New school shit for old school whips, Kansas City style:
Yung Cat - Killa City Party
(From Only In Killa City: FTJ Vol. 1 album; 2017)
Nowt fancy, just the two highlight's of Yung Cat's tribute album to Kansas City's late and occasionally great hometown hero Fat Tone. Mam always told me there'd be slaps like this.
Yung Cat ft. Jay Melody - Jockin' Me
(From Only In Killa City: FTJ Vol. 1 album; 2017)
"I'm in Aunty's yard with the crooks
The money makes up for the looks
Death comin', I ain't stickin' to the deadline
Tell them boys better luck next time"
J Hus ft. Tiggs Da Author - Good Luck Chale
(From Common Sense album; 2017)
Don't get it twisted, though - as 2Shin once said, it's still open season on all self-styled Authors and Novelists until we've seen their Goodreads lists.
It was monday night and I'm feelin' kinda like Gillie, fell down a wormhole of rap outta Philly. Not remotely high or even slightly drunk, so I threw together a generic list of my Top 20 Philadelphia jawns:
Bonus beats: never forget the O.G version of MC Breeze's DiscombobulatorBubalator AKA the song which pioneered #problematic AZN stereotyping in rap before DJ Louie Lou, Ice Cube, or Bun B.
"Pimp C said it was gay rappers from Atlanta
But the homie died before he could explain that one
I think one of them is you
Ol' lightskinned Beetlejuice headass-dude
You and Dre had a conversation in the bathroom
About the Playaz Circle album but you passed, dook
Then you turned around, boy, and did some f*ck shit
You and Fatlip impersonated some funk shit
But f*ck Fatlip too, y'all should apologise
'Cause I ain't got no respect for The Pharcyde
But as far as I could see, boy, it's a lotta lies
You couldn't fit Mac Dre's shoes or condom size
NO HOMO, N*GGA!"
♬ "Everyday we on our grind
Baltimore too many n*ggas dying
Gotta watch out for me and mine
Everyday I'm with my team" ♬
Creek Boyz - With My Team
(From YouTube; 2017)
Camaraderie as the best defense against calamity, Friends Forever on The Corner. It ain't no fun if the homies can't sang none: who'd a thunk Baltimore would be the place whence Barbershop-Bop was born? Best Speaker Knockerz-influenced bubblegum-rap tuneage by some random young'ns since Ayo & Teo's Lit Right Now.
N.O.R.E - Colors
(From some obscure white label 12"; 2002)
Unlike Game's Buddens, this shit is a proper Colors remake in that N.O.R.E sticks to Ice's O.G script but flips specific details with his own twist of New York slime. At a guess, this was probably recorded for N.O.R.E's 2002 album on Def Jam since Ice-T briefly appeared on that CD foreal foreal, and Lord knows that album coulda done with a few more jams other than the Neptunes anthems.
Thanx to the #BetYouWontChallenge, a previously little-known Level & Mouse On Tha Track cut from 2015 is currently one of the biggest songs in Baton Rouge. Good thing the song's gotten a new lease of life too because this one is a grand imperial jiggalator in the vein of Get It Back and we've all slept on it until now:
Level ft. Mouse On Tha Track - I Bet U Won't
(From Level's Authentic album; 2015/YouTube; 2017)
"Now me & him got beef and we no longer speak
Still walk his nan across the street
Still put that motherf*cker in a body bag
Still help his mother with her shopping bag"
Roadrapfrobeats like du-du-du-du-du-du. Buncha choonz on this J Hus debut album, the best of which fit his aesthetic like a pair of Universal Works almond rocks fit your plates of meat (G.O.A.T socks or wot? #BuyBritish!) What's missing from the album, however, is Dem Boy Paigon and Lean & Bop; couldn't give a monkey's uncle that both songs are now 2 years old - the anthems that reputations are built on should always appear on debut albums, even if it's just as bonus tracks innit.
Bounce or brawn, Mardi Gras or Murder-Rap, whodunit or whydoit, Super Sunday or saturday night, arses that look like 2 planets in a hankey or arses flatter than a B.o.B's eye view of the Earth - wherever you stand on any of these pertinent issues, the past 7 years of Louisiana rap have a Legit Jam™ 4 U:
The kid Donal AKA Mac Guinness swung through my comments with a Jacka obscurity neither of us have heard before. A little finger-work reveals it's from some obscure 2001 compilation, but it was clearly recorded sometime in the 90s. Not only does this sound pre-Mob Figaz, it sounds pre-Jacka from the era when he called himself Ouiny Mac.
Ouiny Mac AKA The Jacka - Mac Hand
(From ????; 199?/360 Records presents The Surfacing CD; 2001)
The unlikely scenario where B.o.B trumps Mob Figaz: Yung Cat's refix of 4 Lit is a better 2017 Husalah song than Husalah's actual 2017 song. C'mon, bruh-bruhs - that M.O.B shit sounds like the worst of Tonka Boyz Husalah, and who wants a Buck Rogers Years redux of that era?
Plus, the best Hus song of 2017 is by an entirely different Hus altogether:
J Hus - Did You See
(From Did You See single; 2017)
Caught our Hus live in Liverpool last night and he debuted a couple of new songs from his upcoming album that sound like some proper naughty LL Cool J Hus Afro-Bashment.
St. Lunatics - Gimme What You Got
(From Gimme What You Got single; 1997)
Check out the synchronised New Edition dance moves goin' on here! Had no idea the St. Lunatics began life in 1997 with Ali in the Busta Rhymes role and Nelly playing his position as the group's Spliff Star. Gimme What You Got ain't a jam of Ride Wit' Me stock, but I'm always down to find out that multiplatinum noughties rap groups had a Jiggy random-rap nineties past.
Other notables:Que Tha Truth's song with 3/4 of Cross Me goes beserk like Red Alert but didn't quite make its way into my regular rotation; Kap G let Lil' Skateboard P down on Icha Gicha; quite like Kodak Black's Patty Cake, but still haven't heard a song of his that's as good as Lockjaw; French Montana & Swae Lee's Unforgettable really should have been a Rae Sremmurd song; Jimmy Wopo's Elm Street 2 suffers from the same problems as the 2nd Freddy movie; AZ's Save Them with Raekwon & Prodigy is just an aged rehash of the Doe Or Die remix and I've already got See The Light if I want one of those; prefer SOB X RBE's Humble to Kendrick Lamar's HUMBLE.; also prefer Bruno Mali's New Skool Ol' Skool to his HA remake.
"Icy neck fulla rocks, this bitch I wear'll make the Titanic stop"
Nef The Pharaoh ft. Slimmy B - Bling Blaow
(From The Chang Project compilation; 2017)
More like Bling Blap amirite? Nef The Pharaoh's recent output has hit like Aaron Ramsey at the proverbial barn door, but this shit hits like bass in Husalah's car. Unlike Everything Big, this one is a Nef track which does live up to its Instagram preview snippet:
Brief thoughts on The Chang Project then: where's the slap with Mannie Fresh at? Rappers who tease previews of songs on Instagram and then take dumb long to drop them need to start getting fined. $25 per week sounds like a good starting price for late fee offenders.
"Grab that cheek with 1 hand, use the other for glasses
It's a rookie-dookie party in here, lots of new asses
Who gon' shake it the fastest? Who push slow like molasses?
I'm just tryna thow some Georges, I ain't lookin' for passes
I turn this dope into ashes, I"m like German, I'm fascist
That means I like to f*ck they faces, eat on titties that's flappy"
DJ Quik & Problem - Move Something
(From Rosecrans album; 2017)
DJ Quik's got a problem fixxer and his name is, um, Problem. Why? Because a decade on from 2007, Move Something is the song Can U Werk Wit Dat shoulda been. If Kap G's recent Icha Gicha track was some half-arsed booty-chatter, then Move Something here is a prime sirloin rumpshaker.
The unlikely highlight of the new tracks on this expanded version of Rosecrans or wot?
Ludacris - Get Back
(From The Red Light District album; 2004)
Tonight's winning pub quiz question: which rapper inspired the over-familiar local rap CEO Ludacris finds lurking in the men's toilet in Get Back's video? Answer: Mac Dre, with the video being based on an actual IRL chance encounter between the 2 rappers at some point during 2004.
Allegedly, the story unfurls summat like this: Ludacris is in Oakland for a show and is taking a slash in the venue's backstage bathroom when a pilled-up Mac Dre approaches him outlining a plan for Playaz Circle to release an album on Thizz Entertainment, and an invitation for Luda to come to his studio to record a song together. Ludacris politely declines both offers, but is so bemused by Mac Dre's demeanour he decides to recreate an elaborated version of events in his next single's video, in which the director Spike Jonze hires Fatlip from The Pharcyde to impersonate Dre. Mac Dre doesn't even get an opportunity to give Ludacris the Little Bruce treatment as payback because Def Jam drops the Get Back video a mere 8 days after Dre's death in november 2004. To this very day, Mac Dre's close friends like PSD are still furious with Ludacris (though PSD had previousissues), and Luda can count himself very lucky he never found himself alone in a bathroom with Mac Minister (no George Michael.)
Who emerges from this unfortunate tale with the least dirt on their hands - Ludacris for poking fun an intoxicated Oakland underground legend trying to network with a bonafide star? Def Jam for releasing a video mocking a recently deceased rapper? Fatlip for metaphorically stabbing a fellow west coast rapper in the back? Or Mac Dre for not observing the proper etiquette when tryna discuss business in a public toilet?
Enter Quelle Chris - age 20-something, and where some men leave a mark of their lives as a record of their fragmentary existence on Earth, this man leaves a blot: a dusty Bandcamp account to document a cheap and undistinguished sojourn amongst Detroit's legions of backpack-rappers. What you're about to hear on Buddies is a strange sort of mortal combat, where a rapper whose career has been given over to fighting unfavourable comparisons finds Me, Myself & I in Friend Or Foe. There was a rumble-jumble, just under 4 minutes it lasted, the mirror said "y'all are, you neurotic bastard!"
"I look in the mirror
Like who is that n*gga?
I'm cool with that n*gga
I'm through with these n*ggas"
Exit Quelle Chris - formerly a reflection in a mirror, a fragment of his own ego, a wishful thinker made out of glass, but now made out of flesh, juggling self-doubt and self-confidence like Bobby May, and on his way to join the company of other backpack rappers whose Jansports are filled with eccentricity rather than earnestness. Mr. Quelle Chris, with one foot through the door into Legit Jam™ land and one foot out of the Bandcamp Zone.
(Featured this song on my recent late pass! playlist, but it really does deserve its own post now it has a video. Truly yours ain't heard a backpack tune this quick to whip up a script like Rod Sterling since Madvillain's Avanlache.)
