This ain't the rain, this is the snow

Boosie gotta the only rapper alive who can sell a lyric like "sometimes I need me a friend, I got noone to call/I need me somebody who'll listen, maybe I need me a dog" with appropriate amounts of gravitas and wryness, right? Thus, Smile To Keep From Crying is my own personal jam from his most recent album because it's the only track on there which doesn't make me depressed enough to go drown myself in a toilet bowl afterwards.

Boosie Badazz - Smile To Keep From Crying
(From In My Feelings (Goin' Thru It) album; 2016)


Also thank that chipper piano loop for being an oxidant waitin' to happen on an otherwise uncomfortably-personal LP chocked full of industrial production.

Reasons why I love YouTube: Young Bleed edition

It's 2016, do you know what that mean? It'll be a decade this summer since the video for Young Bleed's Put Your Stamp On It was first uploaded to YouTube in all its low bitrate splendour:

Young Bleed - Put Your Stamp On It
(From YouTube; 2006)


It took 5 years to get an unedited CDQ MP3 of Put Your Stamp On It, but 10 years on and there's still no dirty MP3 version of Bleed's other 2006 low bitrate YouTube minor-classic:

Big Mike & Six 2 ft. Young Bleed - Down Home
(From YouTube; 2006)


Alas, the Down Home video audio isn't good enough to rip, the MP3 which eventually turned up on that Lethal Entertainment compilation in 2011 was a clean edit, and the Big Mike & Six 2 album is still shelved indefinitely like its a Jerry Lewis Holocaust comedy.

Free the dirty Down Home MP3 already! That song's done more time than Shyne.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

AV LMKR - Money Dance
(From Compton 2 Riches mixtape; 2015)


Right about now, AV's Money Dance is my favourite desperate attempt at a viral hit. A third generation chomp by this point, Money Dance is the exact sort of parasitic schlock you'd expect from one of Game's underlings, but ya host is a shameless mark for strip-club songs over piano samples, and this shit represents a significant evolution in hip hop kulcha by having a dance that's best performed on a mono-scooter. There's pedals to this shit in 2016!

Cadillacs ain't gon' roll no mo' because David Bowie's gone?

R.I.P to the U.K's second most notable thin white Dave, a man whose greatest artistic achievement was letting Suga Free interpolate Fame for the track which all true Freelievers consider an Army Of Darkness-style sequel to parts one and two of Why U Bullshittin'. God should have never let you do dat to the 3rd Stooges album, Dave, but you're forever okay with me for signing off sample clearance on this Suga Free ode to his O.G baby-momma who supposedly provoked him into becoming a pimp:

Suga Free - Allergic To Bullshit
(From Smell My Finger album; 2008)



Just sayin', bruv: Suga Free is a more complete artist than Marvin Gaye because Allergic To Bullshit manages to accomplish in a single song what Marvin took a whole album to nail with Here, My Dear.

F**k Little Bruce!

As we heard on Michael Jackson, Cardo beats & Nef The Pharaoh raps go together like babies & Facebook, and the Thizz Khalifa aesthetic they're cultivating is proving to be a surprisingly flexible sound: Michael Jackson was a pop-rap experiment as designed by Max Martin & Don Draper, while new track #Saaydaat is peak nonchalant Mannishness. Nef is probably surplus to requirements now Drake has scored some Instagram cool points off him, but if not then prepare yourself for the very real possibility that there might soon be a rap song which features the vocals of both Philthy Rich & The Canadian.

Nef The Pharaoh ft. Philthy Rich - #Saydaat
(From Soundcloud; 2016)


Related note: can I change my mind and admit that I've now come around to No Masturbation in a big way? Of course I can because writing about music should always be an ever-evolving conversation with yourself rather than a series of declarative statements forever fixed in stone. Hope Nef's gotten rapping about meeting Drake outta his system already here because if I wanted to listen to west coast rappers desperately attempting to attract The Canadian's attention then I'd just go play Game's last album.

Nef The Pharaoh - No Masturbation
(From Soundcloud; 2015)

Do you believe in blog?

Shorty lemme tell you about my only vice, it got to do with the burgeoning friendship between Mozzy and Nef The Pharaoh but it ain't nothin' nice... it ain't nothin' nice!

"Let a cop try to pull that Baltimore shit on us
And we gonna f**k his ass up with his own billy club"

Lil' Yase & Yatta ft. G-Val, Lil' Blood, Nef The Pharaoh & Mozzy - Get It In remix
(From Soundcloud; 2015)



It's appropriate Mozzy should guest on this recent posse-cut remix of Lil' Yase & Yatta's Get It In since the original sounded like a Pablo Skywalkin collaboration with Mozzy. My rap plug in California reckons this 6 minute slice of pragmatically mainey Siccnesscore is set to be big in 2016 once the video arrives proper so get in on the action now before Marshawn Lynch dances to it in a locker room.

*EDIT* Upon further reflection, I much prefer the brevity of the original version since Nef is the only rapper who brings his A-game to the remix. How ironic that the Big Tymin' kid should spit harder shit than his new bezzie mate the Next Body On You guy.

Lil' Yase & Yatta - Get It In
(From YouTube; 2015)

Ghansta Rap

Kwamz & Flava - Take Over
(From Soundcloud; 2016)


Kwamz & Flava gotta be the only brehs out here bridging the gap between British pop-rap and Ghanaian Afrobeats. Kwamz & Flava also gotta be the only brehs out here making a semiBritishpoprapfrobeats song called Take Over ya host can throw in the mix as a prelude to YG & DJ Mustard's AIM Me in 2016. You bringin' them brehs 2 men, how them brehs Ghana win?

YG ft. DJ Mustard - AIM Me
(From the internet; 2009)

A Grand Puba deep cuts playlist 4 u

The year's Brand Nu' so here's a compilation of deep cuts by Grand Pu'.


The wheres and whens: I Ain't Goin' Out Like That and How Ya Livin' are Brand Nubian's O.G 1989 demo tracks; Fat Rat is Puba's debut solo track from the Strictly Business OST in 1991; the video mix of Check It Out, Mind Ya Business, and T-Ray's remix of Ya Know How It Goes are all non-album cuts from 1992; Time To Get It On and Can U Dig It are officially unreleased songs recorded in 1994 in the lead up to his sophomore album; Brand Nu Hustle and Somebody Told A Lie were both recorded for Brand Nubian's Foundation LP in 1998 but didn't surface until the early '00s; the 2002 Pete Rock remix of Issues is the only great song to emerge from his tenure with Koch Records; Let's Go is taken from the Top Shelf 8/8/88 compilation in 2007 but was designed to sound like a lost track from 1988; It Is What It Is and Good To Go with Q-Tip are the sole highlights of his 2009 Retroactive LP; The More Things Change was his surprisingly nice comeback track from 2015.