The appeal of Yelawolf 's freestyle dig on Young Jeezy's "I Do" is simple: it marries one of the best new voices to emerge from the hip hop scene in recent years with one of the top Southern rap productions of the season. Who could ask for anything more? Returning to producer M16 's soul sample-based beat a hungry bite the track first had on the Andre 3000-only snippet version of "I Do" that was leaked way back in 2010, then was curiously lost on the strong, but somewhat anti-climactic, Jeezy & Jigga-added final [...]
Life growing up would have been so much better if we had had a chill uncle like Big K.R.I.T. around to drop jewels of thick Southern accent-laden, inspirational wisdom in our ears every time we felt like we couldn't handle the world. On "Boobie Miles", the self-produced first leak from K.R.I.T.'s upcoming mixtape 4evaNaDay , the Mississippi-based underground rap superstar sets his mic skills to uplift; but don't think this is some sappy, watered-down bid at Top 40 attention, K.R.I.T.'s delivery remaining as hood-cool and slick-tongued as ever as he dishes out some pretty thought-provoking [...]
Rakim Mayers, better known by his aka A$AP Rocky is rapper and director. I'll save you the nagging curiosity and say yes, he was named after the second half of the Eric B. & Rakim duo. He was born and raised in Harlem, and released the mixtape LiveLoveA$AP in 2011 with the in-demand producer, Clams Casino . Southern rap. You love it, or you hate it. It's a slow, stoney, carefree drawl of raps and rhymes with beats to match. If you like Drake or Lil' Wayne, or anyone [...]
Coming off a breakout 2011 that had damn near every other music fan with an Internet connection adopting "Everything is purple" as their personal life mantra for the moment, it's safe to say that there are plenty of eyes and ears on A$AP Rocky these days anticipating another strong year filled with more cloud-hazed anthems birthed from the heavily buzzed-about hip hop newcomer's Houston-by-way-of-Harlem swag. On New Year's Day, Rocky made the first step into making that public desire a reality by releasing freebie offering (and early preview for the upcoming [...]
T.I. 's been on a roll since his return to the public a few months back, littering the Interwebz and iTunes with a steady string of singles, videos, cameo appearances and freestyle/ remixes to help re-assert his position as one of the top players in today's rap game. Assuring this hot streak continues on until the release of his forthcoming "comeback" effort Trouble Man , today saw the arrival of his newest mixtape F*ck Da City Up and tacked on the tail-end of the banger-heavy sixteen-track set lies the complete [...]
We believe it's stated somewhere in the Laws of Man that any song with the credits "featuring Andre 30003 must be heard as soon as possible (and subsequently slobbered over), so of course, when word got around that Triple Stacks was going to be lacing a tune off of B.o.B's upcoming Strange Clouds , the cut was quickly deemed The Track The People Would Most Prefer To Be Leaked Like Yesterday. At midnight, Bobby Ray did man-kind a favor by giving the tune an official digital release , and as cool as it is to hear [...]
The "oh, snap!" rap world glory of being able to say "I've turned a hot lines into a hot song" hasn't been lost on STS , an ATL/ Philly rapper (and 2012 'XXL Freshman' candidate ) who has cleverly opted on stretching the blog attention-grabbing, line-into-hook re-purposing tactic across a weekly series umbrella-ed under the title of GOLD Rush . Newest entry "Let's Capture This Moment" swipes several lyrical snippets from Big Sean's summertime heater "Marvin Gaye & Chardonnay" , and while it's debatable whether or not any of these [...]
As annoyingly omnipresent as the pop-flavored, chart-dominating singles stripped from B.o.B 's debut The Adventures of Bobby Ray became, the Decatur-born emcee's insta-successful transitioning from mixtape-to-mainstream stardom was such a root-worthy event, hating on dude's Top 40 reign never once seemed like an option. That's what happens when everything he spits (be it on an official single, album track, or remix verse) not only feels so insanely catchy and impressively nimble on even the millionth listen, but is lifted to whole new plateaus of feel-good infectiousness due to the fact that [...]
The latest leak to emerge from the soundtrack to Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa 's "Cheech & Chong gone hip hop" flick Mac & Devin Go To High School , "Smokin' Out" is like all the other material we've heard from this project so far: it doesn't set out to re-write rules or blow minds as much as it wants to be comfort food for the more general fans of the two emcees behind it. So we get the blunt brothers doing their usual, hyping their next level [...]
From his own singles "All The Way Turnt Up" and "Show Out" , to his track-stealing guest turns on Maino's "Let It Fly" , Big Sean's "Marvin & Chardonnay" and Waka Flocka Flame's "No Hands" , the past year has seen 21-year-old new generation ATL-ien Roscoe Dash become an increasingly prominent threat for Drake in the "rapper/ kinda-sorta singer with the insane ability to craft instantly catchy, radio-baiting hooks" field of things. His choruses, built of dramatically elongated syllables and druggy multi-tracked harmoniousness delivered in a high-pitched "nyah-nyah"-like tone, [...]
In this current Internet-fueled trend cycle where a lot of acts entire careers can be summed up as "hot right now, not hot five seconds later", it's interesting how Kreayshawn , the controversial "fem-cee" who exploded as an World Wide Web sensation six months ago with viral-hit "Gucci Gucci" only to be torn apart by numerous think-pieces analyzing every aspect of her...erm "artistry" a short while later, now seems like she's entering some sort of "comeback" phase in her still-infant career. Following a brief period of silence that had us wondering whether, between the Rick [...]
2011 has been the biggest year yet for Miami rapper Ace Hood , mostly thanks to him paying attention to, and then proceeding to check off the boxes for, what works in the now-era hip hop game. Enlisting Lex Luger for the booming street corner anthem/ Blood, Sweat & Tears jump-off "Hustle Hard" , then employing Rick Ross and Lil' Wayne on the official remix , was his first two smart career moves made this year; then he steered his attention to a more mainstream light with third single "Body [...]
Following earlier-this-year released covers of Adele's "Rolling In The Deep" and Coldplay's "The Scientist" , both of which turned out way better than they sounded on paper, Mike Posner continues his oddly compelling tour through other artist's catalogs, digging a bit deeper into pop's past with two new Pozner-ized remakes. As teasers for his forthcoming The Layover mixtape, both are sure to draw up some polarizing opinions, not so much because Mike's weirdly toned chops just aren't every one's cup of tea, but due to the fact that dude's really edging [...]
I recently got my hands on The Definitive Collection , Cash Money's attempt to define their long reign on top of Southern rap. Like a lot of people who grew up in the South during the 90's, I would have changed a few songs here and there, but the collection definitely brought back some memories. It also reminded me of how dated most of their music sounds. Other than a few tracks which have stood the test of time ("Bling Bling" "Loud Pipes"), most of the tracks sound empty and simplistic-both lyrically and sonically. But one thing that they [...]
While any guy who has muttered the words "With all that shake can a player get some fries with it?" to a chick within the past, say, fifteen years deserves to be shuttled off the planet for being a tired wannabe-mack, Luda gets a pass for using the "lame sitcom pick-up line"-as-hook, if only because he fills up much of the remainder of mixtape cut "Shake N Fries" with some of his best naughty-themed hilariousness in a long minute. From "I put my balls on the table/ Tell her rack 'em up" and "For an extra [...]
While our forever-long wait for Young Jeezy 's long-pushed-back Thug Motivation 103 continues (it's now set for a December 20th release though it's difficult having much hope on that date staying firm), his apparently-still-a-thing offshoot group U.S.D.A. (of 20072s "White Girl" street fame) have announced the arrival of their own new album, sophomore effort The Afterparty , to drop on November 15th. Alongside this somewhat surprising news conveniently comes the leaking of proposed first single "Outta Here", a crisp '802s R&B sampler that has the re-styled group ( minus a Blood Raw [...]
Nothing makes my ears warmer than a Big Rube feature. I've professed my (man)love for Rube before , and this track from Nappy Roots put a huge smile on my face the very second that his baritone came on. Like a wise uncle, Big Rube always seems to impart timely advice and this time is no different. Sounding right at home on the Organized Noise beat, Rube starts off the new Nappy Roots album "Nappy Dot Org" on the right foot. Completely produced by the previously mentioned legendary Southern producers, Nappy Roots show once again that their lasting presence [...]
B.o.B puts in his bid in the continued efforts to make dubstep a thing in American hip hop with "Strange Clouds", the first single from his second studio effort, and though it's destined to eventually get overshadowed by whatever more genre-hopping, pop-oriented numbers Bobby Ray has waiting in the wings to really ignite the pre-release hysteria for the forthcoming full length, as a smokers' anthem geared more for the strict hip hop heads, it's a keeper. "I hit her with that pipe, call that Nancy Kerrigan/ Stay on the greenest greens, call us vegetarians," rhymes B.o.B, his [...]
Now these are more what we talking about. Drake freebies No. 2 and 3 for the night right their predecessor's wrong by both being something we could bump on a club-hopping Saturday night out. "Free Spirit" may still be based around Noah Shebib's beloved late-night atmospherics, but plant a skittering drum track, a speedy Drizzy flow and Rick Ross cameo atop it and it's instantly elevated to the much-preferred status of cruise-worthy jam. Of course, Drake is here still just trying to digest his [...]
Who would have ever thought back in the mid-to-late-'002s when Weezy F Baby was lapping everybody else in his unleashing of an amazingly endless stream of bananas rap of both the mixtape and legal variety )though mostly mixtape) that there would ever come a day when dude would drop a full-length under the banner of "The Carter" that felt like a big 'ol pile of "meh"? Such is the sad reality with The Carter IV , the rapper's long-awaited and long-pushed back return to the "Carter" series, and an album that, [...]
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