Author: Thirtyseven

What in the fuck is this kid even saying? I know it’s cool to be too cool to rap, but this dude is too cool to talk & that’s a bridge too far. I had to immediately run this back several times, mostly to make sure I wasn’t having a stroke. Sure enough, on headphones,…

Some rappers can spend years convincing you not to check out their music, just based off their name alone. Dababy is one of them. Rich Dunk is definitely not. Both of them came out the Charlotte scene, which has always had a unique spin on the genre even by North Carolina standards; half East Coast…

We have to start with the fact that LL Cool J is a genre-shaping talent. His acting career and fly casanova demeanor make it hard for hardcore hip hop heads to respect it, but the man had an impact on par with the top .01% of NYC rappers. All-time. Just like his twin brother out…

Ian’s goofy prep school image is anything but honest. Trained to lie by Dallas Jesuits, he understands how important visual misdirection can be, especially when your product is carefully studied blackface bullshit. To his dubious credit, his Mid-Southern African-American imitation is alarmingly accurate stuff. Every inflection, every breathy pause, every slurred line comes courtesy of…

I get mad worried when I see rappers wearing gloves, man. Whether it’s in a video or onstage, gloves are a relentlessly reliable red flag that some nerd bullshit is afoot. Jace!, aka TGE Duwap, aka iayze, is a struggle rapper, glove afficionado and single dad out of Texas. Despite the fact this cat is…

A seven minute music video is stupid excessive, but this was also stupid fun. Mashing a short film into your new single is highly permissible when you’re official as fuck. Signed to Priority in high school, snatched up by Roc-A-Fella at 19, Juelz Santana has been in the movie business since State Property 2. He…

Having a fanbase that swears you are the greatest rapper alive is more curse than blessing. This is very different from being merely “under-rated,” which applies to nearly anyone. Winning one Grammy instead of five is sufficient proof that the music industry is conspiring to gatekeep your favorites these days; that label just doesn’t mean…

Big Body Bes is, first and foremost, a human cartoon character. The Juggernaut played by Joe Pesci. TV personality, actor, rapper, jet-setting chubby hand model, all of this is only a consequence of who the man is. Most people have to work at being interesting or famous or funny. Bes is incapable of turning it…

I’ll admit, I kinda forgot this dude existed. I’ve never been a fan of anyone but Yams from that set, but I do respect Twelvyy as a pure technician of the artform, another NYC cat in the cypher with 100 bars of that brolic bricolage ready to go. His delivery is laid back and his…

Dropping multiple projects in a single year isn’t much of a flex in 2024. That’s just the table stakes to be part of the conversation these days. Crazy prolific is the baseline expectation, and very few artists get to step off that treadmill early. Most of them get burned out to hollow shells, stoned zombies…