalogue, on a recent long drive upstate and back I decided to make the perhaps reckless decision to do the same and jump head first into listening to multiple Berner albums in a row since I had many an hour to kill. I was fairly skeptical, and to be sure, there were certainly some forgettable songs, but I have to admit, I was pleasantly surprised by the overall quality of the Cookies purveyor’s portfolio. And with so many projects out over the last couple of years, Berner is nothing if not prolific. I can kind of get into his luxorious yet relaxing vibe that he promotes in much of his material, and as a fanboy of mid-2000s New York rap I can definitely get behind a dude that reaches out to Styles P to collaborate on an entire album with him and also does an EP with Killa Cam. What’s not to like about that? So let’s do a mea culpa and give this affable weed and clothing entrepenuer some much-deserved and belated credit.
