60% is more than half of 100%, if you were wondering. If the start of this playlist scares you then skip down to The Internet everybody loves The Internet. This is the most I have ever loved music in my life I hope this helps you feel the happiness I feel.
1. RetcH - "Dubs & Losses" feat. Roc Marciano (Grimm Doza)
river-of-Styx-core
2. JayDaYoungan - "Best Friend"
it's a lot of these rappers from Louisiana chasing the ghost of "No Smoke" — beyond amazing to hear someone lock into the sphere of darkness below that
3. Lil' Baby Suplex - "Pop Star" (Deeb)
pop star!!!!
4. Yung Bans - "Word On Da Street" (MexikoDro)
this some red cover Carti level SoundCloud out-the-basement type music
5. AzSwaye - "Dead Homies" feat. Desto Dubb (JoogFTR)
Swaye in a constant state of exhale and on a rampage. also he the truth.
6. YG - "Power" feat. Ty Dolla $ign (Cito on the Beat & DJ Mustard)
I'm running a Ty Dolla $ign fanclub off the iMessage lemme know if u wanna get in
7. Euro Gotit - "Kodak Dat" feat. Gunna (Rocktee)
audio hammer
8. YNW Melly - "Virtual (Blue Balenciagas)" (EY3ZLOWBEATZ)
the song of the year. the dexterity is beyond icy. Peak Melly — this, "Legendary" — it's not a lot of rappers in this world who can click melodies into each other, exploit pockets. It's like Thug in 2014, who sounded like he couldn't utter words without them swinging into 8-bar hooks.
9. GlokkNine - "10 Percent" (Sour K)
whatever he's beyond an excellent rapper. But I'm screaming I want ten percent of everything until my grave
10. Nef the Pharaoh & 03 Greedo - "Ball Out" feat. ALLBLACK (DTB)
my energy rest of 2018 is ALLBLACK thanking Nef and Greedo all over this EP. Nef is suddenly one of the highest octane rappers on the planet, by the way.
11. Starlito - "Where I've Been" (Bandplay & D Holt)
I refuse to write about this
12. D-Lo - "Thugged Out" feat. 03 Greedo & OMB Peezy
you think they have enough throwaways for a Greedo Peezy tape?
13. Lil Dude - "Only Option" feat. Hoodrich Pablo Juan (Spiffy Global)
I have listened to this more in the last week than I've listened to anything in any week this year. Spiffy got beat of the year off the chords
14. Lil Got It - "All Season" feat. Lil Keed (10fifty)
voice gets diced up here like it's being delivered into the damn void. Real black hole music.
15. Foolio - "Crooks" (Zaytoven)
he's tossing out these freestyle off-the-top flows at 1.5x normal speed like it's regular, growling the whole way.
16. Mozzy - "Do It for Dooterz"
Mozzy still got one of the most perfectly jagged flows in the whole world, like you dropped a piece of glass and it shattered perfectly zigged and perfectly zagged. He's pogo-sticking across this one
17. Quando Rondo - "I Remember" feat. Lil Baby (Go Grizzly & Pooh Beatz)
0:58-1:07
18. Rod Wave - "Boom"
really just one of those voices, one of those special Chance or Gates ones. Just listen to how he pounces a half second early like he can't wait.
19. LNDN DRGS - "Hop Out (Remix)" feat. Curren$y (Sean House)
Curren$y still top 10 good lord. Pilot Talk energy.
20. The Internet - "It Gets Better (With Time)" (The Internet)
the album probably lacks the sharpness and the quickness that Ego Death had but this a bag. Who taught Syd how to do the '90s R&B "sing the same line over and over to build momentum during the hook" thing that's not fair.
21. Knxweldge & Roc Marciano - "jstletmebme_" (Knxwledge)
1+1 equals 10, apparently
22. tsar of gamble - "ricochet" (tsar of gamble)
unspeakably good song, sounds like an 8pm daydream. here, for more.
23. Sen Morimoto - "People Watching" (Sen Morimoto)
the horns swell, then they zip themselves back down into a pinpoint. It's a love song, a wild cute one, intercut by asides — "I write songs everywhere I go, everywhere I land" — that segue right back into the same throughline ("she was dancing, clapping her hands").
24. ARTHUR - "Scared" (ARTHUR)
carousel music plunged underwater that explodes. Expands time, too, because no way this under two minutes.
25. 03 Greedo - "Buckhead" feat. Key!, Runway Richy, Mal & Quill & ManMan Savage (Go Grizzly & Pooh Beatz)
ok ok I know it's not the one but maybe there's more than just one! Also Greedo said "you know who I am/I'm a flu flamm" so this instant upper echelon.
26. Travis Scott - "Stop Trying to Be God" feat. Kid Cudi, James Blake & Stevie Wonder (Cubeatz, JBeatzz, Mike Dean & Travis Scott)
ok ok I'm a Travis Scott stan ok
27. Lil TJay - "GOAT"
I think to be objective — Boogie was better at this early junction of his career. But he also needed to resort to the same pejorative to even get through an eight bar verse, and TJay already lightning quick with the thunder one-liners.
28. BLACK KRAY - "AMONGST THE DEAD" (Greafer)
I listened to this for the first time today and can't stop thinking about it.
29. Future - "31 Days" (Zaytoven)
"moment of clarity" is exactly what this is like. It's a four minute version of that thing that happens in Saturday morning cartoons when everything goes black and white and fuzzed out and the main character eyes get wild big and pulse-y and their inner voice goes all echo-y, like on Pokémon. I would say "anime" but I can't claim that part of my culture I'd be living a false life.
30. Drake - "Blue Tint" feat. Future (!llmind, JRHITMAKERS, Supah Mario & Taz Taylor)
to be very clear, we are playing zero of this "if Scorpion was thirteen tracks..." game because I've been canvassing for Young Thug 2024 for the past half-decade and my Young Thug unreleased album on iTunes is now 160 songs deep. I am also playing zero of this "'Sicko Mode' is harder than anything on Scorpion" game because 1) that is the most obvious manifestation of a given person's insecurity about publicly liking a Drake album and 2) my lord did you listen to this song? It's golden
31. Steve Hauschildt - "Saccade" feat. Julianna Barwick (Steve Hauschildt)
Song makes me feel weird I like it
32. Ross from Friends - "Family Portrait" (Ross from Friends)
This song makes me feel even weirder, like real signal scrambled, I like it more
33. Roddy Ricch - "Fucc It Up" (Ice Starr)
true pinnacle of the "yeah, yuh" here
34. Teyana Taylor - "3Way" feat. Ty Dolla $ign (Kanye West, Mike Dean & Rodney Jerkins)
yes, this is the best album of the bunch. Again - Ty Dolla $ign fan club sign ups open now, by the time you all catch up to Beach House 3 being the album of 2017 sign ups will be closed.
35. BBY GOYARD - "run shannon run (SABONIS)" (gosuto & tyson)
probably the hardest thing on this list
36. Yungeen Ace - "Pain"
this is not the type of Future-on-Monster type of pain that you can zoom out of, that you can watch through the glass. This type of pain needs gloves, too sharp to handle with bare hands. It is overwhelming, and beautiful music.
37. Chief Keef - "Belieber" (K.E. on the Track)
"I remember back in '94/wait, I was born in '95 though" is, A), the funniest thing any rapper not named Vince Staples has said all year. But also this whole emotion is one I'm really here for this month — how some of the songs here ("ricochet" the prime) build domes of nostalgia over you and project memories you don't have onto the ceiling.
38. Jorja Smith - "Goodbyes" (Ed Thomas)
I listened to this album for the first time on a long car ride, when I was moving from the city I spent my first twenty-one years in to the one that I live in now. It was a big car ride, the type of car ride that draws out a reality too heavy to process at once, the type of car ride you fall asleep for to escape reality. So I fell asleep for most of this with this album on repeat, but the type of sleep where your eyes droop but flutter open without you realize, where you're not really seeing but the images around you seep into your dreams. I had a dream where I watched this song performed as the national anthem, so from now on to me it's the national anthem and Jorja Smith is everybody's president.
39. Busdriver - "pull the sky closer" (Busdriver)
I'm not sure why but this song kinda reminds me of that Jay-Z "Forever Young" with the singer who didn't have a period after the "Mr" in his name, the one we really wanted to sing at our eighth grade graduation but the principal made us sing the original. This sounds like that one but way weirder and yes I promise I'm almost done here.
40. Kids See Ghosts - "Reborn" (Dot Da Genius, E*Vax, Kid Cudi & Plain Pat)
And this one just makes me eighth grade happy. If you had it in your cold heart to dislike this album you're in my prayers tonight.