Plus more highs and lows from the world of rap this week, including a chaotic NBA halftime show from two of Detroit’s underground heroes and why Kyrie Irving should be a fan of Rxk Nephew.
Pitchfork writer Alphonse Pierre’s rap column covers songs, mixtapes, albums, Instagram freestyles, memes, weird tweets, fashion trends—and anything else that catches his attention.
A friendly reminder to check out these great tapes from the first half of the year
Recency bias is real. As 2021 races to a close and music obsessives rush to build their personal year-end lists, those tallies will likely be skewed toward releases that have hit the web since the summer. In an effort to fight against that tendency, I’ve been trying to time travel back to the beginning of the year, which can sometimes feel like a lifetime away at this point. What I returned with was a small list of rap mixtapes—some I forgot I loved and some I never stopped playing—that deserve to have some conversation around them.
Step into this Detroit duo’s world of paranoid drives across state lines with duffel bags in the trunk, slinging weight out their grandmothers’ houses, and trying to get good enough at this rap shit that they can go legit. Panagnl4e,Vol. 3 is powered by beats that sound like they were pulled straight from the back half of a mixtape from the gravelly voiced No Limit soldier Fiend: rattling hi-hats, brooding piano melodies, funk basslines. After one listen you might feel qualified to be a consultant on Starz’s Detroit-based dope dealing saga BMF.
Essential track: “Heroin Charges”
Memphis’ Staysie Atoms pays homage to her hometown’s legends without coasting on nostalgia. Her music is rooted in the rigid flows of Project Pat, Lord Infamous-type vocals that sound as if they’re being filtered through a roll of paper towels, and Gangsta Boo’s ominous echoes. Thee Hitz builds on those influences, adding details that make it clear she was also raised on SoundCloud-like rapid pitch changes, random pauses, short runtimes, and bugged-out song titles like “Tht 1 Time I Made a Joke Abt Spacing Out N Seeing U On the Moon Nd U Thought I Was Corny.”
Essential track: “Bitch Can U Afford Me WTF Ur Budget”
This tape would probably sound best in the type of decked-out muscle cars that often star in Texas rap videos—too bad I don’t have one. (Maybe big Condé Nast would like to provide a candy-painted Mustang for research?) With the croaky voice of a lifetime smoker, San Antonio’s HOODLUM dwells on the past over beats so hard-hitting that they might make cheap speakers combust on impact. Though the tracks on Lord Knows that really stand out have a warmer side to them. The sweet and soulful vocal sample on “Heaven” might make your heart swoon, and on “Gospel” producer BigTexJohnny perfectly blends crackling drums with a chipmunk’d choir. The Spurs might be dead, but at least San Antonio has HOODLUM.
Essential track: “Made Different”
Jacksonville, Florida’s rap scene was on some shit this year, mostly behind the beef-fueled rise of Yungeen Ace, Spinabenz, and Foolio, as well as the virality of Nardo Wick and Spottemgottem. Yet I gravitated to the icy melody of Lil Poppa. As you could probably guess from a rapper whose biggest song to date is alongside Polo G, Poppa splits the difference between rapping and singing while parsing heavy themes like pain, loss, and struggle. But unlike countless other rapper-crooners, his musings are delivered with an indifferent shrug, a numbness that’s both chilling and one-of-a-kind.
Essential track: “Boys to Men”
Pink Siifu and Fly Anakin’s $mokebreak was billed as both an EP and the deluxe edition to their proper debut as a duo, FlySiifu’s—two descriptors that would usually tell rap fans this is just a bunch of leftovers. But $mokebreak is actually more fun than FlySiifu’s. It feels like Siifu, Anakin, and friends are sitting on the porch, passing a blunt, and taking turns getting their head clear, all backdropped by heartwarming loops.
Essential track: “3 Dope Boys”
I would like to apologize to the L.A. heads and my fellow Bay Area aficionados, but the best rap in California so far this year has gone down in Stockton. Young Slo-Be’s Slo-Be Bryant 3 is so good that I’ve considered ripping it onto CD-Rs and passing them out on the corner myself, and EBK JaayBo’s 2021 is almost as impressive. It’s the first of two pretty great tapes JaayBo put out this year, the other being the summer’s sample-heavy Letter 4 the Streets. 2021 is more traditionally West Coast, with straight-up punishing beats with bounce and threat-filled raps that sound like they’re delivered through clenched teeth. Listen to JaayBo and Slo-Be join forces on “No Hook” and you might plant your flag in Stockton too.
Essential track: “2100”
Earlier this year Shawny Binladen explained his freewheeling strategy when it comes to sample clearance: “I’m not even worried about the sampling laws. If I use 100 samples, at least one of them is going to get cleared.” Well, that has mostly worked out for him, except for his mixtape Waiting on Wick, which was wiped clean from the major streaming services. Thankfully it’s found a second life on YouTube and SoundCloud, but still I feel like it is my duty to make sure that this tape isn’t lost amid the Queens rapper’s extremely cool and prolific 2021 run. It includes a handful of the best sample drill songs of the year. Shawny sounds possessed on “Helen and Shawny” over an instrumental that borrows ’80s R&B star Eugene Wilde’s soul. He links with plugs up and down the East Coast over a drill beat that loops Ray Charles. And “Zelda Vibes” is exactly what you would expect from that title, all minor-key piano figures and flutes fit for an ominous dungeon. Enjoy it before the copyright lawyers press send on that strongly worded email.
Essential Track: “Boom”
Babyface Ray and Veeze’s chaotic Detroit Pistons halftime show
It’s a good thing that none of Tisakorean’s Texas dance rap anthems went mega viral. 2019’s “The Mop” came close, but it never rippled through pop culture like similarly easy-to-pick-up routines including the Whip and the Milly Rock. While sudden, rampant success would have momentarily boosted Tisakorean’s profile, it can often be a shadow that rappers never escape. Instead the Houston rapper and producer has had the freedom to retreat back into the trenches of the internet, sharpen his production chops, and take his music in an even weirder direction.
“Silly Dude” doesn’t sound like anything he’s made before. The production is lush enough for a Tyler record, as Tisakorean alters his pitch to robotic Speaker Knockerz levels. It’s a mesmerizing addition to the rapper’s self-proclaimed silly era, which seems to be defined by goofy photos you would find on a middle schooler’s camera roll and back-breaking dances. Let’s hope this movement doesn’t land him in physical therapy.
Tisa also needs his own Step Up sequel, by the way
As cliché as it is to spit over a flip of Ice Cube’s “It Was a Good Day,” this decision just makes sense for Kev Kash’s slice-of-life raps. During the last couple of months, the smooth-talking Michigan rapper has been giving us a glimpse at his day-to-day with each new single. On “Good Day,” Kev is simultaneously fatalistic and optimistic; he rolls out of bed at midday and immediately contemplates if today could be his last, but he’s comforted by the knowledge that his friends will take care of his children if anything were to happen. Kev finds the good in any bad situation: “My kids getting some new toys if I make this ride,” he coldly raps. He takes the ups and downs as they come as he tries to make it back to his bed, and then he does it all again the next day.
Kyrie Irving should be a fan of Rxk Nephew
The NBA season began this week without Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving, who is still refusing to get the COVID vaccine. Well, now that his schedule is open, Kyrie should have more than enough time to immerse himself in a few 10-minute-long tracks by the most prolific—and unhinged—rapper of the year, Rxk Nephew. Particularly, he may enjoy “American tterroristt” because Nephew and Kyrie are kindred spirits who both enjoy repeating conspiracy theories back into the world as if they are fact.
NoCap: “Sun Up to Sun Down”
Don’t let all the singing fool you, NoCap is a lyricist. The Mobile, Alabama crooner now includes subtitles in his music videos because he doesn’t want any of his words to go over our heads. His newest single, “Sun Up to Sun Down,” blends together his battle-rap wordplay with bars that are more about accepting success than celebrating it. “I’m not afraid to tell you that this new to me,” he says plainly in the beginning, before singing the next couple of lines like he’s been gut-punched. But the real appeal of NoCap is in deciphering punchlines like, “From the streets I switch (Swizz) the beats/Outfit cost at least a key (Alicia Keys)” or “A nigga rock so much of Christian had to talk with Jesus.” They may not need subtitles but they definitely sound cool as hell coming out of his mouth.
