Following hip hop is like following a super eventful drama / action tv show. There’s just so much happening — and most of the happenings are absolutely crazy. What I love about hip hop is that it’s so personal. As a comparison: when you watch and follow football, you get some interviews and hear comments from players themselves, but they are so incredibly boring it’s insane. They answer really short, always the same answers from all the players (i.e. ”It was a good game, but now we look forward to the next and the win is the most important thing”). Example: interview with football players. But when you go to hip hop related news, there’s always something crazy (as mentioned in the subtitle).
I suppose that’s the wonders of music: to create great music, you have to put yourself into the art you create, and for hip hop artists, it’s their (often) eventful lives.
This week, I’ve included a lot of new hip hop that has been released in the past month. I’ve been busy with another writing project I’m doing (I write about design as well, if you fancy a read, you can find it here).
Cheerio!
Middle Child
J. Cole is at it again with a new single where he raps about him being in the middle of two generations: the classic era with Nas and Jay Z, and the new era with mumble rappers such as 21 Savage. I love the minor detail of adding auto-tune to the second part where he raps about the new era. Subtle and sweet.
Excuse Me
Mozzy released his album ’Gangland Landlord’ and I feel it deserves more attention that it gets. Another great track from the album is Excuse Me, a nice mix of genres.
No Features
Young Scooter has gathered his thoughts and put out a great track with a feature from Kodak Black. Ironic title for a track that has a feature as well.
Down Below
Roddy Ricch has released a great album, Feed Tha Streets II, that I completely missed. Such a great vibe and a great mix of real but still with nice trap influenced beats. Thanks Olle for the recommendation. That second verse is fantastic.