The Best Rap Verses of the Month

A monthly series where we pick the best verses.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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January is off to a furious start. New stars emerged in 2014, but 2015 is looking like it's going to be all about the primetime players. Kendrick, Kanye, Drake, and Pusha are all set to drop sometime this year. Ghostface is following up the dope 36 Seasons with what sounds like a banger with BADBADNOTGOOD, Lupe's Tetsuo & Youth is an early candidate for one of the year's best, and Action's Mr. Wonderful might live up to its name. Meek Mill's freestyle over the "Ice Cream" beat has everyone excited for his long-delayed album, and Bronson shut Hot 97 down with one of his own. The people wanted bars, and these artists delivered.

Even Roc Marciano came with some heat on the Dirty Sample's latest project, Raw Produce. So kick back and take in these gems. These are the Best Rap Verses of the Month.

Angel Diaz is a Staff Writer for Complex Media. Follow him @ADiaz456.

11. BADBADNOTGOOD and Ghostface f/ DOOM “Ray Gun”

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Date: Jan. 9, 2015

"As if, stance mad stiff

Metal Face DOOM, beware, he bear gifts

Gab for the shift, overwork, overtime

Jerk, you been warned, go for mine

In the dancehall play the wall like handball till his pants fall

Brawl till last call

Loose cannon, squeeze drip

Off the rip, this one for the Gipper, get gypped

That nig', ya dig? Don't tip the strippers

Foamposite mask, matching slippers

Yo, where's Starks?

Backpack of ammo

Warriors said let your flags blow, camo

These dudes is toys like Wham-O

Damn though, chip paint driving on the gravel with the Lambo

Blamo" —DOOM

The metal face villain is your favorite rapper and producer's favorite rapper and producer. He didn't make this beat, but the raps are as clever as ever. He and Ghost can't miss. We can't wait for DOOMSTARKS.

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9. The Dirty Sample f/ Roc Marciano “Three Sixty Five”

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Date: Jan. 12, 2015

"Let the theme run

Eyes red like the beam on a gun

Pryex tan like peanut punch

Stuff blunts with skunk

In winter rock a hoodie like a monk

Pockets is plump

Too frail to cock a pump

I pop a chump like a chicken pox bump

Tryna stunt get you broke off a proper chunk

Murderous mix. dip in a ditch

Picture this, bricks cookin' like grits

Kitchen mitts, glistening wrists

Real niggas is listening to this

This is the prestigious, seven figure digit getters

Play the benches, throw bread to pigeons

Red Benz engines and stretch a nigga like a tendon

Chedda spendin', do more than just try to blend in

The gremlins put you on ice like a penguin

Ring like the King of England

I be mingling with the distinguished

It's all about the theme of being rich" —Roc Marciano

Roc Marciano is probably the most underrated rapper around right now. Can always depend on him to give you some game. I'm here for the slick talk and drug raps.

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7. Action Bronson “Funkmaster Flex Freestyle”

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Date: Jan. 14, 2015

"If I die change my suit four times at the wake

Make sure I get my dick sucked, also

Everybody wearing white clothes

Crush cocaine, put it up your right nose

You might see me lookin' homeless

Hoppin' out the Rover, parrot on my shoulder

Just say what up, I might acknowledge you

My shit is crazy, though appear to be a common dude

I only deal with people that invent shit

Cause after rap there ain't no pension

And I'm trying to be the next George Foreman

Inventing new grills so Jadakiss could cook the base on it

I might take a shit in some expensive jeans

I got expensive habits

My kids are mixed like Lenny Kravitz

It's not me rappin' it's the parrot

And if I punch you in the face

You'll never eat a motherfuckin' sandwich

Body!"

This shit had me wanting to speak Puerto Rican too, Body. Action went so hard his headphones fell off. Not sure if he's the best in the game, but you best fear the beard.

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5. Lupe Fiasco “Mural”

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Date: Jan. 20, 2015

"We're all chemicals, vitamins and minerals

Vicodin with inner tubes, wrapped around the arm

To see the vein like a chicken on the barn

Top Cat chat, let's begin another yarn

That's flying saucer cheese, or is it chicken parm'?

But roosters don't fly like boosters don't buy

So what powers cowards to get them to the top

Just to fall asleep listening to Bach

The ribbon in the sky is the riddim that I drop

Dribbling the eye across the prism of a clock

That lacks meaning, but racks up stacks of fat reading

They catch chief and wrapped up plants from trap dealings

Now what's a coffin with a scratched ceiling?

And what's the talking without the match feeling?

It's barely livin' and cherry picking

Every linen from your berry system

Then proceed with the pack feedin'

When I was young I had visions of another world

Sneaking looks at the porn stash of my brother Hurl

Incense smoke made vortices and other curls

Casting calls from porn films and ad space for rubber girls

I like my pancakes cut in swirls

Moroccan moles and undercover squirrels

I like cartoons, southern cities with large moons

Faith healers, ex-female drug dealers and art booms

Apologize for my weird mix

What taste like hot dogs and tear drips

And looks like pantomime and clear bricks

And smells like shotguns and deer piss

They on their hunt, kind of salty that I'm going hard

First part of a party, that I throw in parts

One minute you're playing pool, next minute you're throwing darts

But that's how you do with a party that you throw in bars

I run the Gambit like I'm throwin' cards

From Popular Mechanics to overdosing hearts

Paint cold pictures like Nova Scotia landscapes

Nerd game make Mandelbrot sets when we handshake

A word game back up plan that can dam lakes

Backup the wordplay ain't playin' at the man's states

Means I can still be the man if the dam breaks

And when the man brakes I'm reflectious, what they can't face

My peers will still treat the mirror like it's a fan base

The unfettered veteran, the eagle feathered man of medicine

That hovers above cities like weather men

And maybe weather woman

Whatever better to tell ya weather comin'

I prefer girls to reign all over the world

And not rain like, Rain Man or rain like rain dance

Or rain like a slight chance of rain when it's rainin'

Or rein like deer slaves to Santa Claus sleigh man

But reign like Queens that reign over made man

And not Queen like Queen killer, "Rhapsody Bohemian" Queen

But Queen like white glove wave hand

And not wave hand like it's a heat wave

So you make a fan by wavin' your hand

I'm talking wave like you saying, “hey”

Man, and not hay for horses and hoarse like you almost voiceless

You gotta treat your vocal chords like it's a fortress

And treat every single one of your words like reinforcements

And especially when you're recording

Cause that's the portion that's important

When I was reporting that I was poor

But now I'm more than

It's still hooker heels on my sugar hills and sweet spots

Crying shames, make margarita rims from cheap tops

Deep plots in floor, the ceiling windows for my peep pots

A little scene with the sickle swings to make the wheat drop

And a hundred words for them hummingbirds that like to eavesdrop

And fan out like peacocks with a parakeet that beat box

So the sun rise when the beat drops

And the sun dies when the beat stops...

Then it unties, then it relocks

Then it relapsed, then it detox

Then heat back like a heat pack on his knee caps of the weak spot

Cause he want what we got, like yeah"

What the fuck, Lupe? Just sit back, close your eyes, and picture everything he's rapping. This shit is just like the Tetsuo & Youth album cover: abstract and vibrant. "Now what's a coffin with a scratched ceiling?" Lupe's back from the dead. There's a bunch of verses from this album I could've gone with like one of the raps from "Prisoner 1 &2" but like everyone else, "Mural" made me make a funny face when I first heard it. We'll trying to dissect these rhymes for a while.

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3. Meek Mill “Ice Cream Freestyle”

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Date: Jan. 9, 2015

"The revolution shall be televised

This year it's all about us so fuck the other side

Gotta get killed on camera for us to come alive?

Well shit we dead already from all this homicide

In my cell hangin' from a rope

Where you get less time for  than for sellin' dope

Where you get the same time for dope that you do a murder

Innocent 'til guilty, guilty the verdict

Before you even started that Harley, no we ain't notice

Cause we was goin' to war with ourselves over that coca

And they was tryna hurt us, lock us so far in the mountains

Couldn't get no service and our families couldn't service us

Fightin' a silent war with a silencer

Like racin' a Lamborghini with a Challenger

And the feds gon' follow us

Label us as terrorists and then they drop bombs on us

And we turn to media, they lie to us

Nobody really speakin' on them courtrooms that bodied us

Labeled us as hooligans, we trappin' and we movin' it

Kids barely eatin' at that table with that tuna fish

Breakefast and lunchtime Mama oodle and noodles

Dinner time I was on the corner, me and Lucifer

Who you s'posed to call when the cops the ones shootin' you?

Nobody" 

Meek came home focused and in tune with current events. He sounds hungry, and hopefully the time away let MMG take a second look at Dreams Worth More Than Money so it'll be as perfect as this freestyle and "Off the Corner." Lupe's "Mural" is amazing, but Meek's verse hit harder, especially over that classic RZA production. The kid got a glow like he just came home.

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