The 2024 late pass awards!

Year end season done took flight. Here at The Martorialist we're post-time, baby. That's why the old songs we discovered and fell in love with are as important as the new songs we discovered and fell in love with. If the Rap songs list below rings a bid-ell like Big L it's because ya host made a truncated Audiomack playlist out of it last month.

Best non-2024 Other Rap songs I discovered in 2024:
Hard Rock Soul Movement - Double Def Fresh (1986)
Professor X - Professor X (Saga) (1988)
LL Cool J - Illegal Search (Pre-Trial Hearing mix) (1990)
Jay Tee ft. Mac Dre - Do The Crew (CDQ version) (1990/2018)
Kurious - Fill 'Er Up (1991/2008)
G. Dep - Dollar Bill (1998)
Saafir aka Mr. No No - Street Scene (1998)
Warren G - Dope Beat (1999)
AZ - Rap Fanatic (2002)
Big Moe ft. Mike Wilson - Leave Drank Alone (2003)
Saigon - Favorite Thingz (extended version) (2006)
DaBanggaz314 - Run Up Get Dun Up (2009)
Rack-Lo - What's A Lo-Life To Me (2013)
38 Dezzie ft. Mouse On Tha Track - On My Shit (2021)
Pookie F'n Rude ft. Kedaru & Hash Hearted - One Of Them Dayz (2023)
TREE - Prom Night She Puked On Me (2023)

Best non-2024 Other Genres™ songs I discovered in 2024:
Flo & Eddie - Keep It Warm (1976)
Ramones - S-L-U-G (Road To Ruin mix) (1978/2018)
Keith Mansfield - Underlying Menace (1978)
Brian Bennett - Solstice (1978)
Haircut 100 - Nobody's Fool (1982)
Charlie Green - The Bus Stop (1983)
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Police Helicopter (demo version) (1983)
Vincent Gallo - Her Smell Theme (1985)
The Feelies - Let's Go (1986)
Bribe - Squidge (1992)
Urban Jungle - Back In The Daze (1994)
Sharon Forrester - Love Inside (1994)
Rogue Unit - Good To U (Rogue Unit mix) (1995)
DMX Krew - Dry Acid (2015)

Holla @ ya host with your own late past discovery choonz of 2004.

The River Juvenile

"I make these slaps for the hustlas, made men
I pulled us out a dark hole, was cavemen
What can I say? She was a 10, I caved in
So many n***as in the Backyard it caved in
I worked for mine, this ain't somethin' you could trade in"

LaRussell & Cam Cortez ft. Malachi - Brainchild
(From From Vallejo With Love album; 2024)


One last LaRussell song for 2024. NOLA-influenced NorCal tracks always yield better results than NOLA-influenced tracks from other Rap regionals because NorCal artists tend to infuse them with a sense of fun which is generally absent elsewhere. This song, Boycott and Beautiful Day In The Bay from LaRussell's new LP with Cam Cortez behind the boards make me forgive 'Russell for that Godawful Chance The Rapper-core shite he was dropping a couple of months back.

Standing By Starz

The RAH Band - Messages From The Stars (12" mix)
(From Messages From The Stars 12" single; 1983)


LARussell & Cam Cortez - Beautiful Day In The Bay
(From From Vallejo With Love album; 2024)


Riddle me this, Blapman: how come Northen California is the only Rap region to recognise & realise the brilliance of The RAH Band's space-boogie classic Messages From The Stars? DJ Fresh freaked it for Keak Da Sneak back in 2011, and now Cam Cortez has hooked it up for LARussell in 2024. Basically, Messages From The Stars is the greatest Trevor Horn & Anne Dudley production which wasn't actually produced by Trevor Horn & Anne Dudley. Props to the song's #actual creators husband & wife Richard Hewson & Liz Winning; they put their whole artistic solar plexus into composing a choon which sounds like it was beamed down to Earth from a whole 'nother solar system.

Flip you, melon farmer!

Apropos of El Calvo Y La Cruz by The Plugz featuring in the latest episode of What We Do In The Shadows, here's some music from Repo Man the movie which wasn't included on Repo Man the soundtrack. Used in the scene where Otto chases J. Frank Parnell's Chevy Malibu through L.A's streets, it's some instrumental score work based on the movie's main theme by Steven Hufsteter & Humberto Larriva from The Plugz. True story: that East Bay Ray type Surf-Punk guitar as Otto frantically descends the freeway's steps at 0:55 is one of my favourite marriages of music and moving image captured on film. Call me the chairman of the (surf)board.


Another frustrating omission from the Repo Man soundtrack was the instrumental version of the main theme which was used during the opening credits sequence. It's time for an expanded reissue of the OST album which includes that track, all the Hufsteter & Larriva instrumental scores, and other frustrating omissions from the original OST album like Rhumboogie by The Andrews Sisters and See See Rider by Louis Armstrong. Ayo Alex Cox - put it all on a CD, son, I'll enjoy it more.

Northern Exposure

"Reagan set us back 100 years, I'm glad he died
Zimmerman done killed Trayvon, he still alive
I ain't tryna hear your lil' song 'bout how you slide
If I don't change the world before I die just know I tried"

LARussell - Boycott
(From From Vallejo With Love album; 2024)


Don't say the truck is a monster, say that thing got a BBL. A BBL made from them 1980s WWF steroids or sumfink. Coldest LARussell song/video I've heard/seen since all the singles with P-Lo in the boiler room. Speaking of which, let's talk about NorCal Rap in 2024...

* Weighing up which of the LARussell & P-Lo singles is gonna make my 2024 EOY list. Yankin' is their best song and thee anthem, but Who Else You Know is the song I've jammed the most.

* P-Lo's sequel to Player's Holiday has gotta be the biggest NorCal disappointment of 2024. If P-Lo decided on that line-up then he should donate all his profits from the song to charity.

* Ezale's Fun gets my vote for best NorCal Rap single of 2024. Pity the video got removed from Ezale's YouTube channel due to illegal usage of a FedEx truck (lol) and ended up quietly reuploaded on the video director's own channel.

* Seiji Oda's A Gentle Gigg is his best song since City Pop 001 IMHO. Props to him for good-naturedly eluding to my frustrations with his singy Auto-Tune music in an interview.

* Mac God Dbo's A Whole Brick is my favourite unexpected random NorCal slap of 2024. If I never dig another Mac God Dbo song in my life at least I'll always have A Whole Brick.

* Forever inconsistent but always dependable for a few slaps per annum, Nef The Pharaoh's top 3 songs of 2024 are Essence, Don't Stop and the Splash Bakery performance of Big Tymin' IMHO. He's been inconsistent but dependable for a decade now too because Bitch I'm From Vallejo celebrated its 10th birthday this year.

I Post You With A Passion

"This shit remind me of, like, Andre Nickatina Killa Whales type shit... foreal, foreal"

Nef The Pharaoh - Puppet Theatre
(From Vallejo Playa album; 2024)


Here's a melancholy knock from Nef The Pharaoh's latest album which he compares to Andre Nickatina's Killa Whale. The kid really missed a trick by not AKA-ing himself as Changdre Nickatina or Nef The Fillmoe. Not sure I catch Nef's drift with that comparison tho tbh. This is more like some Andre Nickatina Ghost Of Fillmoe type shit innit? Whateva, man - Puppet Theatre best gets in where it fits in as the B-side to Don't Stop.

Mask Off

"Yo, make sure the mics is right, I'm gonna take my mask off and reveal my identity out here... DAMN!"

MF DOOM - Gas Drawls
(live at Wetlands, New York; 2000)


The New York backpack scene was full of irksome, myopic people, but hats off to whichever one of them captured DOOM's third show on video where he removed his mask to perform Gas Drawls. Dome blown in the comforts of my own home at him actually wearing a Stetson hat like Paul C. Hats off to Megalon too who kept his mask on under those nuclear-grade stage lights. The only Rap sidekick to hit the stage lookin' like a Cobra Techno-Viper or wot?