Tag: Rap

#RushHourRap – Coolio – Gangsta’s Paradise

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Damn, another legend gone too soon. RIP to Coolio, who died yesterday at the way too young age of 59. I’m not going to tell you I knew every song in Coolio’s catalogue, but Gangsta’s Paradise is a first ballot Hall of Fame rap song. Released in 1995, Gangsta’s Paradise hit No. 1 on the charts and earned Coolio a Grammy for his efforts. The view count on the music video alone is north of one billion. That’s billion with a B.

If you really want to have your mind blown, check out the original source that Coolio sampled for the song: Stevie Wonder.

Coolio is one of the first rappers I remember seeing at a young age and just immediately understanding oh this guy is ice cold cool. As an entrepreneur Coolio was pretty ahead of his time as he understood crossover appeal and the benefit of tapping into audiences that may not have been as familiar with Compton rappers. Case in point, the absolute banger of a theme song for Kenan and Kel.

Not to mention linking up with Cartoon Network to do a rap about Dexter’s Lab.

And if you’re not into rap, but are somehow still reading this blog, Coolio was the basis for one of Weird Al Yankovic’s most well known parody songs, Amish Paradise. So there’s that. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery after all.

Jayson Tatum’s (Probably) Favorite Rapper Nelly to Perform at Halftime of Game 3. Celtics By a Million Tonight.

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Jayson Tatum’s fellow son of St. Louis, the one and only Nelly, is performing at halftime of Game 3 of the NBA Finals in Boston tonight. I don’t know if Tatum requested a little pump up music from (probably) his favorite rapper or if Wyc think JT and the team needs a little extra juice going into the 3rd quarter, but I like it. If I’m the Celtics I’m letting Nelly put on a 45 minute set like it’s the Super Bowl halftime show. Just let Nelly play “Heart of a Champion” 12x in a row like he’s Jay-Z and Kanye in Paris, solely to get Tatum fired up.

It’s impossible to not wanna run through a wall after hearing that absolute banger, even though Tatum was like Deuce’s age when the Sweatsuit album dropped back in 2004…

True story: “Heart of a Champion” was the Power Song on my Nike+ app back in 2007. And if you don’t know what a Power Song or a Nike+ app are then I have successfully flooded this blog with enough 10-15 year old references for one day.

#RushHourRap – Jay-Z ft. J. Cole – A Star is Born

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I seen Mase do it, I seen ‘Ye do it
‘X came through, caught lighter fluid
Still I came through it; clap for him!
But I’m the blueprint, I’m like the map for ’em
I dropped another classic, made Puff pass it
Nobody could touch Puff back when Puff had it

This is one of my favorite rap songs that for some reason I never hear anyone talking about. “A Star is Born” was on The Blueprint 3, which was released back in 2009, and showcases Jay-Z essentially detailing an oral history of all the biggest players in rap over the years. Jay is able to stuff in references to everyone from Mase to DMX, Puff Daddy, 50, Lil Wayne, Eminem, Kanye, Dre, Mobb Deep, Andre 3000 and a ton more in just two verses. All of those artists, in Jay’s words, have had their moment in the sun, but Jay-Z has remained the one constant.

Not to mention “A Star is Born” was really the coming out party for J. Cole, introducing him to anyone that wasn’t routinely browsing HotNewHipHop.com downloading any mixtape you could get your hands on in college… But I digress. This track came out just a couple of months after J. Cole dropped his classic mixtape The Warm Up so he was ready to blow, even though his own debut album Cole World wouldn’t be released for another two years. J. Cole was actually the first artist signed by Jay-Z to his Roc Nation label so this was quite the way to announce your arrival.

#RushHourRap – Kota the Friend – B.Q.E.

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Born in a ditch and you die in a box
But I’m on a mission, a man of ambition

Released back in 2020 with features from Joey Bada$$ and Bas, BQE starts off with an old school soulful trumpet before the beat drops and Kota the Friend goes in. Off his sophomore album Everything, Kota pays homage to his hometown of Brooklyn (BQE is an acronym for the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway) and recruits his fellow NYC artists for the ride. BQE was released during the peak of Covid back in the spring of 2020 so it’s understandable if you missed it when it dropped, but there’s no excuse now for not giving BQE a home on your Spotify favorites.

Kota released the time capsule-esque visuals for the 2020 single when it originally came out too.

#RushHourRap – Atmosphere – Scapegoat

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It’s the east coast, no it’s the west coast
It’s public schools, it’s asbestos
It’s mentholated, it’s techno
It’s sleep, life, and death
It’s speed, coke, and meth

We’re jumping in the way back machine all the way to 1997 with Atmosphere’s “Scapegoat” off their debut album, Overcast! I’ve always loved the song because it’s got this kind of slow burn to it as the list of who’s fault it is and what to blame continues to grow longer and more absurd. People generally have a hard time accepting their faults and addressing their shortcomings head on so it’s easier to just blame the fast food giants than it is to get up every day and hit the gym. The irony of this endless feedback loop is particularly biting after hearing Slug name drop dozens of scapegoats over the course of the track.

#RushHourRap – J. Cole – p u n c h i n ’ . t h e . c l o c k

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Teeterin’ between enlightened and insanity
Now that I’m rich, I feel nobody understandin’ me
All I can do is cut the mic on, holler at you
Can’t let the fame scare me off from speaking candidly

p u n c h i n ’ . t h e . c l o c k kicks off with an incredibly insightful clip of Damian Lillard, after dropping 61 points, speaking about the necessity of doing the hard work when nobody’s watching, which helps illustrate the picture that J. Cole is trying to paint with his entire album here. It doesn’t matter how far he’s come, he still needs to put the work in every day if he wants to be the best. Check out the first 2 minutes of the video below that Cole put together documenting the creation of The Offseason and you can literally feel his passion as he explains the concept of the album to 21 Savage.

“Do you really wanna look back 10, 20 years from now on this music shit and be like the reason you didn’t make it in music was because you didn’t put in the work?…One more time before I leave, before I fill like I’m fulfilled in this game, let me try and reach new heights from a skill level standpoint.”

I’ve always had an affinity for J. Cole dating back to my college days when I was downloading The Warm Up and just playing it on loop in my dorm room. To watch one of your favorite artists come up from putting out mixtapes to minting his sixth straight Platinum album with The Offseason is incredibly satisfying. Hopefully he keeps putting out these elite level rhymes, but even if he retired today J. Cole has already cemented his status as one of the best to ever do it.

#RushHourRap – Rexx Life Raj – Lockheed Martin

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You only get one life at the end of the day, some people work they whole life and give it away
Midlife crisis full of dreams they didn’t chase live with the regret of all of the risks that they didn’t take

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of conscious rappers from the old heads like Common to the current king of the game in J. Cole and Rexx Life Raj scratches that itch for anyone looking for something new. Rexx Life Raj isn’t a ringtone rapper, he frequently mocks wannabe gangster rappers, and was even a D1 athlete playing on a football scholarship protecting the blindside of current Cowboys Offensive Coordinator Kellen Moore at Boise State (although he was a couple of years after the Statue of Liberty play). The Berkley, California native has been putting out music for a few years working with the likes of Russ and E-40, but I was turned onto him when he dropped “Lockheed Martin” in June of this year. The Ringer actually did a feature on him last year if you’re looking for a good profile of his come up. Check out Rexx Life Raj and let us know what you think of him and the whole #RushHourRap playlist on Spotify.

#RushHourRap – Lute – Life

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Only person that I’m up against is me
I’m hella humble, don’t mistake, that shit is weak
Show my daughter if she fall, it’s cool, just get back on your feet
I’m here to give you all these tools and then my life will be complete
Show you what you dream is true and what you want in life and reach
And now I gotta take a look at me and practice what I preach
You are who you wanna be
And now I gotta take a look at me and practice what I preach

Lute is an artist out of Charlotte that signed with J. Cole’s Dreamwork label back in 2015, which probably explains why I like this track so much. Humble, hard working, and motivational all wrapped up in some slick rhymes, check out Lute’s “Life” and the powerful visuals that only a year like 2020 could truly inspire.

#RushHourRap – Lil Wayne ft. Drake – BB King Freestyle

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Off “No Ceilings 3,” which dropped in November 2020, Drake and Lil Wayne are back with some old school mixtape flows on BB King Freestyle. It’s no secret, but the sheer output of content from Wayne over the years is mind boggling. I have to admit though, I was texting some friends the other day because I was legitimately appalled at the use of Six Foot Seven Foot in a freaking Burger King commercial. Just when you think Weezy has either sold out, fallen off or stopped giving a shit he comes correct with a verse like this.

I’m proud of me, I don’t know how to be sorry, apologies
You fuckin’ with my math, you better know some trigonometry
‘Cause I’ma be bustin’, leave your lima bean at your mama feet
I flip the economy like Dominique Dawes
They say I’m trippin’, I guess they wishin’ I finally fall

You can stream the whole mixtape at DatPiff.