One year has passed by since I first started this. The benefits of running this newsletter has been many. First and foremost my interest for hip hop and rap has increasedeven further (which I didn’t believe was possible). It has also been an inspirational experience to start and run a newsletter: keeping it updated, refreshing the design, trying to improve each week: week in, week out. The cost has been pretty high as well to be honest: it’s time-consuming. I’m running it alone and writing all this (above 11,000 wordsnow), maintaining the website, a hope to maintaining an instagram (failing) has taken a lot of my free time – which I of course signed up for, so I neither can’t nor won’t complain.
Anyhow… I’ve been enjoying it so far, and will continue to write, listen, digest, respond, design, filter and of course, always search for new hip hop. If you’d like to reach out with feedback or thoughts, I’m always reachable by email.
Thanks for this year. On to the next one.
Pusha T
The carousel has been spinning intensely lately. The Pusha T – Drake beef has been spinning out of control with multiple shots taken just about at everything. Then Pusha T made the earth tumbling track The Story of Adidon. It was brutal.
What’s best of all of this, is not the beef, but the Pusha T album DAYTONA that he released prior to the diss track. Pusha is known for rapping about his crack/cocaine ”career”. Counting the reference of crack/cocaine, this album has the highest amount of references to date.
Listen to the album, which has been produced by Kanye West and Mike Dean. The opening track is great, but the second track might be even better.
Listen to The Games We Play.
Pillow T
I know nothing of this guy. He has released two tracks on Spotify. It’s a bit of a mashup of the cloud rap that was popular a couple of years back and some kind of Weeknd to it. I wonder how his neck is feeling with that weird posture on the album cover though? Anyhow, let’s see where he goes!
Listen to Ride.
Asap Rocky & Skepta
Rocky’s latest album has received pretty average reviews. Agreed, it’s not his best work to date, but it has a couple of high notes that stuck with me. The collaboration with Skepta is insanely well executed and have been on repeat since the release.
Listen to Praise The Lord (Da Shine).
Mac Miller
Mac Miller has refined his style the past couple of years. He is closing in on perfection to his talents. He has really created his sound that is now fitting his voice and style perfectly. He recently released an EP which was somewhat dark, perhaps because his breakup from Ariana Grande…
So he hasn’t been the happiest recently, but tough times don’t last, tough people do – and Mac Miller has used this time to his benefit by releasing great music.
Listen to Programs.