BEST OF 2016

2016 was a rough one. I got locked up; I damaged my gorgeous complexion faceplanting off a hoverboard; I saw my candidate lose on election day (we got this one next time, McMullin!). But the worst part was having to hear all these adult babies complain about what a horrible year 2016 was. RAP MUSIC HYSTERAI ain't got time 4 that breh, we smokin sherm-marinated Kools in the fifth dimension and makin space-time our Maytag upstate. Mo you complain about Jupiter bein out of wack with Neptune's moons, mo time I have to get this papyrus and stack croutons to the ceiling. Got so many croutons it's more like the salad is the croutons' croutons. We turnin main courses into garnishes, playboy.

If you ain't walkin with me you better supercharge that hoverboard and hope Doc Brown got more flux in his capacitor. Try not to fall, cause we zoomin like the autobahn with disfigured faces and pockets on gangrene. Somebody better amputate my limbs cause my pimp walk is devastating. Tell a podiatrist to call a chiropractor to talk more shit behind my back. Better patch in a proctologist while you're at it, cause my shit lookin hella drippy (no diarrhea). We took stale bread and turned those bitches into croutons. We took a useless old tree and printed a Ross Douthat column on that motherfucker. Chuuuuch.

1. Rae Sremmurd - Black Beatles (ft. Gucci Mane)*
2. Dreezy - Body (ft. Jeremih)
3. Young Thug & Travis Scott - Pick Up The Phone (ft. Quavo)
4. Ezale - Day Ones
5. Ka - Ours
6. Kap G - Southside
7. French Montana - Lockjaw (ft. Kodak Black)
8. Lud Foe - Cuttin Up
9. YG - Police Get Away Wit Murder
10. Kanye West - 30 Hours
11. Famous Dex - Geek On A Bitch
12. Stresmatic - The Joog
13. Mozzy - Beautiful Struggle
14. A-Wax - Always Something
15. Shy Glizzy - You Know What
16. Boone - Pop A Perc
17. WNC Carlos x JMM Larry x SOG Sherwood Flame - Cross Me
18. YID - Keep It On Me (ft. Lil Yee)
19. The Team - Can I
20. Chance The Rapper - No Problem (ft. 2Chainz & Lil Wayne)**
21. A Tribe Called Quest - We The People...
22. 21 Savage - No Heart
23. Spodee - Trappin Out Da Partments
24. Lil Yase - Boom Boom***
25. Mista Cain - No Shootas (ft. Spitta Bad Newz)
26. Future - Perkys Callin
27. Gensu Dean & Denmark Vessey - Racka Lamb
28. WNC Whop x WNC Carlos x WNC Ram Bam - Die Bout It
29. Nipsey Hussle - County Jail
30. Uncle Murda - Cam'Ron Voice
31. SOB x RBE - Different
32. CupcakKe - Ace Hardware
33. Spitta - Fuck It
34. Boosie Badazz - This Ain't Living (ft. VS)
35. G-Val - Fake Shit
36. Rick Ross - Buy Back The Block (ft. 2Chainz & Gucci Mane)
37. ClydeTheMack - No Love (ft. SOB x RBE, Mike Sherm, G-Bo Lean, SouthsideSu)
38. Vic Spencer - Blast Fa Me (ft. Freddie Old Soul)
39. King Lil G - Cold Christmas
40. No Panty - Iceys On Deck
41. Gucci Mane - Richest Nigga In The Room
42. Blac Youngsta - Shake Sum
43. Big Rome - Keepin It Lit (ft. Young Flacs)
44. DB Tha General - Gas Chamber
45. Gee Money - Take It There
46. Rocaine - BWB
47. C-Murder - Dear Supreme Court
48. Dre Bandz x Ty Money x JB - Mac Talk
49. A$AP Ferg - New Level (ft. Future)
50. Young M.A - OOOUUU

*Every now and then dystopian music goes pop. This was one such instance.

**At this point I heard the song so many times I actually hate it, but for about three months I was boppin along in the whip to Brothers Chainz and Wayne sounding lovely over a gospel sample. Chance got killed on his own shit in a historical capacity. Someone with editing skills needs to get his free-range-toddler temper tantrum the FOH. He's fine on the hook, but you can't come with that open-mic "Oh I'm just riffin, tryin out some new stuff" coffeeshop yodelling shit when your song features two legends. This ain't the Good Life Cafe, and your name ain't P.E.A.C.E. This ain't the hungry i, and you ain't fit to carry Mort Sahl's red v-neck jockstrap. Hold my Charleston Chew, my lil Kit Kat.

***Late 2015, but I do not care. Swap it out for "Who Is He" if you a bitch for historical accuracy like that.

Songs I liked but heard so many times i don't like em right now
Chance The Rapper - No Problem (ft. 2Chainz & Lil Wayne)
D.R.A.M. - Broccoli (ft. Lil Yachty)
Migos - Bad and Boujee (ft. Lil Uzi Vert)
The guys with Zs in their name - Juju On That Beat

Good albums
ATCQ - In A World Gone Mad...Hot Sauce Committee
Ezale - Tonite Show
Future - Purple Reign
Ka - Honor Killed The Samurai
YG - Still Brazy 

2015s
Babyface Ray & Samuel Shabazz - Pinky & Brain
Cartiyay - Favor for a Favor
Chippass - IDGAF
DJ XO - Pulled Off The Lot (ft. Rizzo & Sosamann)
Gank Gaank - Like Aye
Madeintyo - Uber Everywhere
Mike Sherm - Blue Faces
Nef The Pharoah - Michael Jackson
Sonniebo - Hella Mad

Old-timer's game
Curren$y - Fat Albert (ft. Lil Wayne)
E-40 - On One (ft. AD)
Gensu Dean - Principles & Codes (ft. Diamond D)
Old Jeezy - Let Em Know
Pusha T - Keep Dealing (ft. Beanie Sigel)
The Mekanix - I'm So Oakland (ft. The Delinquents)
Neef Buck - Game of Thrones (ft. State Property)
Rich The Factor - 24's
Suga Free - Up In Da Pocket
Z-Ro - My Money

Not rap
Alkaline - City
Almighty - Ocho
Arcangel x Bad Bunny - Tu No Vive Asi
Busy Signal - Bad Longtime
Chi Ching Ching - Nacho
Daddy Yankee - Shaky Shaky
Ding Dong - Yeng Yeng (ft. Bravo Ravers)
Harley Flanagan - Guilty Until Proven Innocent
Savage Savo - Jiggle Likkle
Shatta Wale - Kakai
Spice - Indicator
Vybz Kartel - Real Youth

Almost song 50
Some Lil Dicky shit cause fuck it. David Lee Roth once said, "Music journalists like Elvis Costello because music journalists look like Elvis Costello.” Lil Dicky gets the other side of that: critics hate him because he reminds them of the lame middle-class upbringing they want to leave behind. If you and I were to travel through time (holding hands and tying lanyards the whole way), we would see every critic who hates Lil Dicky smoking bongs in college with guys who look exactly like Lil Dicky.

Line of the year
The one about bleaching assholes, of course. Say what you will about Kanye, but the guy began a radio single with a line about bleached assholes. A true accomplishment. Second best line is A$AP Ferg talking about buying shovels.

What else? Time to click the post button and watch the regret pile up.

THE BEST SONG OF 2004 IN 2016

Kanye sayin wild shit about a Republican prez and Twista dropped a jack-rabbit love sawng over an old soul sample. Where the wrinkle at, space time continuum? Why we in some shitty version of 2004?

The Rose Royce sample is deployed somewhat unimaginatively, but who cares? Soundbreaking, maybe. The PBS program recently did an episode on hip-hop producers, focusing mainly on the contributions of such Caucasoids as Rick Rubin, The Dust Brothers, and Arthur Baker. The Dust Brothers produced, what, two albums anyone cares about? And the only one that's (arguably) a hip-hop record is Paul's Boutique? IMO, their best work is Hanson's "MMMBop."

We ain't racist here. We got much respect for whitey's contributions to the art of beatsmithing. But if they was gonna focus on melanin-deficient pioneers, why couldn't they give shine to Paul C, Mike Dean, and the Tuff Jew himself, Sir Scott Storch? George Martin, if u was still alive u would be an enemy of RAP MUSIC HYSTERIA. Everyone knows you was just a schoolmarm for the White Beatles.

GOT A RAP SHEET LONGER THAN MY BLOG ROLL

Ya boy just caught a charge on some flimflam. It is what it is, mayne. We was all sittin around watching Donald Trump sitting in a spray-painted gold chair. He was talkin to Lesley Stahl on that tick-tick-tick program. I stood up on the chair and started spittin fire: Jail is bad / This shit ain't rad / Make me so mad / Where the YouTube at? DJ Vlad. The trustee came up, handed me his Pono, and said, "Brother, Nipsey Hussle did it already." I began to cry.

1. Sittin in my cell, all I did was pray...
Tbh, I was mainly thinkin about asses and wondering if my mattress was a repurposed gym mat.

2. Called home once a week and tell my people I'm ok
If Nipsey was able to call out, he worth his weight in gelt. Them jail phones is an exercise in futility. Even if you get your peoples on the line, it's gonna disconnect before they can figure out the collect-call protocol. No wonder they sneakin smartphones in, cause these phones ain't even dumb - they just some dicks. Maybe he only called home once a week cause that's how long it took to get through.

3. Ask me if I'm stressin, I say 'Hell no, I'm straight,' / But you can see the difference cause it's written on my face
First thing they did was play a DVD on buttrape and I'm like

4. I been workin out, I been gaining weight
I was doin elevated push-ups and dips on my bedframe, but there were no good ways to work out the traps or lats. Smh, welcome to Trump AmeriKKKa. And gainin weight? How you gaining weight off a slice of baloney and American cheese? They did give us cookies at every meal. Know why? Cause we got the key 2 da sweetz!

5. I been having dreams about the day they crack the gate
You expect it to be like the intro for Ready To Die where they like, "Bet we gonna see your fat ass again, Biggie," and he's like, "Haha yeah right, I got big plans!", but they just said, "A'ight peace," and I went to the gas station to buy a protein-infused Starbucks doubleshot and a pack of cigarettes.

6. Planned to take over the world, I just ended up in jail
The realest line of the song. Few things more humbling than bein a grown-ass man stuck in a cell. You don't realize the freedom in being able to open a door until it's taken away.

FINAL VERDICT: Better than "Ball and Chain" by Social Distortion. These days I'm siding more and more wit FrankieThaLuckyDog's boredom with raps about money and all that unrighteous Babylon talk. I wanna hear about jerking off to King magazine and eatin baby carrots with a plastic spoon. A-Wax 'n' Nipsey remaking "Ball and Chain" w/ Mike Ness make it happen Internet make it happen.

DANCEHALL MUSIC HYSTERIA, #5: ATTACK OF DA CLONE

This guy buggin me out. He look like Vybz, sound like Tommy Lee Sparta, and dress like Michael Jackson. How they lettin a guy who looks like the reanimated corpse of a teenage pimp substitute-teach our video hoes? Public education system in shambles, blood. Strangest of all, a guy who looks like the personification of depravity—a dancehall Dorian Gray—chose as his subject matter a matter so triflin' as booty shaking. At least he scores w/ the principyal at the end of the video, lookin like the setup of a Brazzers sex travelogue. There was a Brazzers on Greensleeves back in the day, right? Think he cut some records with Sizzla.

DANCEHALL MUSIC HYSTERIA, #4

Ding Dong been a reliable source of novelty dance songs (my chief source of happiness these days), but Vybz kilt him on his own shit with this one. No pun intended. Motorcycles are cool, I just prefer songs about fighting and winning and partying to songs about automobiles. They are both good, however, and this time of the year is really about rocking the vote and making yourself heard!



It's this kind of behind-bars productivity that has dancehall pundits calling Varg Vikernes the Vybz Kartel of Norwegian Black Metal. The guy is definitely spooky. Rumor has it he started bleaching to look more vampiric. Whether this was a genuine interest in the supernatural or a crass attempt to cash in on the Twilight craze isn't for me to decide, though murdering and dismembering (allegedly) is a pretty convincing argument for Team Scary. In time for Halloween, here is a beautiful new song he made using werewolves as a metaphor for the fickleness of man. That'z the verzatility of Vybz: he's got songs in his catalog that make you wanna unbutton your shirt and stand screaming in the rain with tears down your cheeks, and you don't have to make some apologetic meme afterwards like a Drake stan would. Vybz knows, Vybz understandz. It's okay.

DON'T LET YOUR MAN ROCK ECKO IN 2016

Sometimes a video can make or break a song. You hear a song that's merely a'ight on teh radio or in teh club, but when you dial it up on YouTube you see the rapper in a cool car hanging out with haute womens and you think to yourself, "Maybe if I listen to this song, I too can be as cool as the guy in the video."

Unfortunately, the video for Young Flacs and Big Rome's "Keepin It Lit" is the opposite. What comes across as a perfect hybrid of slap and Chicano gangbanger rap when you're bumpin it on your Pono is marred by grainy cinematography and poor composition in its video form. Big Rome's awkward screen presence is no help. My man looks like Snorlax. Young Flacs on his Mexican Pac swag, but even this is undermined by a bad audio sync.

That said, I applaud their use of homegrown video hoes. Buy local, the personal is political, small economies to combat the globalist conspiracy. As always, a YouTube commenter says it best:



Yo undertaker, put that shit on my tombstone! "Just for a quick releaf that's it nuthin more"

PS

Shout out to this guy @1:45 pourin the Henny in his mouth so he don't lip the bottle with cooties.

NEW YORK'S ALRIGHT IF YOU LIKE ICEYS

When the NYC Rap Dynasty started crumblin back 'round the turn of 2K, I couldn't wait to see it fall. I grew up on the shit, but the hubris of New York industry types made it highly entertaining when the music started to suck and the pricks started to sweat (nullus). And even tho they still tryna put fluoride in the water supply w/ not-ready-for-primetime plantz like Troy Ave and Young M.A, it's been long enough that I'm starting to miss the days when New York was the undisputed center of "the culture." I'm gettin old mane, there's a new generation who don't even remember when New York was kang. That ain't a problem, just means I'm making the transition from baby gangsta to old fart; what bothers me is the ppl my age swallowing the "Fuck New York" quarter-water and clinging blindly to the South's bozack, not realizing they're just a reversal of the last hard-heads who turned the 5 Boroughs into a sinking ship.

New York rap in 2016 is weird. It's a vacuum-sealed cottage industry like jazz since the '70s, self-consciously New York (and not self-consciously "hip-hop") in a way the old shit didn't have to be 'cause it was the gold standard. As with every iteration of Old New York's last stand, you can blame it on gentrification I think. And memes. Whatever. All I know is if you asked me about Joell Ortiz in 2007, I would have said he was a desperate symbol of NYC's retrograde rap scene. In 2016, I like a song about iceys he made with Bodega Bamz and Nitty Scott. New York is a lot of things—irritating, self-important, smelly—but it's got some cool shit too. Ima hold off registering with the Conservative Rap Coalition, but they can keep my name on the mailing list.

WATCH US FREAK IT IN SWAHILI

Who else but RAP MUSIC HSTYREIA stay givin you the Lil Blood coverage you ain't want, but you know you need? Rap game lima beans. Usalama is a Swahili word that means "posse cut." With almost 20 guests in just under 4 minutes, "Usalama" is true enough to make noted Swahili scholar Tupac Shakur smile from the Thug Villa he presides over beyond the veil, where the bandanas flow like Alizé.

There's already some Saul Bass-inspired cover art floating around on the interwebs, so we the people demand a video. Boom, everyone emerges from a clown car, hoppin out the whip with a hot four bars like Krusty and his krew used to do when the cigars got laced in the wet.

Is the song any good? It's a'ight. But like Jimmy Gestapo used to say, At least dey fuckin tryin! What da fuck have you done?

DANCEHALL MUSIC HYSTERIA, #3

The rap-dancehall connec has been one of the most fruitful intercultural dialogues of our age. Where would we be witout WA DA DA DANG! or A LICKY BOOM BOOM DOWN! or Mavado applying Gold Bond to Rick Ross' XXXXL jockstrap? In 2014 Busy Signal returned the volley with some wicked man top spin, spittin hot fire and Peebo Bryson references over the rap chestnuts you was listenin to when you touched booty for the first time at the middle school dances deejayed by ya vice principal's nephew with the fresh fade and honeycomb Iversons, who crept on ya side bitches and took breaks to smoke Reginalds on the football field while tryin to figure out who the fuck was botherin him during his set blowing up his Motorola 2-Way.

Inhale da herb's essence and take a journey thru sound back to the glory days of Rap City, when Beenie Man made you cream ya dungarees goin in over the "Grindin" instrumental. All you need is Big Tigger droppin jolly exclamations here and there. If RAP MUSIC HYSTERAIA! becomes the culture-lifestyle vertical we seemed destined to become, we gonna fix that man up with a record deal and a podcast. A series of compilations w/ Tig droppin goofy freestyles with the hottest MCs in the biz - marble vinyl lathe-cut flexi-disc, limited pressing of 7. Chuuuch, my friends—chuuuch.

THE LONG-AWAITED SEQUEL TO MY BOYS (JORDANA SPIRO FANS, GET IN LINE)

Ayo what's good wit yours, ya boy broadcasting live waiting to see if this bitchass Hurricane Matthew is gonna knuck up or just make meaningless noise like a force-of-nature vuvuzela. That's dedication, yo, word to the well-groomed Anderson Cooper, we some real bloggin Gs outchea.

Aight, so as Young Thug continues to devolve from rapper to art project, and until Thug restores his Homie Quan's honorific from Bitch to Rich, Ralo is emerging as the necessary counterpoint. It's kind of like a 'Kast dynamic, where Ralo keeps Young Thug's flakiest Klaus Nomi daydreams tethered to reality, but it might be more like the Pusha-Malice symbiosis in Clipse, where each MC is a slight variation on the other and they sorta bleed together hydra-style.

As with the triumphant "My Boys," they joined by the always welcome Croonin' Trouble. I can't be the only guy who prefers this mk. of Trouble to the Troubaveli-isms of yore.

That's about it. Hopefully we'll be back and bloggin soon, provided my cabeza don't get bonked by a flying coconut or another tropical object. By the way, this post is IN NO WAY a reaction to Ralo "liking" a tweet I made comparing his voice to Magoo doing a Meatwad impression, nor is it affected by my uncertainty as to whether this "like" was benign or menacing. CHUUUUUCH

BAEDEKER MON TING

Sup y'all. RMH ain't nann so provincial as as a mere Rappe Blogue. We citizens of the world, yo! On my days off from the box factory, I be hangin out at Whole Foods samplin exotic dishes and asking anyone with the slightest hint of melanin to bless me wit some of their culture's music. Usually they tell me to fuck myself or snitch me out to the white-dreadlocked manager, but sometimes they look at my kufi-keffiyeh kombo and realize I'm an ally.

 
CARTEL DE SANTA - ES DE LEY
This was recommended to me by a cat eyein' the chicken marsala in the pre-made food trough. He described em as a mix between Cypress Hill, Vybz Kartel, Kottonmouth Kings, and Beck, "without the gay shit." I said, "Hand me a test tube, 'cause ya boy about to nuuuut!" He walked away with his marsala as I hit a "CHUUUUUUUUCH" for a good 15 minutes.

 
CHI CHING CHING - THE REASONING
This was recommended to me by a Mike Pence looking MF coppin some Kashi Good Friends Cereal. He said his name was Fiber Mane, but I don't believe him. Chi Ching Ching back after his "Nacho" and "Roast Or Fry" slam dizzunks with a non-food-themed jawn over some ambient-sounding IDM shit Lil B might have yelled "20 on my dick, I'm a pretty bitch" over back in 2009.

YouTube commenter hungrybruce has this to say: "You should have gave this to Popcaan to dj. Ching work on the flow and delivery next time." Now me and Popcaan done made our peace even tho he a bitch for blocking me on Twitter after I spammed his shit wit my business idea for Jerk and Scotch Bonnet-flavored Popcaan™, but I don't want him too get too Akonian over this shit. Like my momma always said, "Too many Akons and you got a glitch in the Matrix, word to God."

PLEASE GHOSTWRITE FOR MY DEMO

I had about six niggas on my payroll
I had a white bitch eatin' out my asshole!

It's de rigeur to hate on SpaceGhostPurrp these days, mainly for his shitty music and personality, but don't act like his YouTube playlists of Memphis rap tapes wasn't lit like Thich Quang Duc. That channel created a new lane for creepy white guys who like Adult Swim, saving the Boneses and Lil Ugly Men of the world the indignity of having to ape Necro in 2010. If Purrp had played his cards right and kept his mouth shut, he could have rode A$AP's Yam to some kind of tastemaker residency at the NYU Institute of Advanced Streetwear or whatever.

What's the next frontier of era mining? I won't be mad if it's Louisiana rap tapes. This early Critical Condition tape ain't a revelation along the lines of "Runnin-N-Gunnin," but I would rather hear a Purrpian rehash of their Rap-A-Lot/Suavehouse rehash than another post-Keef warbler talkin bout the Xans in his YSL fannypack. And their forward-thinking attitude toward buttplay? Callin shots like Nostradanus.

If the rapping sounds especially similar to UGK, it might not be coincidence. Unclear whether they'd hooked up with Pimp & Bun at this point, but 2008 Vibe Noz alleged Bun was writin' they shit on the CC Waterbound LP.

THE SON AND THE FURLY GHOST

Missed this one the first go-round, now resurfacing on a J-Diggs project minus the strong D-Lo and Mistah FAB verses. Some legal shenanigans or a cutting-room dis? IDK. As far as beyond-the-grave performances are concerned, Mac Dre goes harder than Bruce Lee's archival footage in Game Of Death. Is it a coincidence that these two visionaries both loved Hennessy? Kermit drinkin Heem in that teacup, you smell me?

Unfortunately, Nef The Pharoah sees it as an opportunity to indulge in a SNL audition tape Mac Dre impression, instead sounding like spooky Vincent Price. Neffy: Vallejo's eternal little brother. You love the guy, but you also just wanna bully him, give him some swirlies and raise him up the flagpole by his Versace briefs. Maybe hanging out with J-Diggs will toughen him up.

I'M BOUT TO POP A BLOGGA!

Ha ha! Free Roc
I miss my brother, he was just like my pops
A li'l bad motherfucker, ain't nothin other

Attention fetishists, rap-related and beyond: Molly Brazy is a tiny young woman rapping about armed robbery and shooting people. So catchy is the I'm bout to pop a nigga refrain, it begs to be sampled retroactively in a '06 Rick Rock production; all you need is E-40, or his Asian impersonator, to drop the "UUUUUUUUUH." Loafcore takin root, for real: the New Detroit may finally have its own unsavory "Chicken Noodle Soup."

Molly bodies DoughBoy Roc, but the livewire production should be a welcome return to form for anyone unmoved by the whitewashed Gordy-zation of Payroll Giovanni and Cardo's critically acclaimed™ collaboration. Now I know how the O.G. Lemonade and Brownies fan felt when he saw Mark & the boys mugging it up on the beach.

PACKIN THE MAC WITH AK AND SOME SNACKS

Nice li'l grimy joint comin out the rap metropolis of Huntington, WV. Blame "Grindin," 'cause ya mans is always down for narcoleptic street raps juxtaposed with a hype beat. Despite the presence of some questionable rap jeans and an impostor Ty Money, there's a lot to like about "Mac Talk."

 i owe my soul to the company store

1. THE RETURN OF CORNERSTORE MOBBIN
As I went over in my classic purple-shirt-yuppie-in-the-"Peso"-video post, the cornerstore/bodega has played an integral part in the rap video. It's heartening to see it brought back with style.

2. SKI MASK WAY
These guys appreciate the visual menace of a ski mask. The ski mask has a celebrated history in rap, but I'll always remember the not-gay boner I got during the "Shorty Wanna Ride" video, when a masked-up Buck performs an aggressive dance to "Stomp."

3. BABY-FACED GANGSTER
Dre Bandzz on some Sonny Carson shit, ice in his veins despite sounding like he's barely entered puberty.

4. FULLY ASSIMILATED IMMIGRANT SHOPKEEP
At least in one area, race relations in America have definitely improved. While songs like "Black Korea" and "Cocaine In The Back Of The Ride" had less than approving depictions of the Asian store owner, his Middle-Eastern counterpart has done a better job of adapting to the local culture. In between barking Arabic into his headset, you'll see this guy chopping it up with the locals and pushing dimebags while dressed like he just stepped out of Husalah's closet. You might not like him, but goddamn it you respect him.

unknown pleasures of faygo

5. FAYGO
The video ends with a long take of a bottle of Faygo. 

WORST JEANS IN RAP

"quality rap pants" - dj drama

Now I know u be flocking to PRAM MUSIC HYSTERIA! for intellectual discussions of da highest echelon, but we gonna take a break from our regular programming to talk about pants. Rap has a checkered history with denim. Here are some of the worst offenders.

MOZZY

 

Following Mozzy on Instagram inspired this post. This guy's jeans look like a mid-life crisis creative directed by Vivienne Westwood. Mozzy wears jeans that Adam Ant and Johnny Depp would see and be like, "Nah, them shits is too gaudy." These are the pants you wear when you decide to kill yourself, but only after emptying your bank account and flouting the rules of nature in one final Abu Dhabi blow-out bash.

FETTY WAP

Fetty rocking the "single mom in the bondage club" look. If you Google worst jeans in rap, he is literally the first result. The Arizona Balloon Festival sweatshirt is dope tho.

2CHAINZ

The legacy of 2 Chainz will always be tarnished for popularizing the Jon Gosselin look. Polo's popularity in the '90s had journalists trying to reconcile why inner-city black kids would want to dress like preppy white kids. More perplexing: why rappers (or anyone) would want to look like Sunset Boulevard trash.

ASAP ROCKY

That said, if I had to choose between ASAP Rocky's Eurotrashaloons and True Religions, I'd have the whole world romping around rockin the Buddhaman like gay choo-choo conductors.

JAY-Z

Bragging about not wearing skinny jeans on record, while conspicuously reducing his denim footprint, is the story of why Jay-Z has sucked since 2003. It's hard to believe this tool is the same guy who composed the greatest ode to the greatest rap jeans of all time.

ANYONE WEARING OVERALLS AFTER 2PAC

"Let the late great veteran live," he says to the performer striking a Christlike pose.

WIZ KHALIFA

Skinny jeans reduce sperm count, so how many lives does Wiz have to answer for? Pittsburgh's Pol Pot of Pants.

HONORABLE UN-MENTION: SOULJA BOY

Soulja Boy deserves a Lifetime Achievement Award in Rap Jeans for his '07/'08 work. When you're trying to get the right fit, a good rule of thumb is to try looking like Dikembe Mutombo doing that thing where you put your knees on your shoes and pretend to be a midget. His output has slowed down, but Soulja is a true god of large pants.

MAKE MEXICAN-AMERICAN RAP GREAT AGAIN

The artistic merits of "Fuck Donald Trump" were secondary at best, irrelevant at worst. It received critical acclaim for satisfying provisions of an unspoken agenda: hunger for political rap in the mainstream, historically the easiest way to legitimize the genre, and the desperate need for an anti-Trump anthem. Fuck Donald Trump, sure, but the rhetoric of "FDT" falls too often into The Donald's own talking points. The only Mexican mentioned by name is El Chapo; even then it's in the context of violence. After Mexplaining so hard on the original, you'd at least expect Nipsey and YG to get a Mexican rapper on the remix. Instead we have G-Eazy and Macklemore making me want to build a shrine to Lord Jamar.

Where are the Kid Frosts of today? Like Christian rock, Chicano rap is a megalith outside the mainstream, consumed by the thousand despite minimal-to-nonexistent press. YG made overtures in the right direction featuring Sadboy Loko on My Brazy Life. Whereas Sadboy is an extension of Chicano gangbanger rap, King Lil G is a sensitive street rapper softened by pop instincts, a cholo take on the J. Cole formula of conventional lyricism, polished song structure, and Millenial narcissism.

"Cold Christmas" is more along the lines of A-Wax's sad dopeboy mope-alongs, without the hard scumbag edges. When Wax recollects, it's usually about stabbing someone in juvie or an ex-homie or lover who eroded his trust in humanity. In contrast, Lil G's voice cracks with vulnerability when he remembers his mother's cooking: She made me happy with Mexican food...she made the greatest food. Unctuous as he sounds, Lil G's underlying moral core sells better than Wax's white-trash fatalism (I been bangin so long even moms says brazy), where the past is dark and innocence is irretrievable.

Cloying theatrics aside, it's still a pretty good song. A collaboration between Lil G and Kap G called Mexican Gs? Ándale!

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THIS MAN IS FOR THE BIRDS!

Smack smack, bitch! HD's last couple projects was aight but a li'l generic, gave me some real Oakland mixtape rappers circa now is the new New York mixtape rappers circa 1998 type heebie jeebz. Chuuuch. Ain't gonna front like I listened to Pianos & 808s in its entirety; let's be real, that title is a little too earnest for its own good, you'd think he'd be on the cover sitting at a grand piano staring at his hands looking real contemplative and shit, black & white photography and whatever w/ some fuckin Chico DeBarge and Carl Thomas collabs.

This "Chicken Nuggets" tho, I fuck with it. Really I'm an easy mark when it comes to any food-related raps. I could even stomach :) that novelty album MF DOOM made when he was at his most hipster gassed up. And chicken nuggets? Yo, I eat those! So I'm all over this shit like a healthy slather of BBQ sauce on some chix nugz. Lest you think HD was dollar-menu rappin, he spells it out for you that this is a metaphor for something more illicit than breaded poultry: I ain't talkin bout no chicken nuggets ;) ;) ;). I say...what a rogue!

All this chicken talk takes me back to the days when I was working at the box factory, coming home late nights and copping some wings and fries from the fellas at Crown Fried, then slidin over to the Moroccan bodega to cop some Coors tallboys to help me better neglect my BM. Chuuuch! Ay, speakin of chicken talk, Lil Blood and 12 Gauge Shotie got a mixtape called Chicken Talk, thus bearing out my prediction that Guccistalgia is nigh. As with most Lil Blood projects, there is one good song. Peace!!!

BATON ROUCH

 

My shooters got 'em drenchin like a mop
Then step on a nigga in some socks
She ask me for some shoes, I bought her Crocs

Does any region make punch-you-in-the-face music sound as joyous as Baton Rouge? Steel drums and acronyms haven't got shine like this since "P.I.M.P." More significantly, Sherwood Flame is the first rapper to name himself after a stately Japanese maple. Preserve a leaf between some wax paper and stick it in the Book Of Thugs. RMH Sam gives this one five bags of popcorn and a pair of flip-flops.

The video for "Cross Me" is unremarkable except for the way it typifies a popular underground aesthetic, a downsized cinéma vérité take on the "Ha" video's ghetto reportage: frenetic use of handheld cameras, laser-equipped assault rifles as accoutrements, an ensemble cast of peers who get equal screen time as the putative stars. Blame budgets, parallel thinking, a lack of imagination, or whatever, but it's a style of filmmaking you'll see in every other street video from the Bay to the A (shouts to Kreayshawn). With the possible exception of Detroit, the energy of Baton Rouge rap pairs best with the point-and-shoot minimalism of the style. When Fear played SNL in in 1981, luminaries of various regional scenes took it as an opportunity to prove who went hardest in the pit. If there were some comparable forum for today's regional rap scenes, I like to think Baton Rouge would show and prove.

YID AND YEE: NOT A JEWISH-CHINESE COMEDY DUO!

Earlier in 2016, Denzel Curry went on record as a gook. A rapper from the Bay is now calling himself Yid. And while he may be Black Hebrew Israelite or a member of the Stoudemire sect, he has yet to cover Judaic matters in his work. Until further notice, I have to assume that Yid is not a yid.

Before we charge this young man with the crime of cultural appropriation, let's go beyond the moniker. "Keep It On Me" revisits the early '00s trend of vaguely Asiatic production, commonly associated with visionary jocks of the guzheng like Timbaland and Ja Rule. What might have been dismissed as cultural appropriation in another context was celebrated for expanding the possibilities of rap music. And it did. Culture runs on appropriation; people only care when the appropriation is executed poorly. In this case, "Keep It On Me" is so catchy it would have even the students of Oberlin dabbing muskily around the compost heap.

We talkin yins 'n' yangs in this transcultural mash-up: Yee with the lilting rap-sanging, Yid sounding like he's rapping through a bullhorn into a cheap computer microphone. As Richard Gere once said, Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. You can't have the sweet without the sour, the Yid without the Yee. It's a combination so winning I only wish they'd gone full yellowface like Jin in the "Learn Chinese" video instead of blowing their budget on a pricey Lil Blood cameo. Somewhere in the ether, Bruce Lee is sippin Heem and nodding in approval.

RAP WILL EAT ITSELF (OR: TO SERVE GUCCI MANE)

No Limit nostalgia may have reached its fever pitch with Usher and Young Thug's Billboard-charting paean to the golden age of The Tank. Time to move on. Today's accelerated culture is ripe for an outbreak of Gucci Mane nostalgia. If "Swing My Door" is any indication, it's only a matter of time before young rappers, no longer content to merely run with his style, sink their talons into the themes, titles, and ad libs of his back catalog.

No Limit and Cash Money nostalgia consisted mainly of millenials reaching out toward a faded era of their youth. That the artists and music were accessories rather than actors is obvious if one remembers that people still don't give a shit about what Turk is doing. Gucci is as wanted and desired as he's ever been.

What fuels the nostalgia? Retrospective appreciation for his 2008 and 2009 hot streak? Anxiety that the drug-addled pudgeball we all loved is irrevocably changed? Or is it the persistent suspicion that the original model Radric Davis was murdered and cloned by the Bilderberg Group? Soon, perhaps, our nostalgia for the Original Gucci Mane will be all that remains—assuming, of course, they leave our memories unaltered. Hang on to your tinfoil snapbacks, folks.

Nostalgia trip #2: In the song's latter half, a bunch of MPA Weed Carriers trade verses like they're taking it back to the leather-man era. Rap: the only context where finishing each other's sentences isn't totally lame.

DANCEHALL MUSIC HYSTERIA: INTERROGATING DA NATURE OF KONSHESNESS

Wa gwan, penisclots? DANCEHALL MUSIC HYSTERIA! back in this bitch. Like you, I ignored Konshens for a hot minute, solely on the account of his poorly chosen name. Konshens sounds like some Soundbombing reject shit you'd find in a Fat Beats .99-cent bin circa '02. Ima pass on that one, B.

Turns out he actually got some jams! The riddim on "Bruk Off Yuh Back" sounds kind of like that Gyptian candlewax melter from a while back, except the lyrics is more saturnalian than gooey. Chuuuch. Wassup with the video tho? It begins with a minute-long episode wherein a young, jean-shorted man is led into a remote swamp by hoodlums with a machete and handgun, like a strange marriage of Deliverance and Shottas.

Fortunately, Dread Beatty manages to escape his would-be anal pillagers. Avoiding potential death and certain butt rape, our boy stumbles upon a random dance in the middle of the forest. They got a big-ass speaker cabinet, and no obvious power sources, so I guess they got a generator or something? It's a feast of flesh, and I ain't just talkin about the curry they barbecuin. Skinny broads, thick broads, and everything in between let dem cheeks clap while Konshens looms nonchalantly in the background, croonin his lil slick talk while dressed like a Goldman Sachs associate on a Hamptons summer retreat.

 If he wasn't in the dancehall game, he'd probably have a key knee-deep in investment management.

Everyone's gettin loose until our protagonist's hatin' ass dream-killing buddy pours water on his face and clips the gossamer strands of this divine reverie. Bubble-bursting dickhead with his capri-pant jorts, let my man concuss in peace. Was it all a dream? Did homeboy actually get violated? Do faeries and forest nymphs exist? Over two minutes of outtake dancing close out the video on some Inception shit, and we're left with the kind of ambiguity critics be bustin nuts over.

 We don't talk to capris.

For any of my degenerates who find "Bruk Off Yuh Back" too puritanical, there's a more explicit version called "Bruk Off Mi Cock." Finally, the penile fracture has its own anthem; if you squint your eyes a little, "Detachable Penis" has its successor.

KNEE-SLAPPIN IN THE TRUNK

I got the ratchet in my toolbox / I'm fuckin' thots in my tubesocks!

Despite a long history of eccentricity, the Bay Area's next gen are a remarkably buttoned down bunch. Mozzy is a goth kid. Kamaiyah's greatest strength is her ability to re-contexualize worn conventions. Nef the Pharoah owes as much to Wiz's stultifying stonerisms as he does his Vallejo forebears.

For those of you who like your slaps paired with yuks, who have given up waiting on Ezale's Cambodian Democracy, I recommend the modest output of Sonniebo, the Blowfly to YouTube comedian Lewis Belt's Clarence Reid. Though lacking the mystery of a fully immersive character, Sonniebo is a parody act that pulls off an impressive trick: redirecting itself around the Dr. Demento cul-de-sac, it ends up legitimately good. Local stalwarts Marshawn Lynch, Mistah F.A.B., and Juneonnabeat have abetted the giggles at various points. When they made the delicate transition from YouTube comedian to YouTube rapper, Steven Jo and Deshawn Raw didn't get co-signs like this!

Is it symbolic of our end times that most of my current favorites are novelty dance songs? As our world circles the drain, RAP MUSIC HYSTERIA! will be there, breadfruiting and tip-toeing across the flames like a slightly less megalomaniac Nero.

THE FIRST TRANSGENDERED RAPPER!

Much to Lord Jamar's chagrin, progressives still long for the emergence of a gay rap planet. With due respect to Le1f and Caushun, the first gay rapper was a woman (no Latifah). He was transgendered (no Big Freedia). He also didn't exist.

Much has been made of DJ Screw's avant-garde pedigree; less has been said about his experiments in gender deconstruction. As a young pimp on the ski slopes of Jackson Hole, one of my bunnies introduced me to a now well-worn explication of lady rappers. "Ayo," she said as she shredded some buttery pow. "Lil' Kim is dope cause she rap about the same shit a man rap about. She appropriating machismo 'n' shit!" Mind: blown. I nearly skied into a tree.

By now, expressions of lady loin-lust are taken for granted. But it still gives pause to hear a hardened homothug outta Brooklyn talkinbout, Could he come over right fast and fuck my pretty ass? / I'll pass / Nigga, the dick was trash. Inverted, the anthem of a woman asserting her right to cunnilingus becomes a campy gay song about eating ass.

Call Screw an avant-gardist all you want. The argument bears out, but it's applying a European tradition to a wholly American artist. The avant-garde is a German in pancake makeup wearing triangles on his head. It's contrived weirdness. Screw was more nuanced because he worked within a folk-cum-popular vein. And as with the invention of a nonexistent transgender rapper, it's what made him a truly transgressive artist.

THE ANNOTATED BALLGREEZY

Talk slander on RAP MNUSIC HSYTERIA! all you want. We are, and will continue to remain, the number one source of BallGreezy news and analysis on the net! This post is gonna get a little Coconut Grove Grapevine on ya ass, so we're going to divide it into digestible components. Chuuuch.

ABSTRACT
BallGreezy returns with his best song since "Shone" or "Jook Wit Me." Or does he? On repeat listens, it sounds more like a world-weary "Lifestyle" rip than escape from jook bastille. Jim Jones plays wingman, proving once again that he needs a Cam or Biggavelz to bring out the Capo gold.

REAL MIAMI? WHAT REAL MIAMI!?
It's a cliche that rap videos are full of lies and cliche, but ya bougainvillea can bring out concrete evidence in this instance. In the over-long intro, Jim Jones trots out the ol' "Yeah, y'all been to South Beach, but you haven't crossed that bridge and seen the real Miami!" trope that Trick Daddy and Trina seem to love so much. Only Trick Daddy was talking about real hoods, whereas the "Feel My Pain" video is shot in some of the nicest neighborhoods in Miami. Here's BallGreezy driving down scenic Coral Way (FIG. I), which is simply a MUST if you want to see cool overhanging jungle trees and shit.

FIGURE I

After taking in all those banyans, Greezy ends up in the hardscrabble Roads district. Next thing you know he's lavishing bae with ice water AND straws at Mary Brickell Village (FIG. II), an upscale mall in a rich yuppie neighborhood.

FIGURE II

 
Throughout the video he's tooling around Wynwood (FIG. III) on an ATV. Wynwood is an art-themed planned community designed by Tony Goldman, a late real-estate tycoon also known as the architect of SoHo. It's also where the vast majority of Miami rap videos are shot, because it's full of colorful "street art" and has become the new South Beach for Miami's bright young things. Wynwood was once a crack-infested Puerto Rican neighborhood, and still borders on some rough neighborhoods, but for all the capital it generates and receives, it might as well be a galaxy away. Or IDK, it might be Midtown, which is the same thing as Wynwood except dumber. So what "real Miami" is you really talkin' about, Jim Jones?

FIGURE III

NO MORE GRAFFITI!
Speaking of which, rap video directors need to stop trying to create "grit" by filming their subjects in front of graffiti. In almost every major metropolis, the graffiti hotbeds are neighborhoods populated by hip, young college graduates with a good amount of money and friends who went to art school. Rap video directors continue to use these neighborhoods because (a). they live in these neighborhoods, (b). they are stupid, (c). they are both.

FIGURE IV

This is BallGreezy standing in front of an abandoned, graffiti-ed motel-style apartment complex, which is probably the most authentically Miami thing about this video. To the right of his glorious dreads (also authentically Miamian), you can see the weird, ugly graffiti of UNIQ, who was recently conscripted into a beef between some New York and Miami writers. Elements of hip-hop, B! Graffiti has as much in common with acid-rock as hip-hop, but whatevskis. There were a few days of entertaining cross-outs, and a lot of barbs were traded on Instagram and YouTube, but it wasn't exactly CAP MPC vs. NYC. The beef was ultimately squashed in an electronic fashion, proving once again that adult men who write their nicknames in bubble letters on other people's property are basically stupid.

BLOOD ON THE WET WIPES

Does anyone actually miss the Old Kanye? The whole thing is a hopeful meme-in-waiting cooked up by the PR department of his Meet Dave brain trust. The Benz and a backpack concept was cool in theory, but it also meant he was palling around making terrible music with Talib Kweli and Mos Def. That turned into making terrible music with John Mayer and Daft Punk, which turned into terrible music with Hudson Mohawke and the Travis Scott replicant, so basically there's been a linear progression from Old to New. It's the least compelling rap dichotomy since T.I. vs. T.I.P. When you look back on the way he dressed, you realize he was just a fedora away from hanging out in the manga aisle showing off his rare Magic The Gathering cards. And yoooo, did the Old Kanye even exist??? Or was it just a wishful figment of our 'maginations? Ima wait for you to pick ya jaw up off the floor.

He can keep his leather pants and kilts. The only blip on the Kanye kontinuum I miss is the one where a Trick Daddy collaboration wasn't an insane proposition. It sounds exactly like the cut-and-paste job it is, but if you put it close to your ear like a seashell, you can hear it for what it was...a golden era! I'll take Trick's "Can't Say No" over Ian Connor's any day.

MY OWN FAKE FAKE SHORE DRIVE

The Midwest is a mystery to me. Chicago? Don't quite understand it. So it's New York with less assholes, more gun-related homicides, worse segregation, and horrible pizza? Y'all need to talk about yourselves some more. Get a Marty Scorsese for the promo department, Abel Ferrara if your money is short. But since half y'all rap bloggers never caught a body or pushed a key, I feel as qualified as anyone to discuss Chicago rap. Let's get it. Chuuuuuch.



RICO RECKLEZZ - KOOLIN IN HELL INTRO
This guy is definitely a moran, and he has those terrifying Joe Jackson devil eyebrows. His raps are hamfisted and catatonic. I used to sell drugs, that wasn't really my thing / Then I started robbin, like I hang with Batmane? Lol.

At times, however, an unremarkable rapper can come up with a line that isn't particularly clever or well written, but somehow embeds itself in your memory like the lyrical equivalent of an earworm. Trinidad James did it with, Pop a molly, I'm sweatin (Woo!). Bobby Shmurda did it with, I been sellin' crack since like the fifth grade! J. Cole did it, unfortunately, when he said, Dick so big, it's like a foot is in your mouth. That wasn't something I wanted to keep thinking about, but that's the nature of these things, you feel? Can't always choose what goes in the noodle. Rico Recklezz accomplishes this with the line, Fuck the bench / Coach, put a nigga in the game! The part about his sister getting shot is legitimately compelling. Add it to a nod-out beat that sounds like a goonish "Broke Boi," and we've got ourselves a 3/5 Mazda MPV blockbeater!



600BREEZY - 6IX HUNNED (FT. YOUNG $WAV)
600Breezy is one of Drake's regional rap friends, I guess? Ay Aubrey, you always welcome to write about your favorite internet discoveries on RAP MUSIC HYSGTERAI! We won't edit the soul out ya shit, jufeel? On "Guwop Flow," 600Beezy manages to capture some of the verbal peacockery of its namesake, but the comparison is ultimately the wishful thinking of an eager Daniel-san. What really excites me about this guy is he tapped the legend OJ Da Juiceman for three separate songs! That, and the fact he named his mixtape after George "Iceman" Gervin, suggests 600Breezy shares our reverence for marginalized rap stylists and pre-Jordan NBA history. Breezy, send me some clips!

STACKIN BREADFRUITS

With summer approaching, I gotta put my skis away and hit the pause button on the winter warz I be fightin in my soul. You might catch me on a December night in my Arc'teryx and Lugz, warming my frozen limbs by a dumpster fire in Hialeah with Rip the Jacker on repeat, but by June ya boy has transformed into the Mayor of Margaritaville.

The song of the summer probably won't be a rap song. As we all torture ourselves trying to find it, I'ma be listenin to Chi Ching Ching and sippin on some spiked moss. RAP MUSIC HYSTERIA is an extremely lucrative blog, but as a side hustle I work nights as a dispatcher for Miami's fourth largest yellow cab service. As I fill the dispatch room with caffeine farts, my man Waggy T been puttin me on to new sounds via his Friday night show on WEDR. This is where I first heard Don Andre's "Tom Cruise," which is better than most songs from last year. Chi Ching Ching appeared on the remix, and now he has a great song about eating breadfruit. Now that every other rap song is about taking prescription drugs, it's refreshing to hear these wholesome dancehall fellows extolling one of nature's many non-narcotic bounties. His new song "Nacho" is also very good and food-centric.

I thought dancehall was on a downward spiral once Vybz got locked up and the snoozefest known as Popcaan became its new poster boy, but now I'm so jazzed up I'm filling out paperwork to start my own breadfruit farm. Rap music's misogyny, homophobia, and glorification of violence have really been bothering me lately, so perhaps this site will soon be known as DANCEHALL MUSIC HYSTERIA!

BETTER THAN THE GODFATHER III

The obscure engine of the Rap Internet likes to get its rocks off playin power broker with the destinies of our favorite entertainers. Last year Future was fluffed to max engorgement. My guy was about to burst a blood vessel. This year it's Boosie. I can't front, Boosie been beltin them shits out like Ichiro in '04. Ya mans has enough trouble remembering to wear underwear in the morning, while Boosie turned his struggles into art. And yet as we all break out the kneepads, the work of another Baton Rouge rapper fresh offa murder rap has been ignored.

The Godfather has confessional raps, quality use of the Young Drovian multisyllabic rhyme scheme, a sample of the Godfather theme that somehow isn't super corny, and plenty o' that Baton Rougian boogie. On first listen, I assumed "My Youngin" was another NAMBLA-core ode to a rapper's young male friends, but it's actually about Chad Cain, the Cain Muzik Mafioso convicted of the charges that didn't stick to Mista Cain. The Godfather even got an erotic rap & bullshit candlewax dripper for all my lovermen out there! So for all my goons that keep they guns by the nightstand, right next to the Bible and the prophylactics, I recommend this new Mista Cain joint for thee!

GUESS WHO'S BIZZACK? STILL PRINTED SNOW ON SOME CLOTHES

FIGURE I

FIGURE II

With Cash Money nostalgia approaching peak levels, it's only a matter of time before we're inundated with fond remembrances of Urban Legend and Thug Motivation 101. While the Adebisi hat has yet to make a comeback, the Snowman shirt has already made cameos in two recent Rocaine videos.  On first glance, I thought the gentleman in the background of the "BWB" video was proudly showcasing his vintage Snowman tee, but closer inspection revealed multiple alterations made to the original design. Prior to this, Rocaine wore a similar shirt in the "Rubberbands (Chicken Chicken)" video (Three 6 nostalgia in half effect!).

Is this official Rocaine merchandise or a plug for a homie's clothing line? And are the alterations made to the Snowman protected under law as a form of parody? While I'm happy to see the Snowman shirt return, I can't say I'm a fan of the revisions made to the minimalist black-and-white of the original design. Perhaps it's a confirmation of what I've been saying all along: Jeezy needs to reissue the Snowman shirt!

DISNEY CHANNEL IS THE 567TH ELEMENT OF HIP-HOP

Nickelodeon pandered to the urban set in the '90s, but Disney Channel been all about da hip-hop since the days of Hopsin and Alyson Stoner. This catchy and grating slice of Gambinocore samples the Little Einsteins theme song, which I guess is a cartoon program about little shitheads who think they're better than you. Not to get judgey, but these guys would have to be 17 or 18 years old max to have watched that show without it being weird. Lavishly Nasty, evidently Disney Channel obsessed, is old enough to reference Xenon: Girl Of The 21st Century (1999), so let's hope he has a little sister or something.

"Going On A Trip" uses the same formula that made "Hard Knock Life" ingenious or insufferable, depending on who you ask, riding the dissonance of adult-content raps paired with the squarest possible sample. Although Lavishly Nasty is Drake-ian in his adoption of the Migos Flow, relocating it from the trap to the essentially inoffensive act of getting high, concerned parents might want to protect their children from the video's wanton feast of male flesh. It's a sausagefest pool party, replete with hip-hop line dancing, fat white guys doing cannonballs, and more brightly colored tank tops than a late-period Zac Efron film. Definitely the best example of tank-top rap since Chance and Gambino raised their floral print boardshorts up the flagpole and let that shit flap in the wind.

NH(O)T BOYZ: EVERYBODY GET YA ROLL ON

Been traversing the past so intensely, I got snow in my goggles and missed out on 420 Project Vol. 2, the NhT Boyz mixtape that dropped last week. Honestly, ya boy ain't the biggest fan of weed raps. Its legalization in certain states, and the monetization of a formerly outlaw market, has turned getting high into a respectable pastime and career. Wiz Khalifa is Sammy Hagar singing about tequila. Snoop's blunt is Bob Hope's golf club.

But when a group is involved, the drain-circling of a man trapped by stage persona alchemizes into the excitement you felt when you and ya boys was rollin' lopsided joints in the back of a hooptie driven by a 35 year-old man named Jesús. It's a rap truism: the tight-knit group is always greater than the solo artist. The tape sags toward the end, but not before pandering to my taste with two Cash Money homages. Ima leave it to this Soundcloud user to describe the sound of NhT Boyz breaking into the "Get Your Roll On" chorus:

Groups planning to make another mixtape about smoking weed, please consider writing a concept album about steak and shrimp.

STILL RIDING IN MY TIME MACHINE: 2ND ENTRY

Wassup to all my my hogs 'n' hasas. Excuse me while I dust all this 2009 dust off my cryogenically frozen shoulder. Let that shit thaw and drip into the 2015 snow I still got on my Rossignols. Yes, ya boy been skiin' through time again. Here are some of the songs I found while I was fallin down the moguls, sinkin in the powder, laid up in the gondola with two bad highlander bitches and a bottle of Vicks VapoRub.



X.O. - OFF THE LOT FT. RIZZO & SOSAMANN (2015)
File this one next to Jose Guapo's "Run It Up" under Catchy Raps I Missed In 2015. Every generation gets the car anthem it deserves. As 1999 had "85," as 2002 had "Hot Wheels," as 2004 had "Still Tippin," as 2006 had "Chevy Ridin' High"—2015 had "Off The Lot." And I slept on it!




DELWIN THE KRAZYMAN - SWIGGIN REMIX FT. MOUSE ON THA TRACK & T MCK (2009)
Delwin The Krazyman is a Baton Rouge rapper with a great rap name. Now I ain't know how truthful his epithet is, but what is krazy is the amount of death that surrounds him. But couldn't that be said about rap in general, and Baton Rouge rap in particular?

Delwin rose to prominence with "Mobbin' on Em," a catchy "Triggaman" freak featuring the late Nu$$ie, shot to death by the same kid behind Boosie's murder charges. Although it was rumored that Boosie set a bounty on Nu$$ie, ADA Dana Cummings of the East Baton Rouge Parish set the record otherwise: "The word on the street was that Boosie would pay $25,000 for Nussie’s execution. It was word on the street. That’s all. Mike Louding didn’t even know Boosie at that time, had not met him, but took it upon himself to, I guess, win his admiration and obtain the $25,000." Smh at this Rap Game John Hinckley.

Delwin later collaborated with CeddyBu, the aptly named Rap Sumo, whose 650 lbs. may have tipped the scales against Big Pun's longstanding claim to the title Most Morbidly Obese Rapper Of All Time (The MMOROAT). Shockingly, CeddyBu did not die from obesity-related complications. He died in a car crash at the age of 24.

"Swiggin" is a song about getting fucked up, featuring national treasure Mouse On Tha Track. Let's hope Delwin's Atuk-style curse does not continue. Last year he released Amerikkka's Most Wanted: Reloaded, which has beautiful cover art, a lot of old material, and very little promotional information available. A review of the first Amerikkka's Most Wanted is mysteriously unavailable on FrankieThaLuckyDog'z website. Given that Frankie is writing what amounts to an Infinite Jest of contemporary Baton Rouge rap, might this be a waggish lacuna designed to drive his most ardent fans to wild flights of speculation? Or did Frankie delete the entry in a fit of pique inspired by some real or perceived slight from Delwin or the Baton Rouge rap community at large? I hope I never know the truth.

RAP GAME CRAZY, YADADAMEAN? STILL FINDING SLAPPS FROM 2015

Life is too short to listen to trash music just cause it came out in 2016. Lately I been feelin tha grim reaper breathin his stank breath on my neck, lookin over my shoulder tryna clown on my thirstiest DMs, and I realized I got tha entire corpus of recorded music at my fingertips. Shit's a continuum, you feel? Ain't no straight line blazing into the future, leavin the past in flames. We some flâneurs amblin through time, scanning ahead and watching our backs—lookin up for the time-birds droppin digital shits on our futuristic mohawk, checkin the obsolete code disintegrating on our deconstructionist Keds. Now pleezbaleev I ain't gonna go all fu-fu on ya ass and start listening to one of them wig-wearin pantaloon breeches ass 18th century Eurotrash bitch boiz diddling harpsichords and shredding harps. Baby steps, my G. Let's look back on some rap from 2015.

CHIPPASS - IDGAF (2015)



I got ya lady buggin, she crawl to me / She on my bone, I'm a thug, nice harmony

As a member of NhT Boyz, Chippass released some of the best raps of the past decade. Not that many people cared. Chippass's solo material is slightly more boilerplate-regional than his work with the Boyz. As to be expected, it lacks that rare symmetry of a group locking into the same plane, but effective networking and fun HBK-style cartoons depicting Chippass as former Atlanta Brave and Sandy Hook truther Chipper Jones might help him pop. Marketing: the 6th pillar in the temple of hip-hop!

How come Ezale seems poised to break out nationally, and Chippass is still on the local grind? Someone holla at Lord Jamar or DJ Akademiks to discuss this egregious example of AZN PRIVILEGE!

LA4SS - JAYSON TATUM (2015)



Bitch I eat my shrimp and steak in gravy / And I got crack just like the '80s

La4ss is the hottest thing to come out St. Louis since King Chingaling. Sometimes he raps in the standard post-drill + generic trap vein a lot of young rappers seem to favor. Other times he rap-sangs like Durk, or Dej, or even Kamaiyah! On "Jayson Tatum," La4ss situates himself in the pantheon of two venerable rap institutions: the surf-n-turf banger, the athlete apotheosis. Rather than mythologizing an established talent like Lil Cray on "Kyrie Irving," La4ss keeps it forward-thinking and local, invoking the name of St. Louis high-schooler and future Dukie Jayson Tatum. Futuristic swag indeed, but let's keep shit un-Bambaata and draw the line at ballers of legal age. Thank god the modern pederast innanet wasn't around to record "Ballin Like Kendall Marshall" in 2002.

IT'S A WAYNE SZALINSKI HIGH

Huzzah! The Stresmatic video I've been waiting on has arrived, forsooth! When the 16-second trailer arrived on April 1st, I wondered if it wasn't all an elaborate April Fools joke. Nevertheless, I was inspired enough to jot down the following lines in my Jay Electronica moleskine: "Promises to be the best video of the year (or at least the best Bay Area use of green screen since DB's 'Gas Chamber'). Prayin for a Rick Moranis cameo, but I'll settle for Bug Hall."

Promise fulfilled. The concept is simple: Matic smokes cannabis so potent he shrinks down to the size of common household objects. Finally a video for those of us who get p-noid off the herb. Might be the first rap video featuring a bottle of Dove Moisturizing Conditioner; definitely the first rap video to feature a rapper riding a sponge. But yo, I can't say it no better than Thizzler's youngMONC, who summarizes the video as "a whole bunch of Stresmatic gigging all over the place."

Matic The LP remains one of my favorite releases of the year.  The kids can have their Lil Boat and I can have mine. So what if I think his reductivist genre games have more in common with the smart-dumb absurdism of Motörhead or the Ramones than Wesley Willis? At the end of the day, we all sniffin from the same pot of glue.

TENGO MAMIS EN ATLANTA

Rap Music Hysteria is more than a blog. It's a safe space. A judgment-free zone where we can admit shameful secrets and indecent desires. In 7th grade I hit the state bird with a rock. The A$AP Ferg song about buying shovels bodies everything on the radio right now. I enjoy these songs. Now that I've earned your trust, let me ask: Would you like "Panda" if it was a Future song? Do you have to hide the lean and the Fanta when your friends come over, for fear that you'll be lectured on how the song is an ironic sign of the way the wind blows in the rap culture wars? Do you just wanna hit off licks in the bando without considering notions of appropriation, authorship, and intellectual property? If you're anything like me, you want to let the choppa go Oscar for Grammy without some ghoul sliding up with a gleeful smirk and the yearly announcement that New York rap is really dead this time.

Alas, poor Desiigner! Thrust into the fire of public discourse when he was just a teenager tryna swing on the bozack of a popular rapper. He and Lil Yachty are the frontrunners for 2016's White Iverson Award, but let's not forget that Rich Homie Quan was dismissed as a Future jizzock around the time "Type Of Way" hit. For those of us who want to enjoy "Panda" without all the baggage, I recommend the far superior reggaeton remix featuring Almighty, Farruko, Daddy Yankee, and Cosculluela. It's entirely guilt-free, unless your Spanish is bad because your teacher was a queer woman who made you dance the pasodoble with another dude. Daddy Yankee is rapping about Netflix and The Matrix and Elvis, so you can sing along even if you don't know what it mean.

I'M BACK AT IT *JOOKMAN VOICE*: MORE FLORIDA RAP!

The past couple of months have been rough on rap fans. Bankroll Fresh was killed. Phife Dawg passed. Now we learn Afrika Bambaata was allegedly diggin in tha grapes of a Zulu warrior-cub. Florida hasn't had it much better. Our ball teams got bounced from the tourney, we lost a smoove architect, and Marco Rubio suffered the worst treatment a Miamian got from a Queens cat since Officer Ricky's cartoon drubbing on ThisIs50.com. So don't ask me why I'm mothafuckin stressed, mean-muggin watching drill videos and wondering why God took Young Pappy instead of Papa John!

Like Uncle Murda recovering from getting shot in the head, ya boy been nursing his wounds with Newports and Henroc—that and classic Florida rap songs. These mostly encompass the jook era (mid and late-2000s), with a heavy emphasis on Tampa and Polk County artists amidst the usual Miami-Dade and Broward County representatives. Can't forget about Treal from Orlando, or T-Pain coming out of Tallahassee with Nappy Headz. Some were legitimate local hits. Some hit on a more grassroots level. Some have endured far beyond their moment, galvanizing specific lives, places, and groups—classics in the most meaningful sense, even if their reach went no further than an area code or two. Others IDK about. Think of it as a companion piece to my Greetings From The Gunshine State compilation: the Pippen to its Jordan, the King Of Comedy to its Taxi Driver, the shingles to its chicken pox. Life is hard and potentially meaningless, but poppin booties and beans can make it seem worthwhile while you're here.

Acafool - Hata Blockas (2006)
Ballgreezy - Jook Wit Me [Fast] (2008)
Bizzle - Lip Biting Animal (2006) 
Black Dada - Imma Zoe (2008)
Brisco - Just Know Dat [ft. Flo-Rida & Lil Wayne] (2008)
Chad - Slide (2008)
C.O.A. Legacy - Wign (2008)
Don-P - Gone Jook (2009)
DJ Rhymer - Yamaha (2011)
DJ Toedoe - Wign (2008)
DJ Trans - Get It Ma Get It (2007)
Haitian Bop - Stickin & Ridin (2010)
Ice Berg (a.k.a. Ice Billion Berg) - I'm The Shit (2008)
Javon Black - Shawty Tear It Up [Ft. Lil Kee & Strizzo] (2008)
K Kutta - Who Run This (2009) 
Khia - Don't Trust No Nigga (2002)
Krazy - Don't Wanna Leave The Club (1999)
Miami Boys - Let's Get Freaky (2006)
Militant Military - Mz. All Da Way Live (2008)
Nappy Headz - FLA (2002)
Nappy Headz - Robbery (2002) 
Oak Hill Boyz - Paralyzed (2005)
Rated R - In Here Ta Nite (2002)
Reese Head - Bounce Dhatt Ass (2010)
Reese Head - Dhatt (2009)
Sojo (a.k.a. Lady Sojourner) - Do The Thick Girl (2010)
Steven Da Guy - Body Right [Fast] (2009) 
Tae Bae Bae - Teco (2011)
Tampa Tony - Take It Back Hoe (2006) 
Tom G - City Boy Wit It (2003)
Tom G - Hunnid Roundz (2014)
Treal - I'm Not Locked Down (2007)
Young Fella - I'll Pay For It (2008)