Tag: Hip Hop

#RushHourRap – NF – The Search

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NF is someone that I stumbled onto last year and is kind of a throwback to the underground rap days. Listening to this guy rap is like reading someone’s diary without any filter, which is refreshing in this era of mumble rappers. Back in college I used to scour HotNewHipHop for the up and comers, but given that I’m a 30-year-old guy with a 9-5 these days I was a little late to the party on NF. With four albums released since 2015 he’s been on a tear dropping music and even hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts, but the first time I saw him really hit mainstream was on an ESPN college football commercial last summer.

#RushHourRap – On This Day 17 Years Ago 50 Cent Released Get Rich Or Die Tryin’

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For a white kid from the burbs, this album was like being transported to another world. I love Jay-Z, but was probably just a little too young to really understand what The Blueprint was about when it was released. When Curtis Jackson came out of nowhere in 2003, co-signed by Eminem, he took off like a rocket because he was authentic with a wild origin story to back him. In what is nearly an urban myth at this point, 50 cent was shot 9 times and lived to tell the tale.

There were FIVE singles from his debut album, three of which I’ve heard on the radio within the last week – 17 years after their release. Get Rich or Die Tryin’ had one of the greatest B-sides of an album I can remember too.  What Up Gangsta, Patiently Waiting, High All the Time, Heat, Like My Style, Don’t Push Me, Life’s On the Line are all still bangers to this day. I feel like I forgot about a lot of these early 2000s albums once they stopped putting CD players in cars. I have like 50 CDs in my trunk with no way to play them. Damn technology.

Hey Google, play 50 Cent radio!

#RushHourRap – Eminem – Darkness

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Em dropped his new album “Music to Be Murdered By” in the middle of the night a couple weeks back and it definitely shows that Shady’ still got the juice as it hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts. There aren’t any instant classic singles here nor are there many radio friendly tracks, but there is a ton of elite rapping. Eminem shows off his unmatched lyrical dexterity while recruiting some big names to fill out the album’s 20 songs. Ed Sheeran returns for his second Eminem collab on “Those Kinda Nights,” he brings out old friend Royce Da 5’9″ for a few songs, as well as the likes of Skylar Gray, Anderson .Paak, Q-Tip, Joell Ortiz and more. The song everyone is going to remember from this album though is the incredibly morbid track “Darkness” where Em raps from the perspective of the Las Vegas mass shooter. The song is more “Encore” than “The Eminem Show” and whether it’s profound or tasteless is up for debate, but it’s definitely an engrossing track that samples Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sounds of Silence.”

#RushHourRap – Logic – Homicide ft. Eminem (video)

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I don’t know what kind of obscure demographic/psychographic research you have to cross into as a fan of watching YouTube music videos, Rap, Logic, and The Sandlot…but shit thats me. Either way, the song is fire flames, but this music video shouldn’t work. It looks like a drunk MadLib on paper. So we’re going to have a music video that features zero artists performing with Squints from the Sandlot rapping and Eminem being played by Chris D’Elia while he raps in a murder cabin. 

That sounds like someone watched Em’s 3 AM video while high and then tried to recreate it for a student film with C list actors, but IT WORKS. Doesn’t hurt that the song bangs and oh ya Squints is a dead fucking ringer for Logic. Like Bobby might want to keep Squints on retainer for mall autograph sessions or to be his fall guy.

#RushHourRap – Lupe Fiasco – Switch

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I was in my daily cocoon of sadness sitting in soul crushing traffic this morning when I opened up YouTube and went down the Lupe Fiasco rabbit hole. It wasn’t long before I came back to the 2006 mixtape heater “Switch.” In addition to the 10,000 pound bass booming throughout, this song is incredibly clever and shows just how slick Lupe was back in the day. Lupe himself even describes the song as “a little science experiment” as he literally switches back and forth from subject matter without missing a beat.

In the song Switch, Lupe runs an “Experiment” during which he lays out for the listeners several different facets or niches that all rappers tend to fall into. Every time the background says “Switch”, Lupe will change the flow, meter, cadence, vocab, and topic to correspond to another niche of rap. – Genius

So turn up your factory ass system or pop in your headphones and let this Lupe classic bang.

#RushHourRap – Drake – Draft Day

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Draft day, Johnny Manziel
Five years later, how am I the man still?
Draft day, A. Wiggins
Fuck that other side, bitch we stay winnin’
Aw man, you know I had to do it for you
You know I had to do it for you
Yeah, suits and ties yelling out, “Pay the guys”

It’s NFL Draft Day baby so what other song could I possibly have gone with today? A little Throwback Thursday Drizzy to go with your morning coffee.

#RushHourRap – Logic – Supermarket

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Switching things up a bit today and rather than picking just one song for #RushHourRap I’m giving you a full album because its that good. Logic released the experimental Supermarket recently, but it isn’t just an album, its a soundtrack to a NOVEL he wrote and dropped from the clouds. My guy Bobby Tarantino is a five tool player it would seem.

Supermarket is yet again another departure from what you would expect from Logic. He’s made lyrically stunning rap albums, trap albums, conscious social issue albums, and now he’s created something that I can only describe as a mid 2000s alt rock album, but in the best way. A lot of crooning, piano and acoustic guitar make this sound like something you could just as easily hear in a swanky lounge as you would on HotNewHipHop.

Although it got crushed by outlets like Rolling Stone, I dig it. I’m partial to the titular track “Supermarket” but this entire album is excellent. Check out a few that I picked out below.

Is Kanye West’s Yandhi Going to Be the Greatest Album in the History of Music? This Video Makes Me Think Yes

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I have absolutely zero idea what is going on here, but I am all about it. Kanye has been recording his upcoming album Yandhi, which was supposed to be released at the end of 2018 but got pushed back.

Now Kanye had a lot of bad press last year with his Trump tirade and received mixed reviews on his two projects Kids See Ghosts and Ye. I enjoyed both, but they each felt like a mixtape more than individual completed albums. So maybe he’s doubling down his efforts to put together something special. The guy is no stranger to tweaking his work until the last second, most notably when he essentially crowdsourced Life of Pablo and changed some songs on the albums AFTER it had already been released.

So while I have no idea what in the hell is going on in that above Kanye video, it looks like it JAMS. If Yandhi is anything like his previous christ-like self titled album, Yeezus, then we are in for a trip. Yeezus was yet another example of Kanye releasing music that was ahead of its time that seemed to be bizarre, out there, and borderline manic, but quickly implanted itself in your brain and became unforgettable.

Either way, Kanye is cooking up something.

#RushHourRap – J. Cole – Middle Child (Video)

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I know we’ve been doing a lot of J. Cole lately, but hey the guy is on fire right now. Yesterday he dropped the visuals for his latest single, Middle Child, and it is a trip. J. Cole, so hot right now. J. Cole.

I’ll let HotNewHipHop break it down for you below:

The visuals start out on a dark note with a group of figures behind the rapper as he sings for the camera. Things brighten up when he sits passenger side in the whip, ending up in a lavish cabin by the fireplace. A woman bounces her booty back and forth in the corner of the room with Cole paying little attention to her. The most lighting in this video comes when Jermaine rolls through the supermarket, casually flowing through the juice aisle with so much swag. This is one of the best videos of 2019 and it may remain in that category at the end of the year.