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Image via Devontée
5 On It is a feature that looks at five of the best under-the-radar rap findings from the past week, highlighting new or recently discovered artists, or interesting obscurities.
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Image via Northside Mally
Northside Mally – “Wake Up”
SenseiATL is quickly developing a portfolio of hypnotic beats accompanying well-suited for mesmerizing, low key raps. First providing the backdrop for recent P&P favorite Turls’ “My Plug,” the Atlanta producer now pops up on Northside Mally’s catchy ode to making money, “Wake Up.”
“Wake Up” is the finest form of the song I usually scold rappers for sending me. There is almost nothing original about its content. It is, however, a lesson in packaging and style, a showcase of Mally’s effortless charisma and complete understanding of SenseiATL’s woozy, cloud rap production. It’s silly, it’s shallow, but it’s as solid an ode to making money, spending money, and being from Smyrna, Georgia as you’re likely to find.
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Image via Devontée
Devontée – “Keeping 6”
I didn’t know Complex had premiered Toronto rapper Devontée’s “Keeping 6” when I first stumbled upon it on Soundcloud. I didn’t know that Devontée’s “WOE” crew might have been the inspiration behind Drake’s revival of a term that I had previously considered property of New Orleans (and still consider property of New Orleans). I didn’t think the song was particularly original.
In spite of the innumerable reasons for me not to give a shit, I found myself unable to quit “Keeping 6,” returning to it repeatedly as I revisited my Soundcloud likes this week. Devontée’s sense of melody and rhythm combined with his production ability turn a song that could otherwise seem like easy, regrettable pandering into an enjoyable exercise in mournful Toronto hustler rap.
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Image via Wes Brooks
Wes Brooks – “How Come”
Speaking of Toronto…
Austin, Texas rapper Wes Brooks is acutely aware of the fact that I’m about to compare him to Drake and that that is a valid comparison.
“Yeah the whole Drake thing has always come up,” he told me over email, “but gaining separation and carving my own lane is something I’m very consciously working on.”
The obvious parallel makes Brooks’ “How Come” oddly enjoyable—picture it as a polished Drake demo while simultaneously imagining Brooks applying his able flow and charisma to more personal content and vernacular. At very least, Brooks has a strong ear for production and a technical capacity beyond most of his Soundcloud peers. Far from a fully realized artist, but a talent to keep an eye on.
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Image via Mari Gordon
Mari Gordon – “Candy Paint”
Maryland rapper Mari Gordon returns to 5 On It a week after his first appearance with a song about candy paint on cars and having money that feels like such a direct descendent of Lil B’s that it owes the his aura royalties and should come with a warning label to the effect of “processed in a facility that also processes the Based God.”
Perhaps because of its particular lineage, “Candy Paint” is immediately catchy—memorable to the point that the first verse made me wonder why I was writing about it until the chorus returned to hammer home its inescapable raison d’être.
Don’t think. Just drive around listening to “Candy Paint” and cooking (but not doing the “flick of the wrist” dance, because that will get you cursed like a girl in a Sam Raimi movie).
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Image via Malik Ferraud
Malik Ferraud – “All Of The Above”
Part apocryphal memory, part truth: From 2007 to 2009, it felt like up-and-coming rappers were open to rapping over “indie” tracks and samples, and they often sounded damn good doing it. Kid Cudi, Wiz Khalifa, and Izza Kizza (to name a random, not-entirely-representative few) grew fan bases by balancing hip-hop sensibilities with the notion that they might actually listen to (and like) indie darlings of the moment like MGMT. A lot of the songs that grew out of this crossover were whimsical, enjoyable, and bore little fruit—outside of Cudi, few rappers from the blogosphere’s early rise seemed to cling to their indie-sampling roots with more than passing fancy.
A song like Malik Ferraud’s “All Of The Above” appeals to me on two levels. One, it samples one of my favorite songs, The xx’s “Angels,” without butchering it. Two, it hearkens back to a different age of rap on the Internet, a time when the rules of engagement and causes for derision were less codified and there seemed to be more pure joy in the blurring of genre lines. It’s an evocative platform for Ferraud’s earnest rapping.
