Monday Mixtape, Vol. 124

Where does Post Malone rank in terms of singing hooks right now? Does anyone do it better? Yeah, it’s easy to make fun of the face tattoos and dreads (which he’s now changed to a small 80s era small fro), but “all my friends” is pretty catchy, right? Can’t hate on catchy.

This is an all rap playlist, highlighted by both Future and 21 Savage’s new albums. I was impressed with 21’s album, it has a ton of features (J. Cole, Childish Gambino, Post Malone, Offset, and Schoolboy Q) which complement his monotone flow, and the production fits perfectly with so many tracks.

Future released another album that is just like most other Future albums. He has some alter ego (this time, “The WIZRD,” it all more or less sounds the same, and a few tracks really stand out. A couple of those are on this mixtape.

I also included some older JID, the rapper that blew me away with his mixtape, DiCaprio 2. This guy has something special, we will be hearing a lot more from him.

That’s it people! Hope you enjoyed the (4th Quarter) of the Super Bowl. My commercial MVP was either Stella Artois or the NFL one with all the players.

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 94

Kendrick Lamar was tasked with creating a soundtrack to the recently released Black Panther, and the results aren't exactly surprising. It's great. It's varied in sounds and production yet stays cohesive, and Kendrick pastes hooks, verses, and his imprint over most of the songs. Featuring appearances by Future, The Weeknd, Ab-Soul, Jay Rock, SZA, Schoolboy Q, Khalid, Vince Staples, Anderson .Paak, James Blake, and Travis Scott, it's like rap's All-Star Game. The album is one of my fave soundtracks I've heard in quite some time. Check it out!

I was watching (the movie) Whiplash again, and it prompted me to get on a jazz kick last week. I stumbled upon this track from John Coltrane and Duke Ellington, a beautifully rhythmic song strolling through a wintry evening.

And finally, MGMT released a new album which goes way back to their pop-like ways. I still need to digest it, and I'll get a couple more tracks.  

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 61

It's time for a mixtape dedicated to all the hip-hoppers out there! I'm not gonna blow your mind with too many new names (though Caleborate counts), but there are some great remixes (see: Black Hippy's rendition of "THat Part" and Ab-Soul jumping on a remix with the super underrated Bas to his great original "Housewives"), a new track from Danny Brown, and some oldies but goodies, namely Ab-Soul's haunting "Illuminate" and my favorite rapper of the moment, Isaiah Rashad, head-bobbing classic from his first album, "Heavenly Father." For goodness sakes, just inhale this guy's discography and don't stop until next week.

Word is Ab-Soul may be coming out with a new album. Needless to say I'm excited to hear what the extraterrestrial professor has to say.  

Not a whole lot from me other than the tracks. Enjoy!

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 52

As I preluded to on last week’s rant of a writeup, this week’s Monday Mixtape will just consist of rap. If you’re heading to the exits, I would just say to always keep an open mind to all music and try to find something beautiful in what (NO DON’T CLOSE THE DOOR!)…

The mixtape starts with Lushlife, a rapper/producer from Philly. I first heard of him with a track with Killer Mike, “This Ecstatic Cult.” But “Totally Mutual Feeling,” the track that leads this mix is one of my favorite rap songs this year. His other track in the mixtape, “Strawberry Mansion,” has a somewhat (since he’s from Philly) of a surprise cameo from Freeway, the man the myth the legend (sorry, I know he released a lot of albums since) who did such classics (with Jay and Beanie) as this gem in 2003:

The mixtape ends with “Toynbee Suite,” a seven minute track that feels like a play playing out through the acts as the song goes through three parts. Dig it! 

If you haven't watched Mr. Robot, I would highly recommend Season 1 as it was my favorite season of television since True Detective Season 2 (JOKING! Stop swearing. It was a joke. I know you're still mad. It was Season 1). I'm still trying to figure out where Season 2 is going (and these hour and a half episodes are sort of weird considering we haven't really gone anywhere - Game of Thrones anyone? JOKING. Stop swearing.).  

WHAT I WAS TRYING TO SAY was that the bright spot of Season 2 for me has been Joey Bada$$' amazing character, who over the first few episodes has started watching Seinfeld and can't get enough. It's great comedy for such a dark show as he analyzes Kramer and Constanza, and he's been surprisingly good, one of the better rap/actors I've seen in a while. "Devastated" is one of his best tracks since his earlier days (back when I was screaming about this dude's talent in 2010 on his first and still my favorite Mixtape by him).

Ladies and Gentlemen, Schoolboy Q! I have loved Schoolboy Q since he released “There He Go,” easily one of my most played rap songs in the past few years:

So anyways, Q can be an acquired taste because he’s raw as hell and misogynistic (See: “Big Body,” mostly every lyric, particularly the yelling by Tha Dogg Pound), but if you can see through that stuff (and admit that without the lyrics, Big Body is an AWESOME song and catchy, how good is that chorus??), his new album is one of the best, thoughtful, and insightful (see: “Neva Change”) albums of the year. 

See: the two verses from "Neva CHange":

The sidewalk chalk
The block stay hot
Paranoid, the cop that keep my gear in park
Pull me out the car to give me black thought
But fuck it, this shit's all kinda player
This shit my mama flavor
This that raised by your granny, pistols and Now & Laters
Your pops was way too busy, missin' your mom's labor
Grew up just like your daddy
To baggin' baggies in alleys
To where the streets is your family
Gettin' blurred by the same cop
Go to jail for a year and come home
Two of your n***** dropped
You know how that feelin' feel
What to feel when it's gettin' real
More bullets to go around
Come jump in this water, n****
You still with your mama livin'
30 with no ambition
Your kid got no pot to piss in
You sayin' some n**** fake
You're selfish and sad, n**** you're lame
You hatin' on another man's success
Because the n***** blessed and wouldn't let you finesse
You got the game all twisted
You're leechin' worse than these ladies
Your inner n**** ain't aging
Reason the hood stay shady

And then the last verse:

Still our motive be commas
And still my life isn't promised
Still nervous as drivers
You see them lights get behind us
They pull me out for my priors
Won't let me freeze 'fore they fire
You say that footage a liar
They want my flow in the dryer
I'm at the top aimin' higher
My lawyers stay on retainer
When white folks point the finger
Place my neck on that hanger
Shit, no wonder we riot
N***** still killin' n*****
Child support killin' n*****
Cops enslavin' us n*****
Little girls killin' mothers
They treat their kid like a brotha
Fathers stuck with them lifers
Kept it real with his n*****
But left his kid for the suckas, shit no wonder we bang
Damn shame, mane, some things will never change

Yeah, so his words > my words.

The final track from him was THat Part with Kanye (which I yelled about last week because I think Kanye’s verse here is taking some 2 Chainz flow, but maybe it’s just me). The beat is totally Schoolboy - a hazey whistle walking through an abandoned house of mirrors over a deafening bass. Nobody sounds like this dude. Check the whole album because it’s all really good. 

Playlist - That's a Rap, Vol. 1

There's been an ever expanding list of rappers over the past few years that have brought rap back to the forefront of music for me. Sometimes I wax poetic and think of the good ol' days when A Tribe Called Quest and Biggie (amongst so many others) were making the best rap music imaginable. But now there are rappers influenced by them, their sounds, the culture, and everything in between, spitting out their own rhymes. This is the best rap has been since those golden days in the 90s - just listen to Kendrick, Drake, A$AP Rocky, and Kanye. 

I finished Volume 3 of this playlist series today, but I thought it might make more sense to start from the beginning!

I made this playlist back in 2012 as I was discovering a number of my favorite rappers today, such as Childish Gambino, Kendrick, A$AP, Schoolboy Q, and Joey Bada$$. These were primarily my favorite songs by these guys at the time, and I'm hoping for those not as well versed in rap (or those who might have given up on rap for a bit) that this playlist will be a primer for the next two volumes I'll put up in the next few weeks or so!