Bark The 45 King

"You lookin' like you lost, need direction
I'm lookin' like a boss, need affection"

TREE & Parallel Thought - Hang Out
(From Hang Out single; 2025)


More than ever, I appreciate TREE's music for never sounding like anyone else, even when he has other producers in the boiler room. Gotta have it in ya heart, gotta know yous makin' art, when you start with this music gotta know just who you are. Give it up for MC TREE G AKA Ziggly Twiggly AKA Oak K Player AKA Roots Riley.

Fly, pelican, fly

Jim Jones, Max B & Mel Matrix - Anniversary
(From DukeDaGod's Dipset: More Than Music Vol. 2 compilation; 2007)


Nowadays Anniversary is my de facto choice for the best ByrdGang song ever. Million Dollar Baby contribution from Max B, Gym Bore Jones in peak sulky-arse tweenager mode, Mel Matrix dependable as ever as the ByrdGang henchman, and soaring production by someone called Bear One of The Control Freaks which sounds like the greatest King Geedorah era MF DOOM beat never made. Prepare for the pop-off, turn your speakers up and let this song blow your bloody top off.

A while back I said I could live without any new Max & French songs. After hearing this snippet, I've changed my mind. Now there's a song which sounds like it needs Pain In Da Ass on the intro doing a Pachanga from Carlito's Way impersonation.

Late pass!

G. Dep - Stay Up
(From The Hiatus Deponomics mixtape; 2008)


A G. Dep single I'd never heard before. That liquid introspective shit a la Reflections or the Everyday remix which sounds like a message in a bottle from the 2008 New York mixtape era in the best way possible. Plus, Dep rockin' the bald dome & moustache combination lookin' like Kase2 in Cope 2's graffiti documentary. Hat tip to the DVD Couture Instagram account for this one.

The Deuce: Baton Rouge edition

Young Bleed - Walk Like Uh Husala
(From Preserved album; 2011)


My pick for the greatest Young Bleed album track nobody ever talks about. The way Bleed ends each line in the second verse by stretching out the last two words is the audio equivalent of a Louisiana pimp dragging his leg when he walks. Styles by the fibula.

WNC Whop Bezzy & 70th Street Carlos - Gz and Souljas
(From Out The Blue album; 2025)


A WNC flip of L.O.G's G's & Soldiers came outta that Bayou like a muskrat and makes the perfect B-side to WTF I Look Like. Really doe, there's no excuse for no Trel Itz A Hit beats on this Whop & Carlos album. Youse lads act like you've never heard South Louisiana Swag before.

No words

Never On Sunday - Urban Rains
(From Day By Day EP; 1992)

octave one · A3 Never On Sunday - Urban Rains

Deep melancholy Detroit dance music from Octave One under a different name. Detriot dance music is so confusing with all the aliases innit? For example, ur boi only recently realised that Alien FM are Aux 88 under a different guise. Anyhoo, Urban Rains is the missing link between Night Drive the choon and Night Bus the concept. A Woolworths £10 gift voucher from 2008 goes out to anybody who can tell me how I discovered this song. Shout out to the woolyback crew in St. Helens!

Dizzee Rascal - Strings Hoe
(From white label 12"; 2004)

UK Urban Classic Hits · Dizzee Rascal - Strings Hoe (Instrumental) - 2004 - UK Grime

So, there's a 2004 white label Dizzee Rascal instrumental called Strings Hoe which samples John Lurie's Car Florida from the Stranger Than Paradise soundtrack. How on Earth did 20 year old Dizzee Rascal find a John Lurie score from a 1984 Jim Jarmusch movie? Answers on a postcard from Margate plz. Personally, I'm glad Rascal didn't rhyme over Strings Hoe because, if Jarmusch were to ever do a Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samourai sequel set in London, he could use this track as the main theme. This ain't no ancient civilization here, m8... except sometimes it is.

I'm in her drawers, family bible

"One eye closed, Ranganathan
Beatin' it off like I'm masturbatin'
The hammer so loud that I'm nearly deaf, I ain't exaggeratin'"

Nine & Dex - Power Ranger
(From Power Ranger single; 2025)


#Banter is back again via the Road-Rap Eric & Ernie. Give me a new Nine & Dex song every month and I'm happier than a pig in the proverbial. Two thumbs down at two uses of the word FEDS tho. Lads, they're the old bill, the coppers, the filth, the plod, the rozzers, the bizzies, the bobbies etc.

**EDIT** I'll forgive one use of FEDS here because Nine rhymed "I say f**k the FEDS" with "guns like monsters, under beds." Chef's kiss.

If we sacrifice Adrian Younge to a volcano can we get Young Bleed back?

Young Bleed - Stamp On It
(From the internet; 2006/Preserved album; 2011)


It was the moment I feared. I was hoping I wouldn't have to write this post after the initial reports of Young Bleed's demise were greatly exaggerated. Bleed dying a week after the No Limit vs. Cash Money Verzuz is the Baton Rouge Rap equivalent of Ozzy Osbourne dying after his final show. R.I.P to the funkadelic, psychedelic reinterpretation of the third kind. Bleed was Louisiana's foremost exponent of Country-Rap Swamp-Blues choonz who was still putting out good music in 2025. The great thing about Bleed is how effortless his stream-of-consciousness flow sounded even though his writing was intricately honed to perfection. Kinda like Juvenile, he rapped like he was talking to you in the flyest of Louisiana pentecostal preacherman tongues. He didn't sound like anybody else in Concentration Camp or on No Limit, and his style was an obvious influence on 2000s rappers like $tarlito and Curren$y. I acknowledge How Ya Do Dat as a classic, but Bleed's original solo version A Fool is the de facto better song. No shotz @ the verses from Master P and C-Loc, and all shotz @ Beats By The Pound for remixing Happy Perez's beat and messing it up. Don't even front that this isn't the definitive version.

Young Bleed - A Fool
(From C-Loc's Concentration Camp compilation; 1997)