MUSHMOUTH HAS A POSSE

The difference between real hip-hoppers and the well-adjusted rap enthusiast is simple. Real hip-hoppers prioritize enunciation and elocution above all else. While most fans of this modern urban oral poetic tradition are open minded enough to understand that good rapping is about more than arbitrary stylistic standards, real hip-hoppers would crown George Takei as the next Rakim if he picked up a mic and threw some polysyllables together.

Now I love great enunciators like Cube and KRS-ONE, but I'm biased toward the kind of rapper who sounds like his entire body is melting from the tongue down. With due respect to Erick Sermon, Ma$e is probably the most influential and accomplished marblemouth of the modern era. 50 Cent is next, and he had to get shot in the face to achieve that intoxicating bouquet of insouciance and facial paralysis. Nowadays we got drug casualties like Future and Johnny Cinco, whose gross lean consumption may have resulted in permanently retarded motor skills. These guys are so cool they can't even be bothered to form words clearly.

The next great anti-enunciator coming out of the ATL is 21 Savage. The young man is getting much blog love, and while I ain't completely sold yet, I am optimistic about the way he talks about grimy skreet shit like he's explaining the plot of Kate & Leopold to some hoe that fell asleep during Netflix and chill. In "Dirty K" he appears dressed like a Heinz bottle alongside Lotto Savage, who is the Hydrox to Young Dolph's Oreo (or something). He also got the ill Charlie Manson forehead tattoo. Next time you find yaself hangin with some jagoff in a Mishka windbreaker, scream, "I fux wit 21 Savage, young blood! Stay woke lil woadie!" and Harlem Shake until you die of exhaustion or decide to pursue an accounting degree.