Young Bari ft. BossLife Big Spence - That's A Playa
(From That's A Playa single; 2025)
If Mac Dre was still alive today, this is the type of beat I'd hope he was gabbing over. That's A Playa is Young Bari's best single since I Rep That Blocka in 2011 and I can say that with certainty because I went through Bari's catalogue last year. BossLife Big Spence ain't the best rapper, but he delivers a killer chorus and bridge here so he deserves his verse too. Moral of this song? Say what you see like Roy Walker.
Situations which have been rendered obsolete by the sands of time: reading a review of a Rap song in a magazine, thinking "hhhm sounds interesting", randomly hearing the song playing in record shop at a later date and being like "oh, that's that joint!" That's what happened to me when I read about Masterminds' I'm Gifted in On The Go magazine and then heard it playing in the Mr. Bongo record shop a few months later. I'm Talented sounds like a Labcabincalifornia era Pharcyde song if it were recorded by a New York backpack duo who didn't have their Jansports strapped too tight. True story: "steering clear of player hating and playing pretending all the while" is one of the main ingredients for good backpack-Rap. This shit still gets me open like Daniella Westbrook's nostrils.
Masterminds - I'm Talented
(From The Cold War EP; 1997)
Young Devi D - What's Left
(From What's Left single; 2025)
Bloggers say it's love, but it never was, they always had envy like The Breakfast Club. Me tho, I'm glad to have Devi D free and back releasing songs like First Day Out and What's Left. The latter is some professional Kansas City Sobb Music, but those are tears of joy because our narrator is no longer sitting in a prison cell 21 hours a day with 3 snoring, farting cellmates. Hell is sleeping in a room with other blokes.
"I'm close to the dealer like a gamblin' man
Sticks and drums, but I don't play in a band
Countin' all this money until it hurt my hand
You musta deserved it if my gun don't jam"
Ezale - Make Her Gig
(From Town Taxes album; 2025/YouTube; 2026)
First great Rap single of 2026 is the ninth and final song from from Ezale's Town Taxes album to be blessed with a video. Oakland went from Turf Buccaneers to Surf Buccaneers as Ezale hung ten toes down and caught a ride on Big Blue with the waviest choon of 2025. Ezale is one of the few rappers who makes entertainingsausage-festvideos, but you gotta appreciate him ending Town Taxes with a video where he's surrounded by eye-candy. Why do rappers always wanna fill their videos with blokes whose faces look mean like Halloween?
Related: I was optimistic about Max B & French Montana's Since U Left Me after I heard this snippet. The song just dropped and of course Max ruined it by using Auto-Tune. Oh, how the mighty has fallen off his surfboard and is drowning in terrible musical decisions. Rap's cosmetic dentistry curse strikes again.
This is Reality-Rap, I'm really going through it with this British weather. So, this song is an excellent example of how good Rap music is just finding cool new ways of talking about the same old shit. Like ur boi said previously, now that Homeboy Sandman has become a conspiracy-theorist casualty podcast set to music, Aesop Rock is filling the void in my listening life as the post-Fondle Em Records Rammellzee.
**EDIT** I've also become obsessed with John Something from the same Aesop Rock album. How are people still writing Letterboxd reviews of When We Were Kings when John Something exists? What are some other Aesop Rock songs like John Something... or is that a trick question because there are no other songs like John Something?
Aesop Rock - John Something
(From Black Hole Suprette album; 2025)
Wyclef ft. The Rock & Melky Sedeck - It Doesn't Matter
(From The Ecleftic: 2 Sides II a Book album; 2000)
Braggin' Writes go to whoever can tell me what specific thing It Doesn't Matter has in common with DOOM's Dead Bent.
WHO in the BLUE HELL honestly thinks that there's a song on The Miseducation of Lauren Hill that's as good as It Doesn't Matter by Wyclef & The Rock? Built on the bones of Slick Rick's Mona Lisa and Bad Manners' This Is Ska, Wyclef expertly used The Rock's main catchphrase to create a Don't Let It Go To Your Head in Pop-Rap's clothing. Combine the song with a video set in a mock-up of Latin Quarter which looks like an 80s prequel to Belly, and we have a very notable entry into the canon of Rap singles which were bigger hits in the U.K than they were in their native country of the U.S.A. Consciously or subconsciously, it woz the Slick Rick and Bad Manners samples wot charmed me and my British brethren.
It should go without saying that It Doesn't Matter is a billion times better than any wrestling themed/titled song by Action Bronson or Griselda. You know what else is a billion times better than any wrestling themed/titled song by Action Bronson or Griselda? John Cena's single with Freddie Foxxx. Cena convinced Freddie Foxxx to dress up as B.A. Baracus, and Foxxx convinced Cena to let him rhyme about dissolving faces in acid.
Obligatory wrap-up post of those songs I've played most during the month when I dropped my favourite generic list posts of the annum: the best Rap songs of 2025 and the late pass awards. See yous on the other side.
Bonus bloggin: 1nce again I'm gonna use my monthly wrap-up post to keep track of the best movies and TV shows I've been watching. * indicates rewatches dunnit.
You know that line on Newcleus' Jam On It which says "we rocked his butt with a 12 inch cut called Disco Kryptonite"? Well, their main guy Cozmo D has turned it into an actual song for the remastered reissue of Newcleus' debut album which dropped a few months back. Unfortunately there's no CD or digital versions of the reissued album and you can only find it on the vinyl LP. Worse still, the only place you can currently stream the song is this YouTube upload of the full side B reissue of the LP. Damn, this jam is a cosmic bubblebath of analogue Electro-Funk, and I need an MP3 of it like Doctor Who needs a hot lass as his companion. Who got the hook up like Master P? **EDIT** Yohan just came thru with the MP3 like Santa Claws.
Newcleus - Disco Kryptonite
(From Jam On Revenge remastered reissue LP; 2025)
I've been listening to little else other than Disco Kryptonite and I Want That by TM88, Sosojuicy & Strap Da Fool the past 3 or 4 days, so I've added both to my best Rap songs of 2025 list post.
