This beat is just so celebratory and glorious. THIS is function music! I can’t find any production credits for ‘100K’ anywhere but I would love to know who made it. If not for the lyrics/subject matter (and who knows who would even be listening anyway) I feel like this would not be out of place coming on at a wedding or baptism. If you didn’t know it was Melly you would almost guess that this is some sort of unreleased Young Thug gem from prime Thug.
I’m not sure if I’m feeling the “diarrhea/gonorea” rhyme scheme but the ‘pull up on a nigga, onomatopoeia’ that follows it does sound pretty dope and kind of makes up for it although I’m not quite sure what that would entail.
The more and more I listen to this Melly vs. Melvin album the more I’m feeling it. ‘We All Shine’ was one of mytop albums of 2019 with one of my all-time favorites with ‘Ingredients’, but this might be an even better overall project top to bottom. It’s too bad it came out so late in the year that it missed a lot of the end of year lists and all that. I also feel like I have not heard much about this album and didn’t even know that it was coming out, compared to maybe a year prior when Melly was one of the most talked-about rappers but I guess that is just the nature of the hype and post-hype cycle that music lives in today; I’m paraphrasing Ray Garraty here in that people just treat music as mass consumerism or fast fashion now and gobble up what’s hot one day and then move on to the next trend and never check for the previous artist again. ‘Melly vs. Melvin’ Just filled with bangers on every track. I mentioned Adam Sandler the other day, I’ve been feeling 100K and giving this a ton of plays but my favorite of all might be ‘Bang ‘Bang‘ . And this isn’t even including the Juice WRLD and Glokk9ine features. In an era where albums have kind of become a throwaway or just a bunch of songs thrown together to get streams, this is actually a really well thought-out, carefully put-together, well-crafted album.
Pure, unadulterated heater off of the YNW Melly album. Another early nominee for song of the year for 2019? Save for a track here and there the entire Melly album is straight heat. I’ve been blasting this all week and I think I played in 9 or 10 times in a row in the car after I first heard it. I’m a total square but I can def see the appeal of bumping this in the car driving away after hitting a lick in Florida. I love the hook here and the beat is nice too. It took me a minute to warm to NBA Youngboy opp extraordinaire Fredo Bang’s part but it’s grown on me more and more and now him stepping up to give his verse is one of my favorite parts of the song. While lyrically it’s pretty run of the mill/mediocre (what exactly does ‘picking that ass apart’ entail anyway? Lol), I’ve grown to appreciate the blunt-instrument quality of his voice/flow that he brings to the track as a foil to Melly.
There’s a whole bunch of other bangers on this album, my second favorite of which was ‘Robbery‘. People who were into the whole Lil Baby/Gunnna acoustic guitar wave will probably also love ‘My Heart‘ on here. The song with Kanye seemed kind of out of place with the rest of the album and wasn’t really my thing but it was different/worth a shot and should give him exposure to a whole new audience. I feel like he also might as well have thrown ‘Freddy Krueger‘ on here as well since it’s still fairly recent and had been a huge single. I didn’t think I liked that one at first but I can’t get that haunted house-sounding ‘Cooling in the cut with my shooters’ hook out of my head so I guess now I’m a fan.
Kodak with a heartfelt ode to credit card fraud. Rappers have been rapping about the dope game for probably at least 30 years so it’s about time the identity theft game got some love.
This song/video by Baby Soulja out of Jacksonville goes so hard I needed to go outside and take a break after I listened to it a couple of times in a row before I watched it again because it was so intense. ‘Dirty’ had so many hard lines it was honestly hard to pick out a few to highlight but these were a few of my favorites…
“I’m from where you ain’t got a car you catch the bus. I’m from where if they try you retaliation is a must. I’m from where if you cut that heat on your mama fuss.”
“The bill due lights get cut off you lighting candles. Where you can’t trust a soul so your house gotta have cameras.
“I’m a 90s baby, we don’t care about what you did, nigga we crazy. I’m from where if you hustle you go a while without bathing. No food in the house so your breakfast the candy lady.”
“Where you and your brother wear the same shoes; neighborhood bad but y’all ain’t got enough money to move.”
My only one *minor* gripe with this video, and I’m being VERY picky here, is Boosie’s outfit – don’t get me wrong it looks pretty fly but that white Lacoste t-shirt and white shorts combo is just way too clean and pristine for this video/song concept and this hood, it’s going to get filthy quickly. Believe me I’ve tried the all white combo before and sometimes it’s just not worth it. I also liked some of the older Boosie chains (i.e. the nearly life-sized Jesus chain or the really thick-looking Bible) better than this one he’s rocking here with the finger pointing.
Boosie was a nice feature here and I have to say Baby Soulja outdid him in terms of the heaviness and overall weight of his verse, which is quite an accomplishment (especially for a young artist) since Boosie is usually spitting some of the heaviest, realest material in the game.
P.S. Also note the really weak, poorly done shark tattoo that the cop is showing off at 0:47.
P.P.S. – Check out the guy all the way on the far left’s t-shirt at 0:36!
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.”
Last time around I was talking about PC Tweezie’s ‘Really,’ a breath of fresh air that takes us back to the days of club bangers like ‘Knuck if You Buck’ that made you want to start throwing ‘bos in the club even if you had never been to one at that point in life. Tweezie raps about punching dudes, hitting the gas if he gets pulled over, and ‘dragging hoes by they extensions,’ while in the video he menacingly swaggers around the prison literally taking food off of other inmate’s plates. I checked out the rest of his work including his newest project Mouf of da Souf and in another highlight track, ‘Lost Key,’ he takes that imagery a step further with one of my favorite lines I’ve heard in a while…
“Don’t call me a rapper I’m a convict, the Mac in the back come with a drum kit, in prison I was beating up niggas snatching they drumsticks”
I enjoy Tweezie’s ‘king of the hill’ type imagery here; you might be a bad MF since you’re in prison but he’s worse so you’d better show respect.
He and his labelmate Vandam Bodyslam really just snap for the whole song…
“Lost Key the mob we catching bodies if you play with us, keep them K’s with us, free my nigga Brassa I can’t make this up, paper chasin, I’m thumbin through a check getting paper cuts.”
I actually don’t know much about Vandam Bodyslam besides that he’s also from Florida and has a pretty ridiculous name, he’s part of Tweezie’s Lost Key movement, and he absolutely slaughters the First Day Out beat on Instagram, but I want to find out more…
This is purely wishful thinking on my part/I have no basis for saying this but being that he mentions being locked up, I like the idea of he and PC Tweezie meeting in a Florida prison and then deciding to join forces and take over the rap game upon their release, in sort of a ‘getting the band back together’ type thing where they’re like ‘Hey we already took over the prison, how hard could it be to take over the rap game?’
I’m definitely interested in checking out ‘Back to the Old Me 2’ when it comes out. Lost Key is quickly becoming one of my favorite camps in the rap game right now.
PC Tweezie’s got me ready to fight people at the club with this one, and I don’t even really go to the club. This song goes too hard. There’s nothing overly-complicated or subtle here; Problem Child Tweezie just comes in and throws haymakers in a straight up tour de force. It’s not physically possible to put this on in your car and not start speeding.
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).
So many other hard lines…
“I’m really bout to set the record straight. I’m really from the gutter food stamps section 8. I really did time 6 years 30 days. I’m really slangin iron you can check my resume.”
‘I really got a chopper in the rental. I really try to kill ya I ain’t shooting out the window.”
(*Another low key and easy to overlook highlight of the video is the newspaper headline “Tensions Rise in Local Prison” with the byline “PC’s First Day in Lockup Didn’t Go So Well for the Other Inmates”. )
Florida really is quietly perhaps the most diverse and underappreciated state for rap; you have everything from Kodak to guys like Lil Pump and Smokepurp to of course wing mogul Rick Ross, and everything in between, and now we can add Riviera Beach’s PC Tweezie to the list. I’m looking forward to listening to both of his mixtapes and some of his other stuff as well as some of the other guys from his Lost Key Records squad.
Given that the only narrative arc with as much scope to it as Kodak’s elevation of his status into both a local folk hero and a veritable cult hero a la a Gucci Mane or Boosie to his rapidly growing legion of fans is the constant specter of legal troubles that has haunted his young career so far, its fitting that rather than with lyrics or a catchy chorus, his debut album Painting Pictures begins with just a stark, minimalist medley of clips from the news of newscasters reading off headlines mentioning his indictments, house arrests, parole violations, no contest pleas, etc. “You know I’m a hot boy, but I never lose my cool, the streets on fire, that’s why I’m riding with a tool,” he raps over the understated, twinkling production from Ben Billions after this on the excellent, minimalist album intro “Day for Day”, who produced many songs on this album. He reminisces on lost friends, both to death and incarceration, like his childhood friend Cool, who he has already done a separate song about (Free Cool). You get a sense of the heaviness he has already felt on his shoulders at a young age from these losses as well as from the pressure on him that he feels (whether internal, external, or both) to succeed for those around him, “I ain’t tryna see the pen I’m tryna make it shake, neighborhood hero I’m the one who gon save the day, chosen one; my folks depend on me to make a way, I do it for my niggas locked up doing day for day.”
I was planning out a different post today but this song by Smokepurpp was just too wild for me not to put this up. It’s such a crazy mix of melodic and ominous. The TM88-produced beat is so hazy and shimmery it’s one of my favorite beats by anyone I’ve heard in a while. I love the voice Lil Purpp sings the exceedingly blunt chorus in, ‘Glock inside my Benz, no such thing as friends.’ Sonically, the song doesn’t really have much in common with Chief Keef’s ‘Citgo’ but for some reason the vibe and the dreamy, sunny haze mixed with the ominous lyrics give me kind of the same vibe as Citgo.
I don’t know a lot about Smokepurpp besides that he’s from Florida and that he and Lil Pump seem to be associates. The first I had heard of him was a brief mention in Lil Pump’s song ‘Lil Pump’ where Pump makes the claim that the pastor at church told him that he and Smokepurpp were ‘off the purp’. He doesn’t have a ton of material out yet but this is definitely my favorite song I’ve heard by him so far and I keep blasting it over and over again. I’m probably a bit older than the demographic that these guys are getting really popular with but I really like what they’re going in terms of doing their own thing and creating almost a whole new subgenre within rap along with guys like Lil Peep etc. I only found out about them this winter but they’ve def built up quite a bit of momentum; both Smokepurpp and Lil Pump are nominees for the XXL Freshmen Top 10 cover.
Floria is a really diverse and interesting state music-wise, you have everything from the dreamy trippy new wave stuff from these guys like Lil Pump and Smokepurpp to Kodak Black to 1wayFrank to even stuff like Rick Ross and of course xxxtentacion.
Definitely an early frontrunner for one of my top 10 songs of April
Kodak Black released his seminal debut album Painting Picures last Friday, and for most rappers that would have been enough for one week, but for someone who casts as long of a shadow as Kodak, it’s unsurprising that there was also a short biopic style documentary produced by World Star Hip Hop that was released leading up to the album (I will be putting up a review of this album in the coming days, I need to listen to it a couple of more times and let it really sink in before I finish my review, as it is such an impactful album). The recent and sobering news (also revealed at the end of Project Baby) that Kodak was again locked up in Florida right as his biopic and album were released was almost surreal since so much of his music has been about his trials and tribulations of going through the legal system, serving time in prison, and not just the personal struggles that have come along with this but also emerging from the setbacks stronger than ever, with his faith intact, and with a wealth of material to release. Thankfully, according to sources, this most recent run in with the law was just a violation of his probation or house arrest and he should be out free again in a few weeks.
PINK CHARDONNAY 