How do you spend a Sunday night before payday when there's a potentially historic blizzard approaching? Watching Melancholia, baking your last half-pound of curly fries, and wearing Canada Goose to bed, that's how. To think that 48 hours ago, on Saturday, I was biking carefree down Madison Avenue and Central Park Drive while listening to a blend of Digable Planets, Chief Keef, Lupe Fiasco, and Future. To think that 24 hours from now, me and my bike will be buried in snow, among pebbles of salt and rat carcasses.
If I freeze to death, remember me like Whitney Houston.
RJ & Choice f/ Joelle James "Can't Slow Down"
Released: Jan. 13, 2015
Applaud DJ Mustard, the real MVP and altruist who stuffed his own debut album, 10 Summers, full of crusty value-brand beats so that RJ & Choice could instead flourish with the best of Mustard's top-shelf production on this here mixtape tip. "Can't Slow Down" is a misty intro shattered by RJ's lashing out via bursts of indelible imagery, e.g., "washing broken dishes," wrung somber by Mustard's signature simplicity with the piano. Rarely does "getting my dough up" sound rather like the blues. Bonus points to Mustard for flipping "Dre Day," a diss track, into a danceable wave on "Get Rich."
Jazmine Sullivan "#HoodLove"
Released: Jan. 13, 2015
As Michael noted in our review of the album, Reality Show is lively, inspired dashes of Mary J. Blige, Amy Winehouse, Erykah Badu, and masculine counterpoint Jaheim in Jazmine Sullivan's vocal styling as well as her songwriting. I've done a hundred neck-roll/finger-snap combo reps while listening to this album, and "#HoodLove" is the most direct and aggressive delivery on an album that's so bold overall. When she sings, "I got a .45 in my Louis bag, yeah," I believe and fear her; when she sings "bang-bang," it sounds like twin Derringers, for real. This that hood love, that good love.
Future "Just Like Bruddas"
Released: Jan. 16, 2015
"Commas" and "Mad Luv" aside, I was no fan of Monster, in which Future hits a low-point of supposedly artistic detachment, a.k.a. straight-up boredom. On Beast Mode, however, producer Zaytoven is a sure-fire cure for such doldrums, coaxing the most exuberant delivery we've heard from dude in a while. While "Peacoat," with its talk of watersports couture, is the more obvious fan favorite from Beast Mode, let me instead recommend "Just Like Bruddas," a quirky, uptempo blend of twinkle and twang that, in my imagination, Future recorded at a ranch, in a barn, wearing a cowboy hat, whipping a lasso overhead. The piano strokes flit like a harmonica would otherwise. "Just Like Bruddas" is trap, it's Western, it's gospel, it's everything.
Lupe Fiasco "Mural"
Released: Jan. 17, 2015
Lupe Fiasco can never shut up, never-ever, hence why three songs from Tetsuo & Youth are longer than eight minutes. While that sort of runtime is typically exhausting, I keep coming back to Lupe's "Mural," which distils Lupe Fiasco's essential qualities to an ironically efficient density. "I prefer my pictures in word form," he says in the final stretch of his recounting "assorted memories from my childhood." Whether we're talking about street rap or brainy backpacker verses, hip-hop is the most reliable genre when it comes to atomized lyrical brilliance. Having long ago fallen from "Touch the Sky," "Superstar" highs, Lupe has since built a cult legacy based on such brilliance at the expense of all other appeal, with a catalog chock full of satire, cynicism, and sublime illustration; "Apologize for my weird mix/What tastes like hot dogs and tear drips/And looks like pantomime and clear bricks/And smells like shotguns and deer piss," and I can taste it.
K Camp "1Hunnid"
Released: Jan. 20, 2014
A trapper's love-is-trust ballad, with a hint of Roger Troutman in the background just to keep things funky. As someone who quickly tuned out "Cut Her Off," which proved to be K Camp's hit despite its otherwise being a generic, dime-a-dozen hybrid of trap and R&B, I suppose "1Hunnid" is more immediately compelling because it's a clear, focused arrangement (in comparison) with stickier bars ("Sneaky bitches, they be scheming and investigating"), and a less obnoxious hook, this time in service of eminently practical romance a la "Let's Get Married."
