BEST OF 2018

Rap Music Hysteria's in-house counsel, Alan Dershowitz, has advised us to expressly state that the following paragraph is a work of satire. The actions attributed to the names are fictionalized for comical incongruence. Except for one of them, who knows what he did.

Been off the map for the 2K18, but the spirit of mid/late-00s rap blogs compels me to submit my humble list. Jay Smooth showed up outside my window and did the cutthroat gesture. Sach from Oh Word left a bloody Mitchell & Ness in my bed. Brandon Soderberg said he'd leave me alone in a room with Das Racist. Eskay threatened to snap rap my pencil neck and turn my bones into Laffy Taffy. Noz said he was gonna record my death rattle, press it up on vinyl, write a blog touting it as random rap concrète, and flip it on eBay for megabucks. And O-Dub? He straight up threatened to exsanguinate me if I went derelict in my list-making. So here we go.

Mr. Dershowitz also suggested we add the following paragraph for "so-called full transparency, a rhetorical convention wherein the writer seduces his reader with a shallow yet ostentatious display of truthfulness."

End-of-year lists are just an excuse for the circle diddle-jerk to flex and posture, so I'ma be real: I added "Bloxk Party" to my list after consulting other lists, 'cause the CIA psyop department ain't airdrop that one to the cave I been living in. Don't know if I love Rico Nasty as much as everyone else, but I included her because I don't wanna be that rap blogger, even though I inescapably am. In the same vein, I added and removed Doja Cat's "Mooo!," cause that shit's just too goofy. I liked moo cows when I was a baby, but these days the only animals I fuck w/ are the water oxen I use to tend my rice fields. IDK, maybe she got bangers, but I'm not gonna act like I was crankin that Doja Cat all year. "Mo Bamba" is technically a 2017 song, so his dirge shall not appear. Blueface seems like a nice guy, but as I write this he's just an argument on my timeline, so he too punches a ticket to Club Omission.

No order but rough order, for the beginning is what came to my head first, but the middle and end are, perhaps, where the list gets more interesting. I'll see you when I see you.

raps
SOB X RBE - Carpoolin'
E-40, B-Legit, Stresmatic - Meet The Dealers
DB Tha General & Mistah F.A.B. - Dope Era
Husalah - Humpin'
Pusha T - If You Know You Know
Nipsey Hussle - Hussle & Motivate
YG, 2 Chainz, Big Sean, Nicki Minaj - Big Bank
Chippass - Yang Style
Nef The Pharoah, 03Greedo, ALLBLACK - Ball Out
Lil Wayne & Swizz Beatz - Uproar
Lil Baby & Drake - Yes Indeed
City Girls & Cardi B - Twerk
Earl Sweatshirt - Red Water
Valee & Jeremih - Womp Womp
Tyga & Offset - Taste
Iamparis - We On
Rick Ross & Future - Green Gucci Suit
JPEGMAFIA - 1539 N. Calvert
Rich The Kid - Plug Walk
Shootergang Kony, Slimmy B, ALLBLACK - Warm Up
Ralo - Ahk Shit Pop Shit
Valee - Juice & Gin
Saba - GREY
Mozzy - Choke On Me
OMB Peezy - Love You Back
600 Breezy - Who Run It
SahBabii & 21 Savage - Outstanding
Pusha T - Story of Adidon
Gunna & Playboi Carti - YSL
Blvck Spvde, Zado, Bianca Fitzpatrick, Naaji Person - A Toast To The Quiet Life
Cupcakke - Quiz
YoungBoy Never Broke Again - Overdose
Junglepussy - Trader Joe
Camp Lo - Off The Astro
Tay-K - After You
Paris (not that one) - I Want It
Ab-Soul, Anderson Paak, James Blake - Bloody Waters
HD, Fe Tha Don, DJ Fresh - 98 Lexus
Kodak Black, Jadakiss, TXS - Mama
Chief Keef - Stars
70th Street Carlos - Sprite
ALLBLACK - P's & Q's
Kanye West - Yikes
Nickelus F - King Soulja
03 Greedo - For My Dawgs
Koran Streets - Fallin & Ballin
G Herbo & Southside - Focused
Rico Nasty - Smack A Bitch
Ronny J, XXXtentacion - Banded Up
Jay Critch & Harry Fraud - Thousand Ways
City Girls - I'll Take Your Man
WNC Ram Bam - G Warfare
Tierra Whack - Cable Guy
Adamn Killa & Z-Money - Cluckin'
MIKE & Adé Sayyed - Like Mask
Peewee Longway - Jumanji
BbyMutha, $hoey, Michael Da Vinci - Ungrateful
Ripp Flamez - Project Melodies (OML)
Iojii - hoo'dah
Sada Baby & Drego - Bloxk Party
Saul Williams - The Flaw You Worship
The Jacka, Ampichino, Rydah J. Klyde, Planet Asia - One Way In
E-40, G Perico, Vince Staples - Ain't Talkin Bout Nothing
Maxo Kream - Work
The Popper & Rich The Factor - Prospect Ave.
Saweetie, Rich The Plug, G-Eazy, London On Da Track - Up Now
P-Lo - Same Squad
Nas, Future, DJ Esco - Walk Thru
Lil Peep & XXXTENTACION - Fallin Down
Wifisfuneral - Alone As A Facetat
Sheck Wes - Chippi Chippi
Bay Swag - Saucin
Z-Money - Bitcoin
Juice WRLD - Lucid Dreams


other stuff
The Miami Miracle
Joe Pera Talks With You
LeBron in the semifinals and conference finals
Sorry To Bother You
Dwyane Wade: Game 2 against Philly
David Hammons: Bliz-aard Ball Sale by Elena Filipovic (Late 2017, but I read it in 2018, and we ain't gonna get much more current with tha book shit)
Brett Kavanaugh, under duress, defining excessive drinking as "whatever the chart says"
Project Pat at Churchill's
Love Is The Message, The Message is Death @ The Hirshhorn
Aaron Hernandez Gladiator series in The Boston Globe
Tom Brady losing to Nick Foles in the Super Bowl

old, not rap
The Mekons - 32 Weeks
Suicide - Misery Train
Universal Robot Band - Barely Breaking Even
Warehouse - Reservoir
Bumblebee Unlimited - Lady Bug
Orlando Contreras - Sabor de Engaño
Steve Harley & The Cockney Rebel - Cavaliers
A Raincoat - It Came in the Night
Red Alert - Take No Prisoners
Al Green - Lo And Behold
Baccara - Yes Sir I Can Boogie
Gary Numan - Metal
Soft Cell - Frustration
Marvin Gaye - T Plays It Cool
Neu! - Lila Engel
Alice in Chains - Grind
The Whatnauts - I'll Erase Away Your Pain
The Du-Ettes - Please Forgive Me
Max Roach - Garvey's Ghost
Lucho Gatica - El Reloj
Rowland S. Howard - Pop Crimes
Barrington Levy - Please Jah Jah
Bobby Womack - Secrets
Ennio Morricone & Joan Baez - Here's To You
Neil Young - I Am The Ocean
Grateful Dead - Althea
Donald Byrd - Love's So Far Away

VOLVO IS A GREAT CAR

Ridin' round in my brand new '99 / Fo' do',  Volvo!
Trick Daddy, "Shut Up," Book of Thugs: Chapter AK Verse 47

I always liked Trick Daddy, but as I grew to be a man of understated punk elegance, I began to appreciate some of his background idiosyncrasies. At a time when most rappers coveted butterfly-door Lambos or the Viper with the stripes, Trick was all about a Swedish soccer-mom sedan with more safety than the dry thrusts of a BYU dorm room (a/k/a da Provo Soak).

Through his words, I came to appreciate the boxy Scandinavian design of the sedans and station wagons that rocked the worlds of yuppie parents in the late-90s Eastern seaboard. Class is for men, swag is for boys! So I can't ride with DrakeO the Ruler when he casts aspersions on a fuckin JD Power legend. And it isn't just some nondescript slander. After dissing Volvo as a brand, a staff, and a record label, he sets his sights on Volvo's 1996 line.

FUCK

YOU

DRAKEO

Listen, bud, I never listened to your ass 'cause your name is literally some nickel-and-dime copyright dip. Back in 2003, my mans used to write a comic called DougH. It was the Bart The General of graphite-driven Doug comics. You are the DougH of rap. Drinking Sprite and Simply Orange on your album cover, what kind of message does that send to the kids? That it's cool to ingest too much sugar? FOH, beet juice is the real drink of champs.

DrakeO, I'm hoping you get free, but I'm warning you - when they hand you that bus pass and you're waitin for your ride, I'ma be training to fight you for what you said about the Volvo. And don't get it twisted. I might not look like a real humdinger, but like the Volvo I so love, I can take a damn beating.

DrakeO, you dress like Deadpool, and I will fight you. RAP MUSCHSE HYSTERIA OUT!

WHEN I B ON THA RAPID REALTY LISTINGS

Not to beat a dead horse, but to beat a dead horse, New York City is beat, not unlike a horse that is not living, a horse without pulse, a horse in cell decay - a dead horse. Blame Giuliani, blame David Schwimmer, blame third-way neoliberalism, but the shit is just fucked these days. Walk up Nostrand between Fulton and Flushing and you'll be traversing Maino territory, but it's more like walking down the yarn aisle at Michaels. You'll see as many clogs as Tims. It is what it is.

I been following the degradation of the bodega for a while. I'm sorta like a scholar.

"But mine is doing well!" you say. "They just remodeled and got some flatscreen TVs!"

Pish posh, MF. That shit'll be sold when the property value hits eight figures. Ask mom and pop about the East Village the next time you're at brunch.

But I digress. High on bath salts one poetic night, I passed the RAKIM _ 1997 _SOLO argument through the YouTube search function and viewed the "When I B On Tha Mic" video. Those '90s Rakim solo albums are a tombstone for something, but that's another post. In this video, Rakim and friends are gesticulating and lip-syncing in front of Nostrand Mini Market. I can't verify this, because the Google StreetView for 110 Nostrand Ave. shows a property bordering a parking garage, whereas the bodega in the video appears to be on a street corner, but the Yelp for Nostrand Mini Market sports this as its emblematic image: 

Is it a victory? Giuliani sacrificed children so bike messenger types could ride through Bed Stuy with impunity. But if I was head honcho? This fuck would be wearing a fitted MLB cap, jeans the size of air ducts, and a mustard pair of Tims. The bag would not exist, the coat would be Carhartt or North Face, and he would be putting up a Long Island crew in the most deserted back alley.

ON MEMPHIS RAP AND THE SONG OF THE SUMMER

For a complex of obvious reasons, Memphis rap fetishism has long been the province of art degenerates, edgelord punx, and non-racist metalheads, which is why I've always been gun shy about stanning for the venerable likes of DJ Squeeky and M.C. Mack.

What's that you say about the penultimate post? Allow me to remove my clip-on mohawk. Meant nothing, bought it from a costume store. I'll just put on the vintage FUBU jersey I usually wear. Yes, some say it's cyan, others say it's sky blue. You never know until you study color theory!

Post Lamone, you say? Never heard of her. No, mine isn't vintage in that sense, I've been wearing it since '97, it's vintage in the sense of age not provenance.

This FUBU jersey is so comfortable. When I put it on I feel at ease with the world, unlike the semiotically confused palefaces who stand behind their merch tables proffering harsh noise cassettes and Tommy Wright III shirts. Is it any wonder SpaceGhostPurrp can't stand the Yacubian devil? His old MuneyJordan YouTube channel, with its carefully curated underground Memphis playlists, gave birth to the Lil Ugly Manes and Sucide Men of the world. Memphis makes, the world takes and remakes.

Which is why I was surprised to hear Pretty Tony & 38 Slug's "Summer Drama" step away from the gothic and headbussa cliches of so much Memphian random-rap, giving us a summer song encompassing the minor glories and bullshit of a dog day's scene, underscored by the warm piano chords that made the "Player's Ball" reprise/remix so ineffably poignant (no homo).

Perhaps Schopenhauer said it best when he wrote, "The inexpressible depth of all music, by virtue of which it floats past us as a paradise quite familiar and yet eternally remote, and is so easy to understand and yet so inexplicable, is due to the fact that it reproduces all the emotions of our innermost being, but entirely without reality and remote from its pain. And that Pretty Tony & 38 Slug shit? It makes a Krautta like me feel a certain kinda way.

"You know how Shaggy 2 Dope and Violent J are always going on about the 'wicked shit' to describe Esham and whomever? I get it, local pride and all, but it's better applied to the Memphis underground, and 'Summer Drama' somehow weds the wicked shit with cookout music. It's apropos when you consider the whole of summer: you're out grilling schnitzel with your Krauttas as the murder rate rises."

I couldn't have said it better, Art.

SPACEX AGE PIMPIN

Ya man was mainly listening to the sounds of orca whales and gradual mental collapse in my blog sabbatical. You ever heard dopamine die? It sounds like Hopsin and Kweli made a mixtape.

So I missed the moment when the rap internet blew its collective nonbinary load for 03 Greedo. He's cool, but my load remains unspent. He's a Los Angeles rapper who does street rap that doesn't sound like LA street rap, and sometimes he sounds like Young Thug. Right? Hit me up if you got the answers, cause like Kindler, I guess I didn't get the mem-o.

Unfashionably, I've been listening to a fair amount of ALLBLACK, a pimp-rapper seemingly tailor made for the tastes of basement-dwelling blog boiz, who also seem to be the only people talking about ALLBLACK. Is pimp-rap dead? I suspect it can't go anywhere after Suga Free. ALLBLACK certainly won't reinvent it, but he adds a bohemian nose ring and ditches the high camp that often tempers the more unseemly aspects of pimp bardage. It's revisionist pimp-rap, stripping away the pageantry from the cold business of selling pussy. Will PC Culture take my precious pimp-rap? Time will tell, but know one thing: I'll dye (my hair blonde) for my entertainment (anonymously).

ALLBLACK is a bad rapper in, I think, a compelling way. He always lags slightly behind the beat, not unlike the fiendish shadow people who stalk my every move yet disappear like cowards when I turn to confront them (pour one out for Art Bell). On "Ball Out" he's joined by Greedo and '15 Martorialist Freshman Nef the Pharoah. Greedo ditches the vocal filters and delivers what's formally the strongest verse I've heard from him. Is my thinking swayed by the fact that he compares a vaginal scent to stroganoff? Yes, but he gallivants in a very lavish and outlandish manner, channeling Ezale at times.

Nef bats second in his Cheshire Cat style, which, though effective in bursts, hasn't been strong enough to sustain anything beyond a yearly single or two. The celestial counterpunch to Greedo's earthbound food metaphors is effective. ALLBLACK only handles the chorus, meaning we don't get to enjoy his good-bad rap stylings, which is good for some and bad for others. All in all, a magnificent song that helps to blot out the evil punk rumblings in my head for two minutes, eight seconds.

BAY SLANG WATCH

What have I been doing with my year? Riding hither and yon like a dandelion seed borne on the indifferent winds of existence?

No.

I've been being punk. It's one of my favorite hobbies, this being punk. So imagine the shock to my glue encrusted Manic Panic when I heard ShooterGang Kony casting aspersions on a "punk rock thooter."

Could it be a callback to "Fruity Pebble Punk Rock," or is Kony making sweet crusty love in between vegan bake sales at 924 Gilman?

I don't care. I'm punk, and I will continue practicing my punk no matter what you say. Kony works in the boilerplate nü-Bay style so quickly becoming indistinguishable from its Detroit counterpart, perhaps realizing the world-flattening that hysteric early-'00s rap millenarians saw in the internet's rise, but, like, who really fucking cares? It makes me feel big and powerful when I'm driving in my fast car.

We're just dust in the wind. ShooterGang Kony's music will be forgotten when the big .exe in the sky decides to pull the plug, and you and I are cobbling together shacks with melted-down Vertical Horizon CDs. But by all means, enjoy it while it lasts.

BEST OF 2017...WE ONLY SIX MONTHS LATE, BRUH!

In this particular instance, what may initially appear as a blogger's complete ineptitude and inability to follow deadlines, actually reveals itself as an ingenious use of Brecht's distancing effect. By submitting a 2017 wrap-up almost six months into the next year, the Rap Music Hysteria impresario shocks the reader out of his/her pathetic bourgeois sham of a life and confronts them with the arbitrary measure of the calendar year as an ordering device; the breakneck pace of internet consumption, wherein the year's previous best are barely regarded in the next; and, ultimately, his deeply moral list reminds us of death.

LMFAO jk gang, I was too lazy to cobble one of these together last year, but why the fuck not drop this on y'all heads and let it stand for posterity. I imagine there will be a lot of omissions because I care as much about this list as you do. Leggo!

Mozzy - The People Plan
21 Savage - Close My Eyes
Gunplay & Mozzy - Never Had Shit
OMB Peezy - Lay Down
Willie The Kid - You Know About Me
Rich Homie Quan - Gamble
Westside Gunn - Brains Flew By (1964 Version)
CyHi The Prince - Nu Africa
Playboi Carti - Magnolia
Shy Glizzy - Congratulations
Z-Ro - Houston 2Gether
Valee - Shell
Lil B - Bad MF
Lor Choc - Fast Life
Kur - Uptop! Uptop!
Lil Yee - The Illest
YoungBoy Never Broke Again - No Smoke
G Perico - Bacc Forth
Lil Peep - Beamer Boy
Tay-K - The Race
Ballgreezy & Lil Dred - Nice & Slow
Lud Foe - Recuperate
Quelle Chris - Buddies
Chief Keef - Whoa
Kodak Black & Jeezy - Feel Like
MeloDroppin30 & Lil Chicken - No Grease
Young Dro - The Real A
Lil Durk & Lil Reese - Distance
G Herbo - Street
Lil Wop - Backwoods
XXXTENTACION - Everybody Dies In Their Nightmares
Yo Gotti & Nicki Minaj - Rake It Up
Young Dolph - Play Wit Yo Bitch
Count Bass D & Snoop Dogg - Too Much Pressure
Creek Boyz - With My Team
SahBabii & Loso Loaded - Pull Up Wit Ah Stick
Kendrick Lamar - DUCKWORTH.
Spodee - From Tha Bottom
SOBxRBE - Game On
Milo & Elucid - Landscaping
Young Thug, Carnage, Meek Mill - Homie
Dru Down - My 501's
Future - Zoom
Keak Da Sneak - Thunderdome
Prodigy- Mafuckin U$A
Vic Spencer - Legitimate Ignorance
Troy Ave - Never Switch
J Stalin & DJ Fresh - Play With Lil J
Princess Nokia - Mine
Cam'Ron - 10,000 Miles
Koran Streets - Comfortable
MikeWillMadeIt, Chief Keef, Rae Sremmurd - Come Down
Trick Daddy, Trina, Mike Smiff - Paradise
Migos - T-Shirt
Ralo - Calm Down Ralo

Special Mention for "Bodak Yellow." Never really enjoyed it at any point, but I understood why people did. Felt like an asexual monitoring an orgy.

WHEN YA TROLLIN BACKFIRE

Wassup y'all, can't say much about my long sabbatical from the rap 'nets, but let's just say I was taking a lot of hallucinogenic colonics and practicing my alphabetical genital glides. Can't be more pacific than that, so let's just move on to the rap and forget I ever wrote that sentence.

Aight, I took an internship with a certain M--o Y., who recently set up shop in Miami. The boy put me on to books by Thomas Sowell, and I started questioning the whole ethics of this rap thing. I wore Dockers and topsiders, ranted about thug culture unbidden, jerked off into piles of FBI crime statistics. But I was walking down the street when I heard this fuckin sphincter-rattlin' sound.

"Who that?" I asked the young mocha-colored hombre. His skin was like coffee and chocolate and cinnamon and burnt umber. Felt like painting the mothafucka in a loincloth, ya feel me? Had that Gauguin boner 4 real (no homo).

"Boy, stop. You know that's Lil Xan."

Suddenly I loved rap again! Went back and checked up on my old pal DB Tha General. He got a new project out, something about being the king of Oakland and the crown weighing heavy. I can't swap out this window, chief, I gotta let the words flow. It's pretty good if you like DB - who, lez be real, created both the Mozzy and SOBxRBE lanes now dominating the Bay (I mean, I think - I been dabbling in erotic facepainting for the past half a year) - but there's one song called "You A Fag." The chorus goes, "Bitch, you a fag!" I thought that was pretty funny, so I sent it to my potna.

"Lol check this out man shit's deep."

Only my Google search ended up linking me to a completely different song!  Lol, trolled. The song ended up being great and I looked stupid. Turns out David Drake even wrote about it back in the day, comparing Husalah's raps to Ghost and Rae. Yeah, I hear that Double D! Husalah kills DB on his own shit, but who really won the war? I'd rather listen to current DB than 2018 Husalah on his best day. That being said, I've spent the past few moons lab-testing priapic Listerine strips, so what's my opinion worth?

I'm gettin old, y'all. I don't wanna hear about the drugs you took or the chicks you dicked. I wanna hear about your pain, bruh. I wanna hear about your struggle. There is no hope, there's only us!