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”
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”
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”
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”
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.
4.
3. Meek Mill “Ice Cream Freestyle”
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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