Out of My Head: Five Songs I Listened to This Weekend

Featuring Waka Flocka, Wale, and Rich the Kid.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Goddammit: I'm furious that no one told me till this morning that Ashanti's got a new Christmas album out, as if 2014 were in fact 2003. I will bump A Wonderful Christmas With Ashanti this afternoon and report back.

This past weekend, however, I wasn't really fucking with Christmas music, not even Mariah or Donnie McClurkin, nope, not after Idina Menzel left some sour notes in my figurative egg nog. Instead, I bring you Wale, Rich the Kid, and Waka Flocka on their wise men steez. These slappers are my secular gift to you.

1. Wale "Miracle on U Street"

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Released: Dec. 18, 2014

If not for the Rozay drop at the top, you might've guessed that "Miracle on U Street" was a vintage cut from the days of Wale's local buzz off 100 Miles & Running.  The MMG-backed Ambition may be, to date, Wale's overall strongest project, but "Miracle" is the D.C. rapper's essential play: bucket drums, go-go pizzazz, and a rollicking, rodeo flow that elongates his vocab and bucks his punchlines. Hear also: "The Deep End"

2. D.R.A.M. "#1HappyHoliday"

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Released: Dec. 23, 2014

From the man who brought you "Cha Cha," this bass-driven mistletoe ditty is rappa-ternt-sanger D.R.A.M.'s stab at festive, seasonal R&B, and it goes over as well as you'd hope and expect, assuming you've kept up with dude this past year. "#1HappyHoliday" popped up in my Soundcloud stream on Christmas Day, in fact, and now I wish that I owned the single on vinyl. If anyone qualifies as alternative R&B or bizzaro-Motown, it's D.R.A.M.

3. Lunice f/ CJ Flemings "Weather Man"

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Released: Dec. 24, 2014

Lunice is an obscure but powerful priest of the turn-up. He was, for me, the highlight of the Trillectro festival this past August, and here on "Weather Man," the ceremonial drums and intrusive organ remind that Lunice was in fact clad in a black robe, and a third of his stage mix was Watch the Throne, Cruel Summer, and Yeezus. "Weather Man" demands glow sticks, though all I had was chicken drumsticks at my grandmother's dinner table. This is not Christmas music, not quite.

4. Waka Flocka Flame "5:56"

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Released: Dec. 24, 2014

To be sure: I'm not begging for a whole album, or even a mixtape, of Waka Flocka rapping as Braniac Ludacris, flowing over Illmatic beats and whatnot. Waka's from Queens, remember. He's traditionalist by lineage, if not at heart. "You rappers couldn't make it with a Jay Z feature," he sneers, and that's real shit.

5. Rich the Kid "Wrist Gone Crazy"

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Released: Dec. 25, 2014

After 2014, I'm good on wrist-themed hooks of songs about water-whipping. That said, I'd be remiss to overlook "Wrist Gone Crazy," the quirkiest and catchiest track from Rich the Kid's latest mixtape, Rich Than Famous. "Wrist Gone Crazy" is a hell of wind chimes and skittish drum kicks, primarily a win for Jahlil Beats, though of course the song's eponymous hook is crucial. Whip it, whip it.

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