Rapper Of The Month: Earl Sweatshirt (Sept. '23)

     September saw Doja Cat teeter the line between rap and pop in a phenomenal way, Lancey Foux release an infectious rage tape, Nas & Hit-Boy bore us to sleep for the 3rd straight album, Drake fumble another album rollout, while FLEE and Cash Cobain push their own drill hybrids deeper into the DNA of an irrepressible east coast youth movement. Despite the new blood itching to seal itself into the world, and the legends clawing for relevancy, the maturing establishment has kept it’s heels in the ground. Blog Era darlings have either switched to alternate job fields or burrowed deeper into themselves creating music that expresses character and self with a freedom their predecessors did not. For Earl Sweatshirt the quest for self has always been paramount through honest emotion and hazy philosophy.

    The end of August began a month-long siege that bled through September with Earl Sweatshirt returning again with a new LP off the back of his wide-spanning Sick!. VOIR DIRE is a venture handled in full by longtime friend and your favorite rappers favorite rappers favorite producer The Alchemist, with the original version being an 11 track NFT only release through upstart Gala Music. Combining the new tracks that exist on the streaming version (which will be out October 6th) with the NFT only cuts comes a 14 track album of swift poetry matched alongside the warmest earworms of Al’s career. It stands tall as one of the best albums this year, and is pushing Some Rap Songs as the best album in his discography. Earl's a guide with his words, holding pockets of history and philosophy to your face, giving you a chance to dive into them if you so choose. You can accept his raps on their face as the musings of a stoned 20-something or you can join him on a quest for understanding the human experience. The long clamored for “Black Emperor” is properly titled “My Brother The Wind”, and fits in snuggly on a record that is equal parts otherworldly and loving to Southern California. Tributes to the late Drakeo The Ruler ("Free The Ruler"), former Voice of the LA Dodgers Vin Skully ("Vin Skully"), and plays on Kobe Bryant’s split career numerology (by way of Vince Staples on "The Caliphate") as well as thank you’s to his family ("27 Braids") makes this the most hospitable record in Earls catalog. Vince Staples is featured on two streaming version records, both of which could go down as his most bone-chilling performances to date. You can go the length of the album being lulled by Alchemists loops and Earls laid out delivery, catching stray bars but still feeling lost in the shrouds. It’s a hot shower while high, a dive in the ocean after a long run; welcoming to those looking for relief within their relief. 

    An eleven date tour with MIKE and Black Noi$e is on the horizon, while destabilizing music videos (for "Sentry" and "The Caliphate") bring a subtle touch of discomfort to an otherwise hypnotizing event. Every r/hiphop fan has begged for this album since Alchemist hinted at it many years back. “Making The Band (Danity Kane)” was an honorable mention for Song Of The Summer, and the DORIS 10 year anniversary concert was a sold out smash leading to the closest thing to an Odd Future reunion since the groups last performance together in 2015. Thanks to the easy math based on guesstimations and the fluctuating NFT market the duo has been estimated by The Fader to have cleared between half a million and a million dollars off the album before tour and a proper streaming release factor in. Though the idea of Web3 and NFT integrated music streaming is one with proper pushback (environmental factors, ease of access, the moral questions of alternate currency) the duo took a risk into a world that leads to a bigger gain for themselves as creators. More questions of whether this is a novelty, a jaded cash grab, or the future of musical commerce will be answered in time, but for now it works to bring to the world an album once thought to be lost in the annals of YouTube. Earl has been at the forefront of hip-hop in subtle ways, finding the brightest gems before they’re even shined (MIKE, 454, Mavi) and now his business is moving as fast as his taste.

Written By: Anthony Seaman (@soflogemstone on IG & Twitter)

The Foundations: Gang Starr

The Foundations; an ongoing series highlighting legendary artists of the past with short breakdowns of their career and importance to contemporary hip-hop

Active: 1988-2006 (posthumous album 2019)

Guru Representing: Boston, Massachusetts

DJ Premier Representing: Houston, Texas

as Gang Starr: Brooklyn, New York City, New York

For Fans Of: Rakim, Mobb Deep, Black Thought, Killer Mike, J. Cole, Ab-Soul, Mach-Hommy, 21 Savage

    Beats blessed from God, the gruff monotone delivery of a cigar toting professor, and a multitude of righteous messages that only great poets hold. These were the first attributes of Guru that slapped me and every 90’s hip-hop purist in the face on first listen. The Boston born legend had a career centered around Gang Starr, though it took a rotating cast of early partners leaving the group for prison, traditional jobs or easier paths in other cities for the final lineup to be set with himself and DJ Premier. 

Premier was going by the name Waxmaster C producing for the Inner Circle Posse, a local rap crew in his hometown of Houston. When the lead MC decided to join the Army instead of pursuing music, Preemo was left without a vocalist for his beats. Through a mutual friend Preemo sent Guru a beat tape to his NY apartment which excited him, leading to the two linking up in Brooklyn where they would become roommates for most of their time as a duo. Over their multi-decade takeover the duo would create one of the most lauded discographies in hip-hop that still stand true to this day. The traditional “boom bap” sound that most people associate with 90’s New York was pioneered and perfected by the duo, along with an evolution of jazz rap that De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest had set the groundwork for a generation earlier. Modern artists like the Griselda crew, Evidence, Ab-Soul and The Alchemist have spoken about the influence the duo had on their own work from the beginning of their rap careers.

From album to album Premier worked to create different soundscapes for Guru to lay into. During their classic period from ‘91-’98 the duo created 4 albums that would shake the hip-hop universe at every release. Step In The Arena was the duo molding into their own style with traditional drum brakes laying the groundwork for Guru to give warnings of what the streets could lead to while never being too preachy while Preemo scratched vocals from records to double as hooks. Daily Operation is more experimental, playing with minimalism for Guru to be his most vivid, as he spent most of the record speaking of the ugly beauties of New York City. Hard To Earn is the speaker knocking, high flying flex of skill that only artists at the top of their game could perfect. Moment Of Truth was their big budget cinematic opus and dove harder than ever into themes of religion, repentance, and the bad side of the street as the duo was fearing their own demise. With Guru expecting heavy jail time for a gun charge on top of their already crumbling relationship fueled by Guru’s alcoholism, a stark ending seemed guaranteed. Moment Of Truth is the crown jewel of these albums with features that stretched across the music world, Guru experimenting with more consistent hook writing, and Premier pulling every trick out he could in fear he’d never be able to do them with his best friend again. Between these projects Guru would also act as a bandleader for his Jazzmatazz series bringing together classic jazz and R&B artists like Bob James, Ramsey Lewis, Chaka Khan and Roy Ayers among dozens of others.

Before Guru died of cancer in 2010 he was revered as one of the greatest MC’s of his time. He would bounce between street preacher, self help speaker, reformed gangster and your favorite uncle all in one verse with his deadpan delivery making each syllable hit your ears to be absorbed and processed. The stories were vivid, the records for clubs and women never came off as forced, and the aura he held never wavered whether it be on SP-12 chopped drums or live keys. His soul felt like it had peeped the lives of every living man and woman, taking their biggest lesson just to be translated back on record to those who needed it most. Every album they released came with at least a Gold Certification from the RIAA and music videos that stayed in rotation on every channel. The coldness 21 Savage’s delivery possesses, the bleeding heart J. Cole holds the affinity for, off the wall composition that ties together Westside Gunn and Mach-Hommy albums, Commons constant itch to progress and break new barriers, that’s all Guru. He’s the last man you’d want beef with and yet the first guy you’d call if trouble was knocking at your door. DJ Premier is the Ground Zero for nearly every producer that came after him, creating a sonic cosmos that the East Coast and nearly every one of it's legendary songwriters to exist within. Preem has worked with Nas, Jay-Z, The Notorious B.I.G., Rakim, Ludacris, Joey Bada$$, KRS-One, Royce Da 5'9, and dozens of other legendary MC's and singers that came before and after to him, creating music that lives in the most hallowed halls of rap history.

Album To Check: Hard To Earn or Jazzmatazz Vol. 2: The New Reality

Best Songs: “Mass Appeal”, “Just To Get A Rep”, “Above The Clouds” and “The Place We Dwell”

Written By: Anthony Seaman (@soflogemstone on IG & Twitter)

Songs Of The Summer 2023

The songs that defined and filled the air for the summer of 2023

1. Sexyy Red “Pound Town” / “SkeeYee"

For the people who don’t leave the house, hustle at that job everyday, or just don’t enjoy fun this is the last set of songs you want to hear. As a rapper Sexyy is simple and effective, she came for 2 reasons and both of them are all she talks about; money and having fun mostly by shaking ass and taking home whoever she wants. The beats are cavernous and equally simple creating a universe that only her style of frivolous and raunchy strip club ready rapping could fill. As much as she is a meme she’s also a star in the mold of Cardi B; a strip club queen turned internet darling who knows what she does and doubles down on it whether she’s side by side with Travi$ Scott or sliding on tour dates with Drake. But what seperates her from Cardi is that she isn’t (yet) doing things to appeal to wider audiences. The entire Hood Princess mixtapes is not meant for middle American consumption the way Cardi’s “Be Careful” is. It doesn’t aim for international crossover the way “I Like It” succeeded to do. It’s something for the streets, made by someone who has no interest in leaving them.

2. Gunna “Fukumean”

Claims of whether or not Gunna is a snitch and how the hip-hop community at large would accept him in the aftermath fall to the wayside with the one thing that cures all hatred and woes; a hit. Something about extra bouncy 808’s just hits the serotonin receptors in ways man has not found the proper words for. Toss on a choir that can act as a call to your friends across the room and you have a hit on your hands that not even a near life altering prison sentence can change. In the context of this comeback album “fukumean” hits even better than as a standalone record, with a transition into the equally inviting “rodeo dr.” tickling those same receptors all over again. Has Gunna had bigger songs? For sure. But having anything reach this level after a year where your world revolved around being shuttled from cold prison cells and to media filled courtrooms, all applause is good applause.

3. Veeze “Not A Drill” / “GOMD”

Are you half drunk in the club right now? Good. Are you in the backseat of someone you just met Nissan Altima hotboxing like it isn’t a lease? Good. Are you dozing off after you’ve been up working for 18 hours and your homeboy just asked you to hit a house party with him and your friends, of which you know you’ll say yes to? Good. In all of these scenarios you have more energy and coherent verbal skills than Detroit's newest superstar Veeze, but until you reach his level of either exhaustion or drug abuse you won’t hit the punches just right in these songs. This is all the draw of Veeze, a one of one bar focused MC that has sleep walked his way into the best album of the year to this point. The intro “Fire Drill” and standout deep cut “GOMD” feature nonstop swarms of lyrics that if you just mumble along to them no one will know you don’t know the words, but if you manage to keep up you’ll appreciate his sly wit. “My closet like a fucking clothing store i need a cash register”. “She got on Bottega purse and feet, it look like bamboo leaf”. “Watch me pour this red in this Big Blue, watch me set trip”. “I don’t got change for twenty, twenty ain’t nothing but change”. And on, and on, and on.

4. That Mexican OT feat. Paul Wall & DRODi “Johnny Dang”

Verse one is such a fun singalong moment that in a perfect world there is a hip-hop version of James Cordon’s Carpool Karaoke (let’s make it LA radio legend himself Big Boy) where an entire van is full of not only OT, Paul, DRODi and Dang himself but enough guys with Edgar cuts that you feel like you’re at a real Texas flea market. OT has been a breakout star with this record pushing his bowling ball smile to every timeline and Lonestar Luchadore making sure that smile gets brighter and brighter. His style has the deep booming country drawl of a Republican congressman, the tenacity of NBA Youngboy and the unintentional humor of Kevin Gates. Also, never to be forgotten is Paul Wall reminding the world that once upon a time he held the Championship Belt for Coldest White Boy In The South (bridging the gap between Jason Williams and Tim Tebow) with one of the best guest verses of the year. 

5. Baby Keem & Kendrick Lamar “The Hillbillies”

Sometimes shit is supposed to be just fun. A concept that has been the hardest for Kendrick to master is doing records with no weight attached. Even lead joints from his most party friendly project DAMN. (which, for that to be your most barbecue ready is saying something in itself) like “LOYALTY.” and “HUMBLE.” lack the straightforward wordplay and conceptual lightness of “The Hillbillies”. Flipping a Bon Iver sample and being tagged as a remix of Drake's “Sticky” provide the kind of oddity that can keep an auteur like Kendrick interested while still being simple enough for a crowd pleaser like Baby Keem to smile across. The cousins spend 3 minutes twitching and weaving between one another flexing about designer clothing, modes of travel and women with no end in sight like an aberrant Migos record. “range brothers” and “family ties” hit similar strides as this but neither have the straightforward bounce and sing along quotables quite like this.

6. Young Nudy feat. 21 Savage “Peaches & Eggplants”

Not only is yelling “bwah bwah bwah bwah” in a Young Nudy voice fun as hell, there may not have been a more concentrated collection of ass tattoos in a single music video in all of human history. Another notch on the belt of 21 Savage's recent feature run is helping propel Nudy in the zeitgeist of hip-hop with one of the few true hits of the year from an album full of songs fit for Spotify Playlists and DJ mixes. It just so happens to double as the unofficial theme music for dudes who want to hold up the wall blowing down backwoods while women dance on them which is really what summer is all about.

7. 41 feat. TaTa “Fetty”

A creeping intro and bouncy 808’s, a pad soft enough to wrap a baby around and a flute as powerful as a siren song are the components of an NY Drill earworm that is as distant from traditional drill rules as one could get without being a whole new sound. TaTa and his agro delivery isn’t the kind of overdone and fearsome growl that brings floors shaking like Kay Flock, but it isn’t alluring the way Pop Smoke mastered once upon a time, but rather a spine chilling third thing that makes you feel like not dancing will get you jumped faster than overdoing it on the floor. Short, sweet, and more distinctive than anything else the scene has produced outside of Ice Spice with a barrage of voices and verses that keeps the tune pumping, begging to be ran back again and again.

8. Lil Yachty “Strike (Holster)”

Let’s Start Here is a great project, with great songs, and even a hit and half that should be blared at every day party from Miami to LA in “drive me crazy”, but it’s a Yves Tumor and Little Dragon influenced record that leans into indie rock and psychedelia instead of traditional hip-hop. Instead, as a quick reminder to the offput fans and critics, Yachty shows he's still one of the best around at making purely great rap songs. “Strike” was released and repackaged a couple times across this year (once with “Solo Steppin’ Crete Boy”, a song that alone is almost big enough to overtake “Strike” for this article) and hits every piece of Yachty that the rap fans love and the enjoys of LSH can meet in the middle on; subtle vocal runs, shout outs to mushrooms, lean and weaponry and a beat that ebbs and flows like a moonlit ocean. It’s a short and sweet reminder of the greatness of Lil Yachty while playing centerfield to all of his fans and expectations at once.

9. Niontay “Thank Allah”

Florida rap has had a handful of micro-smashes that the world will never hear north of Jacksonville house parties, but Niontay, a Kissimmee Florida transplant running side by side with MIKE, Sideshow, Na-Kel Smith & 454 across Europe and the underground circuit has a hit buried on his full length debut Dontay’s Inferno. Reminiscent in a way of the world beating Kodak Black single “No Flockin’", it’s 3 minutes of rapping and rapping and more rapping. The beat is tense and drumless until the last 30 seconds with a hyperactive baseline and high speed laser sounds acting as the only groove. In this space Niontay introduces himself to the world and thanking the most high on giving him another day to live as he always has.

10. Ice Spice & Nicki Minaj “Barbie World”

Every few months something happens in music that grabs the attention of everyone, micro-culture and bubbles be damned. But as the world progresses and technology advances we stray further and further from these moments happening with everyone aware that it’s happening (how many of you knew Morgan Wallen had a song that was not only #1 on the BIllboard charts, but it’s also about to break the record for longest running #1 ever?). Yet the Barbie move still prevails on every level of entertainment fandom from music, to film, to TV, to podcasting, to politics. So it’s only fitting that the theme song that has accompanied the ads and endless TikToks in relation to the film has been equally everlasting, but luckily it’s just as fun as it is a serendipitous crossover of elements. What is more perfect than two of the most powerful women in hip-hop (one who calls her fans Barbz, the other an admitted Barb herself) coming together over a drill flip of a song that was once a mega-hit about the main character of the movie. Some things are just meant to be.

 

11. Drake “Search & Rescue” / “On The Radar Freestyle”

A BYNX tag on the front of your song alone may guarantee you a hit this year but Drake does his best to give us the crooning and fawning that has been missing from his last few records. Honestly, Nevermind is amazing but Drake is an accent more than the star, and the quick swoons on“Her Loss don’t fulfill the title's promises of recovering from heartbreak in stride. Longing for Kim Kardashian while a few weeks later rapping like a man possessed with one of the biggest potential cross-pond-stars the UK has produced in a generation is enough to hold the world over and remind everyone of the skills laying in arms reach while his tour rages across the US. 

12. Devin Malik “Link Ducker”

Since apparently being one of the backbones for Isaiah Rashad's immaculate The House Is Burning wasn’t enough, Devin Malik has chosen to up the stakes by taking the beatmaker to rapper path. Going from successful producer to successful rapper is easier than it was 20 years ago (everyone take a moment and thank Kanye) but sometimes the barriers to break are too easy. Devin isn’t saying anything that matters, but he knows for someone with these lyrical handicaps keeping the verse short and sweet can never go wrong (everyone take a moment and remind Pi’erre Bourne of this in his IG comments or something). Every playlist needs a joint that can knock the review mirror out of place, and for the rest of these 90+ degree days, this will be mine.

13. Anycia “So What (Snippet)”

To be an unofficial release and still have my life on lock in this way should be illegal. A true crime on multiple accounts, the largest of which being not an indictment on Anycia but on the industry as a whole. After a GoPro video of Anycia and her friends went viral (peep here) with the Popstar Benny produced loosie playing over top, the hope was for an immediate release of a full version to streamers or at least Youtube / Souncloud. But for the proper push to be given to a record that by all means checks the boxes for a smash (1. Tapping in on the female MC Renaissance 2. Sample of an older hit record with Field Mob’s  “So What” 3. Quotables and IG captions to last a whole summer 4. Tapping in with a producer buzzing across the underground but waiting for a major star to tap in to break the seal) the business side needs to be considered. Going from borderline obscurity to viral overnight isn’t the dream for every aspiring artist, but it speeds up the timeline. Whenever this song is pushed to the public it’ll mean Anycia is set up with a proper team to send it to the moon with her riding on the comet.

14. Young Thug feat. Drake “Oh U Went”

Things you never realize you want more of until you have them; good candles, a friend who bakes a lot, and Young Thug over samples. For as adventurous as the Thug catalog gets samples are few and far between, and for this blue moon moment he shows out tying together couplets with ease as hazy The Stylistics loop sings backup. A drive by Drake verse and a music video getting up close and personal with the everyday people of Atlanta hits all the marks of what a good warm wind feeling you feel as this plays out your speakers. 

15. Nippa “Maddest Hoes”

Nippa does the same kind of tightrope walking between rap and R&B that Blxst and Don Toliver have mastered but with a more pure R&B tone in his vocals that neither have touched. The UK singer goes at length mostly repeating the same sentiment in different ways; The girls he stays with are fine and come by the dozens, yours on the other hand, not so much. It’s a simple bounce that slides right into any situation.

Honorable Mentions

Earl Sweatshirt “Danity Kane”

Don Toliver feat. Teezo Touchdown “Luckily I’m Having”

Planet Giza feat. Saba “WYD” 

Kaytramine feat. Pharrell “4Eva” 

YL “Open Arms”

Listen to all of these songs here: Spotify

Written By: Anthony Seaman (@soflogemstone on IG & Twitter)

Another Link To The Chain: Vayda

Another Link To The Chain; an ongoing series highlighting rising hip-hop artists extending the history of the genre into the future.

Representing: Atlanta, Georgia, USA

For Fans Of: Ice Spice, Flo Milli, Divine Council, Trina, Liv.e, City Girls

    Vayda drops into a generation of women that for once feel wanted and needed by the music industry. Hip-Hop had few female stars for most of its existence, and you know basically all of them off the top of your head. As the post-”Bodak Yellow” wave of women flooded the market, new lanes within rap have been founded. The Nicki’s, Lil Kim’s, Foxy Brown’s and Cardi’s of the world took the time to address relationships woes and struggles of keeping real friends, but more times than not with the aggressive tone of macho MC’s of old. Now without the pressures of assimilating to the men the freedom to truly create a new format is thriving. A young wave of women are actively adding the same eye-rolling sass that they carry more in their everyday life rather than lean into the mask of pseudo-masculinity. Ice Spice and Flo Milli are the final bosses of this style, but Vayda is pushing her agenda to that throne. 

    Over her own original production, the rising Atlanta star spills out her frustrations at two-faced friends, trying to move through a party untouched, and what she expects of her future lovers. In every moment Vayda makes being an Atlanta it-girl seem like the most fun and most annoying stature one could hold. The content of her raps isn’t just fun and down to Earth, but the packages they’re presented in separate her from nearly every one of her contemporaries.

    Between both of her stellar 2023 mixtapes (Breeze and Dawn) there’s only 25 minutes of music to go around. Each record is either a constantly evolving single verse or a couple of tidy verses tied together with a refrain so short it’s hard to even call it a hook. This disconnected style of songwriting is endlessly gripping and leaves a want to keep pressing replay, each time getting closer to understanding what's really happening. Her most structured song, “Venus On Fire”, shows her full potential as a star recording artist with caption ready bars and a sugar sweet hook to start and nearly end the 1:38 jam. Her production is similar to a budding era of Soundcloud producers influenced by sample drill (cc: literally any Shawny Binladen song) and pop raps laziest rehashing of old hits (cc: OhGheesy’s “GEEKALEEK” & Saweetie’s “My Type”) in that they do minor modulation of their samples and place them neatly within the simplest possible trap drum patterns. The hard hitting and yet simple drums leave space for her performance to be the star, while the sample transfers the extra emotion to inspire lyrics. Mix that with a bedroom studio set-up and the lo-fi warmth of Vayda’s self-produced gems and new life is born.

    The aesthetic on and off record that Vayda is slowly mastering is one without a long history. A product of a generation that focuses as much on taking the perfect Snapchat video of a party before fully getting into the mix. On the production end fans of late’ 10’s darlings Divine Council (with ICYTWAT and Lord Fubu behind the boards), experimental R&B artist Liv.e, rising star Eem Triplin and all NY Drill will find solace in the quick twitch club ready softness that backdrops each performance. An admitted reach to compare, but Diddy (and his team of producers) once upon a time had a great mastery of letting a lightly edited sample drive a record in this same way. Corollaries on the rapping side again are more modern like the living Bratz Dolls that are Flo Millii and Ice Spice, but the delivery of the soft sided poet Noname and topics perfected by The Baddest Bitch herself Trina hit a fusion dance with Vayda standing tall in their dust. 

Album To Check: Breeze

Best Songs: “Ass Out”, “Venus On Fire”, and “Ten”

Written By: Anthony Seaman (@soflogemstone on IG & Twitter)