We’re back! Again, again! What a year 2017 was. A lot of great hip hop that evolved the genre even further. New sub genres, new artists and trends. The low-fi was probably the high hitting note last year with Lil Pump with associates climbing the ladders a lot at the end. I had a Chief Keef ”classics” day the other day and listened through my favourites from his discography. A lot of the tracks and videos Chief Keef produced a couple of years ago felt exactly like what Lil Pump/Peep/Smokepurrp is trying to do now. Guess Chief Keef was indeed ahead of the curve.
Looking ahead with one eye in the rear window I feel the clear rapping (the opposite of ’mumble rap’ that was the big thing last year) might make a return. To promote the thought, this newsletters theme is throwback+clear rapping.
Bishop Neru
This guy delivered an insane mixtape together with the legendary MF Doom. Bishop Nehru was barely born when he started collaborating with Doom, meaning he was really young while still being insanly talented writer with great flow to gain attention by the likes of MF Doom. This was 4 years ago, and he has been working since then, just recently dropping a new album with some great tracks on it, amongst them this gem The Actor$ Elixir.
J.I.D
J.I.D had a great year. Young and talented, he released his debut album, The Never Story. He was featured on Franklins Newsletter back in May I believe. It’s been mentioned on a lot of top lists over best albums of 2017. Let’s see what he can bring in 2018. This track has a feature from one of Franklins favourites, 6LACK. Listen to 8701 now.
Travis Scott and Quavo
A major release recently was the collaboration album with Quavo and Travis Scott: Huncho Jack, Jack Huncho. They’ve worked together previously, with the track Oh My Dis Side from Travis album Rodeo in 2015 being the greatest one. I can’t say their collaboration album is something for the history books, but I’m keeping this track being calm, good flow, a bit humbling for these two otherwise self-centered rappers. Listen to Best man.
TM88
TM88 teamed up with some of the bigger producers in rap right now to connect with Lil Uzi Vert to release the track Mood the other day. The track is nice and all, but there’s been more talk about the never-ending story about producers not getting paid as when this track was released, TM88 mentioned labels that still hasn’t paid him for work he did for successful tracks. After that, a couple of producers started accusing TM88 for stealing beats himself. Let’s see how all this turns out but… let’s make it simple and skip the fuss next time by start paying producers properly.