Bout to Blow: 10 Dope Songs You Should Be Hearing Everywhere Soon

It's November. The year is coming to an end. Welcome to Bout to Blow.

As you know, we've become pretty agile at predicting hits. Occasionally, we've whiffed. Other times, we've called it before most of your favorite publications. But the point isn't just to get it "right"—anyone can look at stats and see what's going to pop.

This column has two goals:

1. To use the many tools available to us today to get some idea of what songs were really bubbling with "the people"—in other words, to insert some science into the process.

2. To contextualize that information, because raw numbers in a vacuum would have you thinking an anonymous rapper dropped onto a stellar track was hip-hop's next big rap star when he was more like an empty tattooed vehicle for a dope beat and a hook. 

The post is obviously intended to be somewhat predictive. There's also an element, though, that is cheerleading. Many of these songs might be flourishing in certain markets, but could use wider exposure. They're tracks where the metrics suggest some forward momentum, even if the clubs and radio play don't reflect that.

A few of the songs we've spotted have climbed considerably higher; Teyana Taylor's "Maybe" has sustained a strong several weeks. Ditto Khaled's "Hold You Down" and Nicki's "Touchin, Lovin'." Last week, we veered a bit from the raw numbers—after all, it'd been a particularly rough month on that front for rap music—and shifted to several songs with potential that hadn't received much momentum. Young Thug definitely remains a favorite of this column, although lately he's made it more for his work with Quan than solo material. Quan, meanwhile, is proving himself an adept songwriter in other ways.

What's in store for November? Check out this edition of Bout to Blow: 10 Dope Songs You Should Be Hearing Everywhere Soon.

David Drake is a writer living in New York City. Follow him @somanyshrimp

Producer: Payami, Svensson, and P. Carlsson

Ariana Grande's debut captured what was great about early '00s pop-R&B: concise, punchy, hooks-on-hooks sugar uber alles, retrofitted to a particular rhythmic template that seemed of a piece of that era's midtempo hip-hop. The album's sequel is still about that lunge-for-the-jugular pop instinct—just try not to sing along to the "Love Me Harder" chorus' descending duplet melody—but this time it's sewn to a four-on-the-floor disco groove reminiscent of Lady Gaga's "Do What U Want" from the year previous. Grande went for The Weeknd as her sleazy cohort for this dark, joyous pop single, and he provides an apt counterpoint without stepping on his own feet (or anyone else's) without leaving a bruise, even though the record is considerably faster than his usual atmospheric canvas.

Producer: The Invisible Men and The Arcade

Sorry, y'all. She's here to stay. Her entire style strikes a false, jarring tone that remains a stumbling block for many people. But it's exactly that detached quality that appeals to her fans—a selling point rather than a drawback. Of course, one of the failings of her major label debut earlier this year was that outside of "Fancy," it wanted for major hits. Since she became a superstar, "Work" attained some retroactive attention, and "Black Widow" has done solidly on radio. But when nothing quite matched the juggernaut status of "Fancy," it became evident that her future would be in a major label re-release.

ReClassified attempts to sell you a bunch of Iggy songs you already have with several new ones. Inexplicably, they've dropped "Fuck Love," one of the only good album tracks. But at least they've added "Beg For It," which is getting a radio push and features yet another unknown (in the States) European singer on hook duties. Luckily it's a more immediate, pop-chart-ready record than anything she's made outside "Fancy" itself.

Producer: Syk Sense and The Mekanics

Somehow, DJ Drama swiped one of the best Rich Gang records yet released, before it could appear on the duo's debut mixtape. Jeezy fits in surprisingly well, providing muscular, frequency-filling heft shredded-falsetto rappers like Quan and Thug intentionally avoid. On the hook, Thug is all shrill forcefulness, while Quan echoes him with wistful little bits of melody. Thug doesn't take a verse here, but the song's chorus is its real reward regardless, as the descending tones of the beat work as an unforgettable riff to hold it all together.

Producer: DJ Camper

Whatever we can do to make sure that Future becomes a future quiet storm staple, we should do. In this case, it means repping for Tamar Braxton's charming oldschool/newschool future hit "Let Me Know." Something about the record seems to channel the spirit of older records, although it feels just distinct enough to succeed on its own; you might get hints of Mariah Carey's "We Belong Together," or Aaliyah's cover of the Isley's "At Your Best (You Are Love)" that the song samples, or even Usher's "Lovers and Friends."

The android duet—an approach best epitomized by Rihanna's "Loveeeee Song"—is one of Future's greatest strengths, and hopefully he'll continue to work in this field with records like "Let Me Know" and DJ Khaled's "Hold You Down."

Producer: London On Da Track

Much as Back to the Future teaches us that if Marty McFly were to meet himself, it would cause the fabric of the space-time continuum to unravel, common sense dictates that Young Thug meeting Lil Wayne was a conceptual error that promises to underwhelm. And there are some obvious, Wayne-less hits on the first Rich Gang tape liable to outperform "Take Kare"—"Tell Em (Lies)" and "Flava" in particular. But rather than making a safe pop record or a club record, the meeting of the minds took place over a spare London on the Track beat that drew attention, first and foremost, to the shape and style of their rapping.

There are punchlines and turns of narrative phrase worth following if you push through and lock in—despite what even some fans have argued, I don't think this is "post-lyrical" rap music—but sometimes you have to step back and just admire the colors and contours of their verses, this extreme new approach to musicality. This may never top the charts, but it feels like an all-too-rare moment of stylistic radicalism in an era of safety and conservatism.

Producer: The Order

Teyana Taylor's "Maybe" has only continued to rise on the charts since we first predicted the record's success back at the beginning of September. The song's atmospheric success, as it turns out, is no fluke. With her new album on the way, "Do Not Disturb" is a worthy follow-up—and one of the most thrilling late-hours R&B records of the year. The arrangement and overdubs are subtly complex. Its soft, textured intimacy seems about to boil over at any moment, but will shift suddenly into a moment of languorous​ relaxation. In never resolves, poised between possible resolutions.

Producer: Jay Ant of The Invasion

It's started to seem ridiculous that HBK Gang hasn't taken off outside California, as the crew watches their SoCal cousins top the charts and generally rearrange the sound of hip-hop. But it feels bound to happen. It's simply a matter of moments before the right record finds its space, much as IamSu! narrowly missed watching "Up" rise under his name rather than LoveRance's. Right now, Su's "On Me" with Rich Homie Quan looks like a solid contender, capturing the twinkling, relaxed West Coast vibe that helped the region chart two decades earlier. But Jay Ant's "Ask YB" is the Bay's best bet in 2014, a bold, shotgun-drum record that relies on sneakily catchy autotune rap bars that make it eerily appealing.

Producer: Ben Billion$ and Schife

Sure, Quan makes this song work, but you gotta give Ace Hood credit for managing to corral another hit in 2014. The simmering organs are a nice touch, and Ace Hood's sung chorus makes the song magnetic. But it's Quan's melodies, which bleed pathos in every bar, that gives the song the dimension it needs to feel like a larger-than-life hit. Lyrically it's not his deepest moment, sounding as if it was written as he went along. But it's memorable ("I'm gonna rip this beat apart if the bass good/My block is like a deck of cards, Ace Hood"), which is more than one can say for Ace Hood, who falls into generic sloganeering about keeping it 100. Luckily the song's concept is strong enough to keep this one rotation-ready.

Producer: Jack Flash

Eager to write drill music's obituaries—the Chicago Tribune published an article headlined "The Drill Is Gone" earlier this year, and one could see the schadenfreude from space when Keef was dropped from his Interscope deal—the press and many onlookers have ignored the inconvenient fact that the scene's aesthetic impact has shown no signs of tapering off.

True, the extreme sonic variety that burst from Chicago in 2011-2012 hasn't really manifested itself in nearly as many local hits. And the city's found success beyond drill over the past two years, both in street rap with the "bop" sound, and in the more poetic stylings of artists like Chance the Rapper.

But nonetheless, the success of artists like Bobby Shmurda years later proves what Chicagoans knew all along: this wasn't some flash-in-the-pan, marketed 'movement,' brought to you by your favorite sugar water brand. It was a major organic aesthetic shift. And for the scene's core artists, it hasn't let up.

King Louie has never been bigger than he is right now—although you wouldn't be able to tell online, at least until rumors of an OVO signing surfaced. But in his hometown, one can hardly walk down the block without hearing his "To Live and Die in Chicago" blasting out of car windows. Tony—released this summer to little online attention—has steadily gained considerable buzz, and looks to have given his career a shot in the arm when it most needed it. "B.O.N.," the latest single from the record, finds Louie rapping in a repeated-pattern format that brought him much local acclaim. One can hear Drake doing something suspiciously similar on his recent "6 God."

Producer: DJ Mustard

So Gwen Stefani is launching a comeback—but so is Fergie. Counterintuitively, Fergie rapping about her finger on the pump making the six-trey jump is the more productive story. There's always been a lil bit of populist trash to Fergie's approach—a lack of pretention of her rock star lifestyle more directly recalling the fantasies of her youth, rather than documenting her current state of mind. It's the kind of thing Jenny from the Block talks about, but Fergie has always unconsciously walked. And it works here, a regional anthem with timely production, an eager, sing-song chorus, and a concomitant verse from YG. A record for my people with the spoiler on their trunk and the neon underneath.