Jim Jones ft. Fabolous, Marc Scibilia – Nothing Lasts
Jones!
Yimmy is back with a new album El Capo to follow up on last year’s somewhat overlooked Wasted Talent. I can’t decide which I like better yet after a couple of listens but they’re both good. Jim is having a nice little Indian summer to his career with 2 straight solid albums in 2 years, and has evolved from probably the least checked for main member of Dipset (through no fault of his own) to arguably the most checked for and is going the strongest of all them with the most consistent output. After a couple of spins so far I’m really feeling this one, Mama I Made It, and Don’t Know What they Took Him For (which has a Philthy cameo!).
I can’t decide if ‘Still going cray on them like a coloring book is one of the best lines I’ve ever heard in a rap song or one of the worst lines I’ve ever heard in a rap song.
This production with the Lionel Richie sample is sounding downright godly. Heatmakerz have a lot of nice beats on this album. I’m not sure who the hell Marc Scibliani is or why he’s all over every song on this album but he doesn’t sound bad on the hook here so I can’t hate, and let’s be honest no one could ruin this sample. Imagine if Jim wanted to get a little wavy and got El Debarge on the hook? Or if he was hellbent on going down the white R&B singer route for whatever reason, if he sprung for like a Michael McDonald or the guy from Hall and Oates or something? Lol. Either way Jim definitley has a nice smooth summer jam on his hands here. In a perfect world this would be a summer hit on radio.
From the fact that it’s loosely a Waka Flocka Flame homage in 2019 to the Mexican sombreros to the ridiculously fuego spin move that they choreographed at 0:33 I’m down with everything going on here and want more of it. This is the hottest song I’ve heard out of NYC (or pretty much anywhere) in a minute. Only in NY could you hear a rap song with no Hispanics in it mentioning bachata, pandejo, etc. The beat is dummy hard too.
“Oh let’s do it like I’m Waka, met her out in Opa Locka, baked potato with the lobster, that’s my baby – Goo… Gaga”.
Added bonus in the Youtube comments is a female Doordash delivery driver saying that she watched the video because these guys told her to check it out when she delivered food to them.
This always amorphous Brooklyn GD/Blood/Crip beef is serious and Game of Thrones-level complicated but I think these guys are Envy Caine’s (who I’ve posted here before) opps based on my extensive research of Youtube comments but like I said last time I don’t want to wade into all that I’ve got love for everyone I’m just here to enjoy the slaps. I’ve got to check out more of these guys’ videos.
P.S. for the record I’m definitely strongly in favor of silkies making this big comeback in 2019 I’ve been seeing them everywhere lately.
Dave East – No Pork / Kiing Shooter ft. Dave East – 30 Percent
Welcome to the Pink C Bodega where we got two Dave East loosies for a dollar.
Coincidentally we’re staying on our recentNYC Crip wave with this post although now we’re heading from Brooklyn uptown to Harlem.
East has me lacing up my Timbs and throwing on a big Marmot jacket with this first one. The smooth ‘No Pork’ might be the magnum opus of East’s career thus far. It’s a ‘classic’ sounding NYC rap song done right without sounding dusty or too formulaic. This is that classic wintertime music, and the type of track that you want to play while you’re hunkering down at the crib or out on a rare nice sunny day in the winter. East goes into full-on nostalgia/story-telling mode as he takes us on a trip down memory lane through the ups and downs of his life growing up in Harlem.
“I told Shooter (see below) we gon get rich no matter what, they was happy when we was down now when we see them they made as fuck. We don’t got to live in the projects no more, I dropped out, but it’s funny I’m hitting college on tour. I need ’em fresh, cop em again if I copped em before. Charlotte Hornets top and bottom, colored aqua velour. Ahki used to let me in after the locks on the door. I ain’t speeding, I ain’t smoking, what the fuck you stopping me for? I hid my first .38 behind the socks in my drawer, my mama asked me why you got a gun, you not going to war? If I go get a cigarette there might be opps at the store.”
Meanwhile 30 Percent is the first track from his aggressively-named protege Kiing Shooter’s mixtape ‘Fucc the Doubters’. The interplay here as East and Shooter trade bars back and forth like a Styles and Jada is great. Whereas ‘No Pork’ is the type of song you could kick back and relax at home listening to, ’30 Percent’ is more of an aggressive one you’d blast when you’re in the mood to get rowdy. Shooter has a dope and pretty unique-sounding deep/’blunt’ voice and raps over the top ignorant lines like “I’m creeping through the back window hoping they don’t keep alarms, .40 on me just in case the dog or the grandma home.”
Poppa da Don, Dave East, Tulito, Trap God Mula – Crip Shit
It’s turning into winter fast out here, and you know what that means, it’s that time of year to hunker down, lace up the Timbs, throw on a big Marmot jacket and see what’s going on in the big apple. These NYC Crips have really been coming out with some heat lately. Here, we get two of the best linking up and Brooklyn and Harlem joining forces with Poppa da Don and Dave East, along with Tulito and Trap God Mula/Sha Mula who may have the best verse of all on this one.
I love the pure energy and fervor Mula brings here as he says ‘Sha Mula I’m the Trap God, probably made $100 thou in my backyard,” pounding his fist as he raps it. “Blue flag 100 Locs I’m moving wocky nigga, 2-seater, I8 they couldn’t stop me nigga!” I’m hyped off of the defiance he’s spitting with.
East makes a typically solid contribution here as well, and also just released arguably the best song of his career, in my opinion, with ‘No Pork .’ Poppa da Don put out a total banger ‘Smoked‘ with Abillyon over the summer which I think is going to start blowing up even more because Meek Mill was talking about it recently.
My only very minor gripe with this one is that I wish they grabbed my man Top Dolla and got him on this one this would have been perfect for him!
Your host got caught lacking in his car trapped in the big east coast snow storm last night for over 12 hours on the same mile of highway but fuck it it takes more than a few snowflakes to kill the old Pink C. And not only am I alive and well I’ve been on a NYC kick lately catching up on some of these young bols. Even though I’m hella late on this one from Brooklyn’s Envy Caine but I’ve been blasting it non-stop. This is the intro to his ‘2 Many Situations’ mixtape from the spring.
“Damn, My whole city AGAINST me, but fuck it cause I got all these killers with me”
I love the raw aggression/malice and the me against the world ethos that Envy delivers that bar with. Almost reminding me a bit of AR-Ab.
This song goes so hard/aggressive it’s the new song I play when I want to get angrier in a situation, like in traffic or in a long line at a store, although that’s actually probably a counterproductive strategy on my part.
I also love the delivery of “Opp niggas throwing salt, tryna bad mouth” line. Salt kills snails but not Top Opposition.
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.
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!
Apparently today is finally the release date for Tekashi’s/6ix9ine’s ‘Keke’ with Fetty Wap and A-Boogie. Your humble host is over here just keeping his fingers crossed and hoping there aren’t any delays. They’ve been teasing this for a while now and I’m just hoping it doesn’t become a white whale of sorts like the unreleased Big Choo song that Big Choo has been haunting the Martorlialist with with Instagram snippets of for over a year without releasing. I was a little worried that this new squabble with Casanova could put Tekashi in the way of bodily harm before he was able to fulfill his earthly destiny and release this fire but thankfully cooler heads prevailed and Cas decided in the interest of the greater good to not harm Tekashi until we could all hear this banger.
I’m most intrigued by Fetty Wap’s part since it sounds heavenly in the preview, and because he was an interesting inclusion for the song. I feel like 2 years ago or so Fetty Wap was arguably the biggest up and coming name in rap and then through no fault of his own he fell off the radar as fans, in typical fickle fashion, just moved on to the next flavor of the month, whereas Fetty Wap was still out here making some pretty good songs the whole time. He definitley still has something to bring to the table and I would love to see ‘Keke’ push him back into the forefront. I always like strange combinations for collabs and the combo of 6ix9ine, Fetty Wap and A-Boogie is definitely a juicy one. (Also bringing together Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Paterson NJ).
For now I’m just watching the Jaguars/Steelers game biding my time patiently awaiting Keke to make landfall.
P.S. – I’m also holding out hope for a Tekashi/PC Tweezie collab bc I saw a since-deleted post on the ‘Gram of the two of them posting up in Florida with PC Tweezie saying ‘He good in Florida’ but the fact that it no longer seems to exist makes me less confident that there will be a song forthcoming. That would be one aggressive song.
I don’t know if Kooda will hit the same heights as Gummo or cause quite the same stir but it goes hard af (maayyyybe even harder than Gummo, this Nintendo-sounding beat is another sledgehammer) and I have to give credit where credit is due to Tekashi – I honestly thought Gummo would be a one hit wonder and then we’d never hear from him again but he’s definitely got a second hit on his hands here with Kooda. (Tekashi is coming up with some great names for these songs, better than his own moniker 6IX 9INE. He should consider just going by Kooda or even Gummo).
I like the part where Tekashi yells ‘We’re gon show what we about” partially because it sounds cool and partially because I actually am genuinely curious what exactly it is that he’s ‘about’.
I also like the ‘We don’t do the race, you gon die today’ line. A Tay-K reference/slight?
Imagine if you were an unsuspecting commuter just looking to use this subway station on a normal day and then walked in on this video being filmed? Lmao.
Shout out to the guys at about 1:04 just being an absolute menace to the public transport system. What exactly is he up to? Come on bruh the NYC subway system is already slow enough on its own without people blocking the tracks.
My only minor quibble about this one is the Hilfgier polo that Tekashi is wearing with the buttons buttoned up all the way to the top and the tips of the collar curling up, loosen up a bit bruh you’ve got a face tattoo and rainbow-colored hair, the top button isn’t going to make you look any more formal, you can loosen your collar a bit!
Between Gummo and Kooda Tekashi has really been taking the interweb by storm lately (I also even heard Gummo on late-night terrestrial radio the other night, a big surprise and a rare foray into FM radio by me not by choice but by bad circumstances) , acting as a blunt instrument to just hammer these hard beats with his abrasive flow. I’m looking forward to seeing what he comes up with next – I have no idea what’s going on in the very beginning of this video, but based on the guy at 0:07, could we possibly get a Tekashi song with phoned-in Bobby Shmurda and Rowdy Rebel verses, just to break the internet? Would that be too much to ask?
