My m8 caught Monkeypox. Luckily the doctor has gibbon him a strong chance of a full recovery.
Obligatory wrap-up post of those songs I've played most during the month when the Rap internet gave me a headache. A battle of (half)wits between "you MUST listen to Kendrick Lamar" guys and "I DON'T listen to Kendrick Lamar" guys. Personally, I need Silent Hill to be Lamar's next single so I can continue to call him the highfalutin Kid Ink: a good singles rapper who makes tediously bloated albums.
Other notables: Phat Baby's Proper Play is a good bad-energy song; Kenzo B's Bump It might be the most notable Pulp Fiction soundtrack-core song since Hollywood Holt's The Show; Husalah's new song is more like an intro than a single; the same is true of Nef The Pharoah's Tattooed which could have been super sick if he'd bothered to turn it into a proper song.
"Look in the sky - it's a bird, it's a plane, no it's his soul
Tell the doctor the pallbearer put ya picture on they clothes"
Phat Baby - Proper Play (FWS)
(From Profit Off My Pain album; 2022)
It seems like Baton Rouge caught the holy ghost of Lil' Phat judging by Eatem's recent homage and this Phat Baby single. Damn, this shit is colder than the White Witch of Narnia's tit. A good bad-energy song with murder raps so foul I need to listen to something positive and wholesome afterwards to restore my moralbiotic balance. Ricky D to the rescue:
"So listen, be strong, scream whoopee-doo
Go for yours 'cause dreams come true
And you'll make your mommy so so proud of you too
And this is a message that the Ruler Rick threw"
Slick Rick - Hey Young World
(From The Great Adventures Of Slick Rick album; 1988)
Mr. Fingers - Coastline Paradox
(From Around The Sun album; 2022)
That's me the first time I heard this new Larry track. Talk about a Coastline Paradox - I started seein' Saturn in Blackpool. House music all life long in every parallel universe.
I want to live in a world where people love Strong Arm Flexxin' as much as Walked In. The two G.O.A.T plink-plink-plonk piano Swag-Rap songs of the 2010s and Mr. 2-17 produced the pair of them. Might start a petition to get 1Up Society's Strong Arm Flexxin' dance video reuploaded to YouTube.
He's The producer, she's the rapper. Some insanely 'ard Memphis shit that's best described as BlocGal JB or Daisy Deuce. Found this via Yung Cat's remix of it dissing his baby-mamma & her new boyfriend.
"Bossed up but I'm still bummy
Say you real, yeah, that's real funny
You ain't fam, can't get shit from me
All 2020 finna go dummy"
Seiji Oda - Like This
(From the internet; 2020 + lofi // HYPHY album; 2022)
Finally one of Seiji Oda's best songs has a video. One of his most important songs too since AERO, Like This and BLUE were the genesis of his golden hour gentle giggin' sound. As for the video, it's all about that green for them Boyz-n-the-Wood. A lotta these new NorCal rappers' whole style is outdated, f*ck being hard, Seiji Oda is conservation-orientated.
Bonus beats: where's the WAKE UP video at? Your favourite rapper would never have the vision to drop the top and ventilate their third eye with a visor bucket hat.
Seiji brought a whole different odour to Bay Area Rap, ya smell me? It's some Yin & Ylang-Ylang cosmic harmony: burnin' rubber holdin' choppas whilst burnin' Nag Champa realigning his seven chakras. Or sumfink lol.
Martibus is back up in a room with 1000 candles lit, meditating on this Rap shit. Who's down to talk G.O.A.T lost loosies? Let's define lost loosies as songs which have never appeared on any album/mixtape/EP and have never made it to any DSP or MP3 store. What we're looking for here is MP3s from the Zshare/Hulkshare/Digital Dripped eras, MySpace page tracks, YouTube-only singles, original versions which remain in official purgatory, Soundcloud exclusives, and songs from stupid rare boutique vinylz 7" singles which have unofficially found their way online. Here's some personal favourites.
Shine some light on your favourites, folks - don't let shit go dark here. The type of dark that makes a house haunted, the type of dark that bloggers get lost in, the type of dark you fear when you dead in a coffin.
"You already know what the brand is, so overlooked but they don't understand it
But understand I'm a bandit, I'm takin' their Lamb and I'm makin' a banquet"
Knucks ft. SL - Nice & Good
(From Alpha Place album; 2022)
On one hand, this is a MOBO Award winner type U.K Drill song. On the other hand, I like the London Posse type back-and-forth between Knucks & SL over the Pot Noodle Western high noon stare-down production. Verdict: I ain't gonna front on this tune just because Knucks is an Alexis Petridis-bait artist. Bonus points for avoiding my biggest pet peeve with U.K Rap - British men using the words feds and bando.
Okay, that's quiteenough U.K choonz for now..... unless J Hus drops some hot new shit, natch.
In the popular parlance of the youth, this shit still floats. Tropical rainforest riddim polyphonic Rap. Lil' Chris' best song imho and I might even go as far as saying that it's a top ten lost loosie of last decade. It's a pity Lil' Chris is remembered for Bop Like Me because it wasn't even his bestBop song let alone his best song full stop. Obviously Lil' Chris should be remembered for songs like Gods Crying, Same Shit, Different Day and Bad Lil' Chick instead.
Lil' Chris - Same Shit, Different Day
(From the internet; 2012)
Lil' Chris - Bad Lil' Chick
(From Made It Thru The Struggle mixtape; 2015)
Benzz - Je M'appelle
(From Je M'appelle single; 2022)
Hit up my m8's bar this past weekend and the DJ was playing big U.K Drill choonz. The younger patrons loved that shit, but it's the driest music in the world to me, especially when you hear multiple songs with THAT annoying flow in a row. So when the DJ played Benzz's Je M'appelle it was like finding a Strawberry Split in the Sahara desert.
As with HAZEY's Packs and Potions, U.K Drill only makes sense to me when it breaks free from THAT annoying flow over beats which sound like they were produced by Donae'O. Okay, it's a Destination Calibria sample on Je M'appelle, but it sounds like Donae'O made a riddim with it dunnit?
One of the main things U.K Drill and New York Drill have in common is that they're both best when they embrace the fact that they're glorified novelty Rap. That's why WAKA and Beeper are the best N.Y Drill choonz no competition.
Yeah, Juan Atkin's Cybotron is cool but have you ever heard Martin Slavin's Cybermen theme from 1960s Doctor Who? True story: it was #actually a piece of stock music called Space Adventures Part 2 which Doctor Who's producers at the BBC licenced throughout the late 1960s to soundtrack the Cybermen in scenes like this. Imagine hearing some crazy space shit that don't make no sense like this as a kid in 1966 or 1967! To paraphrase Juelz Santana, this shit sound like it's from another galaxy. The BBC stayed terrifying children on multiple levels, not all of them noncey.
Martin Slavin - Space Adventures Part 2
(From various Doctor Who episodes; 1966 onwards)
Martin Slavin had 60's electronic shit more John Blaze than Karlheinz Stockhausen and ain't shit recognised by blokes who read The Wire magazine.
"Hol' up, I'm aggravating, you can never relax
Hit you with the flyswatter, bitch, you ain't never been gnat"
Eatem - Cup Of Tea
(From Unreleased Eat album; 2022)
Been so preoccupied with Go Get Yo F*ckin' Brotha and Lil' Phat Flow that I forgot to keep myself hydrated with Cup Of Tea. Eatem been whoopin' tracks since adolescence, this song goes dumb like all his teachers shoulda added lessons.
BAPE's been a teenagers and tourists brand for a looooooong time now, but rappers stay up inside them Sharks like Felix Leiter's legs or LL Cool J's parrot.
Babylon back in business, can I get a witness? Nobody's favourite Martorialist series returns for a 3rd installment.
House Of Pain - Shamrocks And Shenanigans
(From House Of Pain album; 1992)
Has a rapper ever suffered a more embarrassing identity crisis than Everlast? My man went from slangin' pizza pies to drankin' Guinness pints to singin' like Wooden Guthrie to rebranding himself as Necro & Ill Bill's Uncle Doughie. Shamrocks And Shenanigans manages to cram every awful Plastic Paddy 'Murican cliche into a single song, but but I'm always willing to suffer its many sins for the payoff of that chorus over DJ Muggs' beat. Plus, unlike Jump Around, it hasn't suffered the indignity of being used as entrance music for one of the most miserable bastards in Darts.
Robbie Williams - Rock DJ
(From some Robbie Williams album; 2000)
Could Stoke's most irksome boy-band singer do it on a metaphorical cold night at the Britannia Stadium? Yes, but only when his songwriting genius svengali Guy Chambers composed a ladult PJ & Duncan song for the former Fat Dancer From Take That™. 99% of Robbie Williams songs would be vastly improved if they were sung by anybody other than Williams. To his absolute credit, Rock DJ is the 1% which couldn't have been sung by anybody other than Williams.
Krept & Konan ft. Jeremih - Freak Of The Week
(From The Long Way Home album; 2015)
How did a Derek C & Derek D like Krept & Konan procure themselves a Jeremih hook and DJ Mustard's remake of the mighty Playground Riddim? It's a mystery, Scooby Doo. Tbf, it's a good job they did because Mustard's beat might have ended up in Tyga's clutches and there isn't a soul on Earth who wanted a reprise of his Coconut Juice fake-Rastamon patois. One of the very few instances where British Rap did it better.
