Blood Orange - “Benzo” (Blood Orange)
Whatever universe this song tears a hole into mid-chorus is one that I could never survive in, but can’t stop thinking about: that five second peek into some orchestral Outside is reality-shattering.
Lil Dude & Xanman - “Let Me Hold You (G-Mix)”
Absolutely critical art in 2019. Why does Xanman talk about a Triller for a minute in the middle of the song? Is it better for your gun to be compared to Rod Wave or Selena Gomez? Has there ever been a better placed Lion King reference in rap? I have answers to absolutely none of these questions but I do know that this is, down to the second, the precise ideal form that nostalgic art ought to take: it preserves everything pretty, it is at least 10% non-serious, and name-drops at least 5 premier ‘90s fashion houses with at least 3 in one bar. Absolutely elite stuff.
Kossisko - “Cardio”
“code switch / immigrant whips” the hardest rhyme anyone had this year who wasn’t Xanman (and Kossisko the coolest person on Euphoria this year after Hunter Schafer and Zendaya in that order)
Young Thug - “Mannequin Challenge” (J. Cole & T-Minus)
The absolute best part of Young Thug presumably shrugging and making a Normal Major Label Album is that it’s still 19 songs long and still has two Lil Duke features and a subdued meditative intro, aka, essentially a normal Thug album that happens to have a J. Cole single tagged on the back. I would pay lots to see what numbers JEFFERY might have done in So Much Fun’s place in the alternate universe where “pick up the phone” doesn’t get leaked.
A couple weeks after the absolute intoxication of seeing Young Thug at the #1 spot of the charts with Taylor Swift it is a bit clearer that So Much Fun is kinda still in that below-Barter 6 / Rich Gang and alongside the better Slime Seasons territory - kinda like the Keed album this year, there aren’t many skips, if any, but there are definitely inessential tracks, and the most unhinged thing here now has a Machine Gun Kelly feature and ultimately kinda sounds like Thug trying to be unhinged rather than him actually flying off the hook. But still man what in the absolute - this was the #1 album in the country, and Gunna is rapping over “Middle Child” x Lord of the Rings by track 4. Juice WRLD somehow sounds like God or Young Thug in 2015, whichever one you care about more.
Jon Caramanica and Noz riffing back and forth on Thug’s career on Popcast this week is essential for all the obvious reasons, but I would posit that the key thing they both kinda wash over is how absolutely posed Thug was to get 70% of the way to mainstream pop pre-15/16 leaks. Most of the really critical tracks ended up on Slime Seasons eventually, but it’s still hard not to think about both A) how unbelievable a Hy!£UN35 with “Udiggwhatimsayin” and “Mine” and “Pacifier” and “Proud of Me” might have been but also B) how transformative it would have been for Thug’s internal feedback loop to shift from “all of my life’s work has been dissipated across kanyetothe.com” to “I rapped over a discount YG beat and it ended up brilliant”. All this to say - this is the accessible album Thug finally relented and made, but it’s very different from the accessible album that was lined up back in 16. I, for one, am thankful that the hyper non-linear path of Thug’s career has led us to “totally dude”
Skooly - “Lil Boy Shit” (Quay Global)
This song sounds like a typhoon. So fire
Baby Keem - “Invented It” (Ambezza, Baby Keem & Kenny Beats)
wince hate to say it, but a lot of the peaks on the second Keem album are 2 minute long interpolations of 10 second Kendrick clips. To be clear Lil Keed is top 5 this year and Gunna rapping over “oriental strings loop youtube search” is top 2 and it’s not 2 - so I don’t particularly have a vendetta against derivative rap music nor do I think that would be a coherent philosophy to have about music - but yes, “FRANCE FREESTYLE” and “BULLIES” are the 2 ways a Kendrick song ends up post beat switch so it’s not not getting called out. And maybe if “INVENTED IT” didn’t come in hot with the gut punch so early in the album I’d be more down on the whole affair, because it feels like the most coherent thesis statement of the Keem thing: it is also is a Kendrick riff, but just absolutely juiced up with adrenaline and thrown at 103 miles per hour all the way into orbit, which is a thing that even the most kinetic Kendrick singles post-2016 don’t really manage. “DNA” still sucks. “INVENTED IT” is a very circular and round song and just kinda rapidly spins in circles or less than a minute and a half; I love it so much
Pi’erre Bourne - “Poof” (Pi’erre Bourne)
Upset I can’t magick a purple cassette of this tape back to the ‘90s and blow out a Walkman
Triad God - “Chinese New Year” (Organ Tapes)
BandCamp comments said “this album feels like having a hallucination while walking through a Chinese parade”,,,,, BandCamp comments a better writer than I’ll ever be
Mach-Hommy - “Chiney Brush” feat. Quelle Chris
I am in Vienna alone rn and it’s 60% exhilarating and 40% an exhausting exercise of learning where exactly the finite bounds of your brain lie - flinging thought after thought into the abyss and seeing how long they take to ricochet back up, and in what form they’ve been returned to you, and in the meantime back in reality it’s museum museum castle schnitzel. Twenty-four after twenty-four with yourself means little space for inanity. In any case I am finding that this is the only music that helps unravel that mental density, wirey Mach Hommy raps that amble below cobblestone: these are semi-inebriated words coming from nowhere that only occasionally go somewhere, and that is something I can get behind