The latest trend is trendwatching with no binoculars. While all of us were fighting about Charles Hamilton, Los Angeles and other bubbling parts of California^[1] have been blowing up a dance/fashion/music meme known as Jerkin’^[2] in recent months. The dance speaks for itself,^[3] let’s talk music. I wanted to put together a proper zip file for a second, but finding CDQs on this sort of stuff is a particularly difficult undertaking. Fortunately I can just let some sixteen year old on Imeem do my job for me. (more…)

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Ju of D4L f/ Shawty Lo – “Do It, Do It“

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Nitti was seemingly one of the more insidious producers to come out of the whole snap explosion. “It’s Going Down” was completely unredeemable and he has the uncanny ability to turn up Trae records when he’s least needed. According to his wikipedia page, he did produce a big chunk of Eightball’s Almost Famous which was a solid record, as well as “Crank Dat Roosevelt”, which was less solid. He gets sparse on “Do It”, one of those joints where you keep waiting for a beat to drop and it never does. It’s all claps and hihats and water drops. And incredibly warm synths. Oh and Nitti is a apparently a vocalist now, too. Right, right, okay. (more…)

Ghetto Mafia f/ Shawty Lo – “Trap Be Jumpin (Remix)“

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Ghetto Mafia f/ Shawty Lo – “Trap Be Jumpin (Eastside/Westside Mix)“

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Yin Yang Twins f/ The Hard Boys & Kilo Ali – “No Panties“

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Never let it be said that the A doesn’t support it’s OGs. Both these songs are a few months old but I’m only hearing them now. I’ve got Hard Boys & Ghetto Mafia videos after the jump, for a too brief history lesson. There aren’t any good Kilo videos on youtube but his wikipedia page is actually pretty detailed. (more…)

Killer Mike f/ Shawty Lo – “2 Sides“

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from I Pledge Allegiance To The Grind 2 (SMC, 2008)

The new A-Town anthem from the next Ice Cube. Pledge Allegiance 2 drops July June 17th. You should be excited.

This is a lo-fi myspace rip, hopefully a cleaner one shows up soon. Update: It’s CDQ now, thanks to Sonzala.

Via MG via SMC.

K-Rab – “Groupies”
K-Rab – “Bisexual Attraction“
from Freakinstein (Ladies Only) (Strictly Bizness, 2008)
K-Rab – “Kuntry“
from Kuntry Rap Tunes (Strictly Bizness, 2008)

Is it safe to say snap music is dead? Sure, it’s retarded younger siblings are still running around getting rocks thrown at them and whatnot, but we will never be able to relive the mid ’00ts. That magnificent era, the golden age, where little more than a few sparse 808 kicks could fill any room with the sound of the Stax logo.

One might worry that K-Rab, the “Laffy Taffy” producer and BHI member would go out with the genre he created and the sampler from his yet to be released double disc Freakinstein does little to dispel that concern. There are definitely some great songs on here, “Groupies” being one of them. There are also a couple um noble experiments, creepy loverman joints (“Bisexual Attraction”) and some shit that sounds like it could incite line dancing in the ecstacy crowd. But mostly he’s still bound to the style that he made famous. There’s even a shameless “Laffy Taffy” knock off, entitled “Bubble Yum”. “This bamma needs to retire the snap shit,” said the noz to the textedit.

No sooner did the thought fall out of my skull virtually (pause? i don’t even know anymore guys) than it was brought to my attention that K-Rab is doing just that. It turns out he’s responsible for B.O.B’s very bluesy “Fuck You”, the second best rap record of 2008 and is fully focused on this new country, excuse me, kuntry style. Check “Kuntry.” A more musical minded individual could probably draw some sort of line between blues/folk music and the hyper repetition of snap. It’s exciting to hear one of the progenitors of the genre embracing that, even on a superficial level. At the very least it’s more enjoyable than that rock star junk.

(via tjdjs)