J Hus metaphors givin' me flashbacks of Hell Rell's album cover. Massacre is ya host's favourite example of the Roadrapfrobeats sound on Hus' new album, but I prefer this Colors performance to the studio version. "They never seen such a skinny man in a big puffer jacket" back for 2023, baby! As demonstrated here, Hus has a very malleable natural mouthpiece, which is why it deactivates my chakra when he smothers his voice in generic Auto-Tune on certain songs. Now, let's get a Dreck-less Colors performance of Who Told You next.
Either J Hus' new song with that Canadian nonce is trolling me or God is punishing me for enjoying Hus' Devilish behaviour on It's Crazy. Of all the people Hus could get on this track it had to be THAT frigging guy. This is a Drake guest spot which sets the bar low and then limbos under it sounding like Brad Pitt in Meet Joe Black: a textbook example of his usual creepy nonsense that's made all the worse by its rambling length, his cringey attempts at patois, and the shrill deathrattle of how Godawful his voice sounds with a pinch of Auto-Tune. Wasn't it bad enough that One Dance forever besmirched the Do You Mind remix? Brexit is such a failure that we can't even stop Canadian nonces ruining songs by U.K artists. Someone get Suella Braverman on the phone and tell her to forget about illegal immigrants on boats - our J Hus summer jam of 2023 has been invaded by the W.O.A.T rapper who tried to groom Jorja Smith when she was a teenager. To paraphrase that crap Welsh indie band, if you tolerate Drake then your children will be next.
Of course some intrepid soul will edit Drake out of this which will be fine for my personal use, but the damage is already done. This song is bound to become inescapable this summer and every time I hear that Canadian nonce's voice I'm gonna be counting down the days until winter. **EDIT** cheers to one of my commenters who found this particularly smooth edit where you can pretend the Canadian nonce's verse never existed. Summer isn't quite saved yet, but it's a start.
J Hus - Who Told You (no Drake edit)
(From YouTube; 2023)
"I wanna send him to Jupiter
It wasn't me, it was Lucifer
I don't care if I'm a superstar, all them man I'm gonna crucify
I believe that you can fly when I put this bonsam in your eye
Crept up on him on the sly
F**k the law, I don't abide"
J Hus - It's Crazy
(From It's Crazy single; 2023)
Reasons why we love J Hus here at The Martorialist: everyone was expecting his comeback single would be a big summer anthem in the vein of Lean & Bop or Did You See, but he returns speaking in fiendish black magic tongues with the baddest Juju since our man from The Beatnuts. You can stick your dour U.K Drill up your arse, m8, the real British wickedness is right here. A song designed to soundtrack a very different type of hot weather.
Unpopular but actual factual opinion: the first three episodes of Blackadder series one are some of the best episodes in the show's entire run. As well as putting a fresh twist on various Shakespearean plots and reversing the later dynamic between Blackadder and Baldrick, they feature Brian Blessed, Peter Cook and Alex Norton in delirious form, and Elspert Grey quietly delivering some of the show's best quotables.
Plus, those first three episodes are free from any of the "Sticky McStickface from McSticksville"-isms which blemish the best episodes from the later seasons. One of the many problems with the British middle-classes is that they're incapable of writing comedy without tainting it with 'cockwomble' humour.
Pa Salieu ft. Slowthai - Glidin'
(From Glidin' single; 2021)
Lads, blokes, countrymen - please tell me I ain't the only person who secretly likes Pa Salieu's song with Slowthai? Obviously Slowthai is utterly unacceptable on any/every level and the song is pure Alexis Petridis' Guardian single of the week-bait, yet Glidin' is still the best Roadraprobeats single of 2021 so far.
Beggars can't be choosers now J Hus has taken a hiatus from music ¯\_㋡_/¯
Truthfully, I fronted on Rover for the longest - homeboy tryna flex in Superdry ski goggles is unforgivable, but as an anthem this song is undeniable. Rover had URL goin' nuts during lockdown to the point where it reached number 3 in the U.K Top 40, hilariously inspired an Australian remix, and even went gold in New Zealand (we did it, Moscaddie, we did it!) Now a certain sense of normality has resumed, Rover deserves to have IRL goin' nuts for what's left of this lost summer. Basically, if I can drunkenly sing "I just wanna make the moo lah lah, got 'em all screamin' ooh la la" in the pub on a quiet Wednesday night then it'll be my official Song Of The Summer™ 2020.
"I had to link a cougar with the Luger
But the next time I'll bring her the big bazooka"
J Hus ft. Burna Boy - Play Play
(From Big Conspiracy album; 2020)
J Hus wasn't lying when he said he played for the Gunners, eh? Ain't gonna lie, though, ya host wasn't expecting Hus & Burna Boy's latest collaboration to be the Afro Bashment equivalent of Giggs' Monsta Man. Instant anthem, albeit an instant anthem which summer 2019 was gaggin' for.
Hate to be a contrarian h8er boi but this new J Hus album ain't a patch on Common Sense. Maybe I'm being too picky? Alternatively, maybe you ain't being picky enough?
Smoooooth operator, lad. Post-porridge J Hus back to life like Soul II Soul with bare winebar vybz for Caron & Jazzie and Sharon & Tracey alike. On one hand, the triumphant return of J Hus & Jae5 is a much welcome 2019 plot twist. On the other hand, there's nowt as sad as British blokes with stars & stripes in their eyes making songs about opps. If this Island must insist on doing Rap music then plz honour Roger's Profanisaurus and use our own slang, you blurts.
Remember the time Giggs went all Finbarr Saunders & His Double Entendres with a legit jam about his todger? How about the time Iggy Aztralea bodied everything Nicki Minaj dropped in 2014? Or the time MHD recorded a French language bangeur about French football? What about the time J Hus made every American dance-Rap song of 2015 sound superfluous? And who can forget the time two Nigerian lads DJ Consequence & YCEE made the 2010's British Grime revival sound like the tepid Redbull-sponsored shite it truly was? If your memory's foggier than Victorian London then here's a reminder of all the above & some other favorites.
Definite correlation between me losing interest in Roadrapfrobeats and me growing bored with Auto-Tune. It also doesn't help that, after the rise of U.K Drill, loadsa rappers from the Roadrapfrobeats scene have developed stars & stripes in their eyes and started rhyming about trap-phones and the like. The only good thing which can come from Brexit is if the U.K starts deporting any British citizens who've ever rhymed about traps, opps, and bandos.
"It looks like it's just me n da girls
Because all the mandem are doin' sumfin' else"
Gemini - Me N Da Girls
(From Channel U; 2007 or 2008)
We'll always have Gemini's Me N Da Girls even if 90% of the other songs played on Channel U were only notable for their struggle comedy value. We can try but we'll never forget Bearman, Mr. Wong, Jelluzz, and Tulisa's coke dealer m8 Mike GLC.
Get Elton John in to perform Candle N Da Wind for Freeview channel number 373 innit. Above the clouds with .TV, Bravo and that quiz station Suzanne Cowie used to present on.
Bonus Timbaland beats: who caught John Barnes shakin' it like Louise Woodward when Ginuwine performed Pony live in the Celebrity Big Brother house last week? I hope Heaven got a WiFi signal so tha gawd Gary Warnett can see this:
Actual facts relax: Louise Woodward and John Barnes used to be real life neighbours in the early noughties. They don't call ya host Dead Perez for nothin'.
Other notables: a very pleasant surprise to hear a Public Enemy homage in 2017 with Scarface's Black Still; fair play to 70th Street Carlos for doing an I Bet U Won't remix in the old fashioned sense of the word remix; never seen an episode of Kenan & Kel in my life, so Nef The Pharaoh's jack of the theme song is wasted on me; Step One found a good Black Rob deep cut from way back, but I've really gotta be in a certain type of mood to listen to Rob rhyme about hammering nails into someone's nipples.
Late pass! Another unfortunate consequence of Brexit is that Nigerian Afro-Bashment Grime is now officially better than proper British Dunkirk spirit Grime. Not a particularly impressive feat on paper since the only Legit Jam™ of the traditional British boutique-Grime revival is that Stormzy tune with the prophetic David Moyes zinger, but a banger is a banger no matter the competition and this bangs:
DJ Consequence ft. YCEE - In A Benz
(From In A Benz single; 2016)
Bit unfair that YCEE is now the Juice guy when Omo Alhaji is still his best song. Bitch, there's consequences if your wrong track blows up. *EDIT* Bitch, there's also coincidences when Maine Musik drops a Soulja Slim tribute over the Consequences beat on the same damn day I dropped this post:
Maine Musik - Soulja Slim Flow
(From t'internet; 2017)
Had a blast with the bloggin' this year even though I don't understand what's going on in rap anymore: A$AP Folky Malone is bigger than ever; New York rap somehow continues to get worse and worse; the main artists who fall under the umbrella of Soundcloud-rap are almost universally terrible to my ears; mid-tempo trap beats with that same damn drum pattern are a billion times more played out than Kwame's polka dots could ever be; and people are actually spending their time watching videos of Joe Budden and DJ Akademiks argue about music rather than spend their time actually listening to music.
Oh well - at least I heard less Drake songs than any year since 2010 and didn't have the misfortune to stumble on a single KanYe West think-piece all year. And then there were these songs which made all the other bullshit in rap tolerable. As ever, no order of preference, but I'm gonna do things slightly different this post:
Best songs featuring British people rapping:
J Hus - Did You See
MoStack - Let It Ring
Sneakbo ft. Giggs - Active
If you're the person who turns this post into a playlist then do it on YouTube. A handful of these songs aren't on Spotify/Apple etc in any form, and I don't cosign those jankey re-recorded versions of Lay Down and With My Team or the extended version of Shell on all the official streaming sites.
New Age Muzik - Da Beat
(From Da Beat single; 2016)
Still the best U.K rapfrobeats song not recorded by J Hus IMHO. Bare Makosi and Anthony in the hot tub sensual vybz. Pains me greatly that this song never blew up because it deserves to be a U.K classic.
It's time to stop arsing about with J Hus remixes of Unforgettable and French Montana remixes of Did You See, and just Soke it to the summer by releasing Good Time as a single already. Shit's the song Mandem Anthem should have been, and, like Lean & Bop and Did You See, it's another killer example of how roadrapafrobeats can go pop without having stars & stripes in its eyes.
J Hus ft. Burna Boy - Good Time
(From Common Sense album; 2017)
This was the song ya host correctly identified as "some proper naughty LL Cool J Hus Afro-Bashment" when I caught it performed live before Common Sense dropped. Damn it feels good when a song lives up to its live debut performance.
Half-yearly round up of the best rap songs of 2017 thus far as according to moi, including unreleased joints which finally saw the light of day this year, tracks from 2015/2016 which only popped this year and are now essential to the 2017 experience, songs from late december 2016 which body pretty much anything released in 2017, a song which currently only exists as 2 Instagram snippets, and even a couple of Roadrapfrobeats jams by British lads of African descent. F*ck being a good year for rap, ya host's 2017 is complicated.
"I'm in Aunty's yard with the crooks
The money makes up for the looks
Death comin', I ain't stickin' to the deadline
Tell them boys better luck next time"
J Hus ft. Tiggs Da Author - Good Luck Chale
(From Common Sense album; 2017)
Don't get it twisted, though - as 2Shin once said, it's still open season on all self-styled Authors and Novelists until we've seen their Goodreads lists.
"Now me & him got beef and we no longer speak
Still walk his nan across the street
Still put that motherf*cker in a body bag
Still help his mother with her shopping bag"
Roadrapfrobeats like du-du-du-du-du-du. Buncha choonz on this J Hus debut album, the best of which fit his aesthetic like a pair of Universal Works almond rocks fit your plates of meat (G.O.A.T socks or wot? #BuyBritish!) What's missing from the album, however, is Dem Boy Paigon and Lean & Bop; couldn't give a monkey's uncle that both songs are now 2 years old - the anthems that reputations are built on should always appear on debut albums, even if it's just as bonus tracks innit.
The unlikely scenario where B.o.B trumps Mob Figaz: Yung Cat's refix of 4 Lit is a better 2017 Husalah song than Husalah's actual 2017 song. C'mon, bruh-bruhs - that M.O.B shit sounds like the worst of Tonka Boyz Husalah, and who wants a Buck Rogers Years redux of that era?
Plus, the best Hus song of 2017 is by an entirely different Hus altogether:
J Hus - Did You See
(From Did You See single; 2017)
Caught our Hus live in Liverpool last night and he debuted a couple of new songs from his upcoming album that sound like some proper naughty LL Cool J Hus Afro-Bashment.
