1. Allan Kingdom - "The Ride" (Allan Kingdom & Plain Pat)
the hook here timeless; you could just as easily see it camouflaged by a major lazer drop or transplanted onto a early-2000's top 40/alternative rock crossover. instead, it's on some insane spin-cycled "the reminder" by the weeknd and it's blinding
2. Young Clancy - "Always Have" (Young Clancy)
this one teeters and wobbles; it holds on just barely and then it tumbles (at 1:04) and it freezes me every time
3. Blu & Knxwledge - "DraginBreff" (Knxwledge)
as the years have passed, the signs of blu's brilliance have become fewer and more far between, indicated through the haze by the occasional resolution of fuzziness into sharpness. so this is that rare latter-stage blu song that is excellent not because of its hyper-realized abstraction, but instead from an eighty-eight second moment of clarity. "never say never to a kid with a pigment problem" still wildly poignant
4. Westside Gunn - "Rolack's" feat. Skyzoo (Camoflauge Monk)
too triumphant for 6pm and too halting for 2pm. i'm glad somebody gave westside gunn the circa-2010 formula for a 90+ on okayplayer -- we are all winners here
5. Nate Dae - "Mood Swings"
the snarl overstays its welcome over 12 songs, but stripped down to some weird inversion of bastard tyler and it's arresting
6. Lucki Eck$ - "Freewave 7" (K Swisha)
when the last time lucki made you dance?
7. Dominique - "Problems" (vartikar)
charisma is a gift (j. cole really built a career off it seven years ago while literally kicking toilet raps) and it is truly everywhere here
8. House of Pharaohs - "RWM (Run with Me)"
6. the british merlyn wood verse; 5. verse 5 (besides the part where he says "nike socks cocaine"); 4. verse 6; 3. verse 1; 2. verse 4; 1. the one where he says "jiminy cricket, i'm lucky" and then hits the carti-tier "yuh" sixteen lines in a row
9. Playboi Carti - "Let It Go" (Pi'erre Bourne)
i don't know man, the aesthetic is real powerful and the sound is so smothering that there is a person yelling intermittently as an adlib and i didn't realize until just this moment, nearly a hundred listens into this song, and that seems like the only testament anyone needs to hear about carti. also, if i ever use this defense for a song ever again somebody put my laptop into a trash compacter
10. Yung Lean - "Hunting My Own Skin" (Whitearmor & Yung Gud)
we gonna let ronny j hold up the rap scene of an entire state with a shrug and then tear down scandinavian travis scott just because yung gud the most important rap visionary since metro boomin'? i'm sick
11. Open Mike Eagle - "Legendary Iron Hood" (Exile)
12. milo - "Landscaping" feat. Elucid (Scallops Hotel)
tough to grapple with that entire 2014 generation of hellfyre club rappers (milo, busdriver, open mike eagle, nocando, etc.) rapping over objectively stronger and more nuanced production while making continuously less compelling music. maybe i just liked milo better when he kicked his dream raps over dream soundscapes. but i suppose part of the intended effect is that the heartbreak induced in these artists' music, when induced, is now backed by suitably emotionally-heartbreaking music, and what i am saying is that it is very difficult to argue with music this powerful
13. NxWorries - "Droogs" (Knxwledge)
[1:12 - 1:31]
14. SILVER - "Darling Don't" (Chris Plante & Daniel Alvarez De Toledo)
sometimes i wonder whether the musical rubric that we gravitate towards doesn't slap too strong of a multiplier on abstract lyricism, because there is absolutely nothing special about the words here but that seems so so so sufficient
15. Jay Som - "I Think You're Alright"
my college dorm last winter was in a yard (a quadrangle) separated from the rest of campus by a ten-minute walk but ten mental miles. my dorm window was on the second floor of a building that peered out over a quadrangle that stayed frozen and unmoving long after class bells began ringing. for two straight weeks, i would wake up to this song and refuse to get out of bed to this song and shower to this song and live my life to this song until it bled into my life. i found this on twitter two years ago while music was still hip-hop & everything else to me but it is still a quiet lightning bolt