MY OWN FAKE FAKE SHORE DRIVE

The Midwest is a mystery to me. Chicago? Don't quite understand it. So it's New York with less assholes, more gun-related homicides, worse segregation, and horrible pizza? Y'all need to talk about yourselves some more. Get a Marty Scorsese for the promo department, Abel Ferrara if your money is short. But since half y'all rap bloggers never caught a body or pushed a key, I feel as qualified as anyone to discuss Chicago rap. Let's get it. Chuuuuuch.



RICO RECKLEZZ - KOOLIN IN HELL INTRO
This guy is definitely a moran, and he has those terrifying Joe Jackson devil eyebrows. His raps are hamfisted and catatonic. I used to sell drugs, that wasn't really my thing / Then I started robbin, like I hang with Batmane? Lol.

At times, however, an unremarkable rapper can come up with a line that isn't particularly clever or well written, but somehow embeds itself in your memory like the lyrical equivalent of an earworm. Trinidad James did it with, Pop a molly, I'm sweatin (Woo!). Bobby Shmurda did it with, I been sellin' crack since like the fifth grade! J. Cole did it, unfortunately, when he said, Dick so big, it's like a foot is in your mouth. That wasn't something I wanted to keep thinking about, but that's the nature of these things, you feel? Can't always choose what goes in the noodle. Rico Recklezz accomplishes this with the line, Fuck the bench / Coach, put a nigga in the game! The part about his sister getting shot is legitimately compelling. Add it to a nod-out beat that sounds like a goonish "Broke Boi," and we've got ourselves a 3/5 Mazda MPV blockbeater!



600BREEZY - 6IX HUNNED (FT. YOUNG $WAV)
600Breezy is one of Drake's regional rap friends, I guess? Ay Aubrey, you always welcome to write about your favorite internet discoveries on RAP MUSIC HYSGTERAI! We won't edit the soul out ya shit, jufeel? On "Guwop Flow," 600Beezy manages to capture some of the verbal peacockery of its namesake, but the comparison is ultimately the wishful thinking of an eager Daniel-san. What really excites me about this guy is he tapped the legend OJ Da Juiceman for three separate songs! That, and the fact he named his mixtape after George "Iceman" Gervin, suggests 600Breezy shares our reverence for marginalized rap stylists and pre-Jordan NBA history. Breezy, send me some clips!

STACKIN BREADFRUITS

With summer approaching, I gotta put my skis away and hit the pause button on the winter warz I be fightin in my soul. You might catch me on a December night in my Arc'teryx and Lugz, warming my frozen limbs by a dumpster fire in Hialeah with Rip the Jacker on repeat, but by June ya boy has transformed into the Mayor of Margaritaville.

The song of the summer probably won't be a rap song. As we all torture ourselves trying to find it, I'ma be listenin to Chi Ching Ching and sippin on some spiked moss. RAP MUSIC HYSTERIA is an extremely lucrative blog, but as a side hustle I work nights as a dispatcher for Miami's fourth largest yellow cab service. As I fill the dispatch room with caffeine farts, my man Waggy T been puttin me on to new sounds via his Friday night show on WEDR. This is where I first heard Don Andre's "Tom Cruise," which is better than most songs from last year. Chi Ching Ching appeared on the remix, and now he has a great song about eating breadfruit. Now that every other rap song is about taking prescription drugs, it's refreshing to hear these wholesome dancehall fellows extolling one of nature's many non-narcotic bounties. His new song "Nacho" is also very good and food-centric.

I thought dancehall was on a downward spiral once Vybz got locked up and the snoozefest known as Popcaan became its new poster boy, but now I'm so jazzed up I'm filling out paperwork to start my own breadfruit farm. Rap music's misogyny, homophobia, and glorification of violence have really been bothering me lately, so perhaps this site will soon be known as DANCEHALL MUSIC HYSTERIA!

BETTER THAN THE GODFATHER III

The obscure engine of the Rap Internet likes to get its rocks off playin power broker with the destinies of our favorite entertainers. Last year Future was fluffed to max engorgement. My guy was about to burst a blood vessel. This year it's Boosie. I can't front, Boosie been beltin them shits out like Ichiro in '04. Ya mans has enough trouble remembering to wear underwear in the morning, while Boosie turned his struggles into art. And yet as we all break out the kneepads, the work of another Baton Rouge rapper fresh offa murder rap has been ignored.

The Godfather has confessional raps, quality use of the Young Drovian multisyllabic rhyme scheme, a sample of the Godfather theme that somehow isn't super corny, and plenty o' that Baton Rougian boogie. On first listen, I assumed "My Youngin" was another NAMBLA-core ode to a rapper's young male friends, but it's actually about Chad Cain, the Cain Muzik Mafioso convicted of the charges that didn't stick to Mista Cain. The Godfather even got an erotic rap & bullshit candlewax dripper for all my lovermen out there! So for all my goons that keep they guns by the nightstand, right next to the Bible and the prophylactics, I recommend this new Mista Cain joint for thee!

GUESS WHO'S BIZZACK? STILL PRINTED SNOW ON SOME CLOTHES

FIGURE I

FIGURE II

With Cash Money nostalgia approaching peak levels, it's only a matter of time before we're inundated with fond remembrances of Urban Legend and Thug Motivation 101. While the Adebisi hat has yet to make a comeback, the Snowman shirt has already made cameos in two recent Rocaine videos.  On first glance, I thought the gentleman in the background of the "BWB" video was proudly showcasing his vintage Snowman tee, but closer inspection revealed multiple alterations made to the original design. Prior to this, Rocaine wore a similar shirt in the "Rubberbands (Chicken Chicken)" video (Three 6 nostalgia in half effect!).

Is this official Rocaine merchandise or a plug for a homie's clothing line? And are the alterations made to the Snowman protected under law as a form of parody? While I'm happy to see the Snowman shirt return, I can't say I'm a fan of the revisions made to the minimalist black-and-white of the original design. Perhaps it's a confirmation of what I've been saying all along: Jeezy needs to reissue the Snowman shirt!

DISNEY CHANNEL IS THE 567TH ELEMENT OF HIP-HOP

Nickelodeon pandered to the urban set in the '90s, but Disney Channel been all about da hip-hop since the days of Hopsin and Alyson Stoner. This catchy and grating slice of Gambinocore samples the Little Einsteins theme song, which I guess is a cartoon program about little shitheads who think they're better than you. Not to get judgey, but these guys would have to be 17 or 18 years old max to have watched that show without it being weird. Lavishly Nasty, evidently Disney Channel obsessed, is old enough to reference Xenon: Girl Of The 21st Century (1999), so let's hope he has a little sister or something.

"Going On A Trip" uses the same formula that made "Hard Knock Life" ingenious or insufferable, depending on who you ask, riding the dissonance of adult-content raps paired with the squarest possible sample. Although Lavishly Nasty is Drake-ian in his adoption of the Migos Flow, relocating it from the trap to the essentially inoffensive act of getting high, concerned parents might want to protect their children from the video's wanton feast of male flesh. It's a sausagefest pool party, replete with hip-hop line dancing, fat white guys doing cannonballs, and more brightly colored tank tops than a late-period Zac Efron film. Definitely the best example of tank-top rap since Chance and Gambino raised their floral print boardshorts up the flagpole and let that shit flap in the wind.

NH(O)T BOYZ: EVERYBODY GET YA ROLL ON

Been traversing the past so intensely, I got snow in my goggles and missed out on 420 Project Vol. 2, the NhT Boyz mixtape that dropped last week. Honestly, ya boy ain't the biggest fan of weed raps. Its legalization in certain states, and the monetization of a formerly outlaw market, has turned getting high into a respectable pastime and career. Wiz Khalifa is Sammy Hagar singing about tequila. Snoop's blunt is Bob Hope's golf club.

But when a group is involved, the drain-circling of a man trapped by stage persona alchemizes into the excitement you felt when you and ya boys was rollin' lopsided joints in the back of a hooptie driven by a 35 year-old man named Jesús. It's a rap truism: the tight-knit group is always greater than the solo artist. The tape sags toward the end, but not before pandering to my taste with two Cash Money homages. Ima leave it to this Soundcloud user to describe the sound of NhT Boyz breaking into the "Get Your Roll On" chorus:

Groups planning to make another mixtape about smoking weed, please consider writing a concept album about steak and shrimp.

STILL RIDING IN MY TIME MACHINE: 2ND ENTRY

Wassup to all my my hogs 'n' hasas. Excuse me while I dust all this 2009 dust off my cryogenically frozen shoulder. Let that shit thaw and drip into the 2015 snow I still got on my Rossignols. Yes, ya boy been skiin' through time again. Here are some of the songs I found while I was fallin down the moguls, sinkin in the powder, laid up in the gondola with two bad highlander bitches and a bottle of Vicks VapoRub.



X.O. - OFF THE LOT FT. RIZZO & SOSAMANN (2015)
File this one next to Jose Guapo's "Run It Up" under Catchy Raps I Missed In 2015. Every generation gets the car anthem it deserves. As 1999 had "85," as 2002 had "Hot Wheels," as 2004 had "Still Tippin," as 2006 had "Chevy Ridin' High"—2015 had "Off The Lot." And I slept on it!




DELWIN THE KRAZYMAN - SWIGGIN REMIX FT. MOUSE ON THA TRACK & T MCK (2009)
Delwin The Krazyman is a Baton Rouge rapper with a great rap name. Now I ain't know how truthful his epithet is, but what is krazy is the amount of death that surrounds him. But couldn't that be said about rap in general, and Baton Rouge rap in particular?

Delwin rose to prominence with "Mobbin' on Em," a catchy "Triggaman" freak featuring the late Nu$$ie, shot to death by the same kid behind Boosie's murder charges. Although it was rumored that Boosie set a bounty on Nu$$ie, ADA Dana Cummings of the East Baton Rouge Parish set the record otherwise: "The word on the street was that Boosie would pay $25,000 for Nussie’s execution. It was word on the street. That’s all. Mike Louding didn’t even know Boosie at that time, had not met him, but took it upon himself to, I guess, win his admiration and obtain the $25,000." Smh at this Rap Game John Hinckley.

Delwin later collaborated with CeddyBu, the aptly named Rap Sumo, whose 650 lbs. may have tipped the scales against Big Pun's longstanding claim to the title Most Morbidly Obese Rapper Of All Time (The MMOROAT). Shockingly, CeddyBu did not die from obesity-related complications. He died in a car crash at the age of 24.

"Swiggin" is a song about getting fucked up, featuring national treasure Mouse On Tha Track. Let's hope Delwin's Atuk-style curse does not continue. Last year he released Amerikkka's Most Wanted: Reloaded, which has beautiful cover art, a lot of old material, and very little promotional information available. A review of the first Amerikkka's Most Wanted is mysteriously unavailable on FrankieThaLuckyDog'z website. Given that Frankie is writing what amounts to an Infinite Jest of contemporary Baton Rouge rap, might this be a waggish lacuna designed to drive his most ardent fans to wild flights of speculation? Or did Frankie delete the entry in a fit of pique inspired by some real or perceived slight from Delwin or the Baton Rouge rap community at large? I hope I never know the truth.