Metal Lungies

It doesn’t get more blasé than recording a song and casually posting it on Twitter moments later.

I remember rap.

Starlito’s newest mixtape Ultimate Warrior is a swirl of ambition, regret, and base desire. It’s more a mass of new material than a proper street album, but no less entrancing for it. The Nashville rapper is wildly charismatic and raps in lyrically dense bursts. Even when he adopts familiar topics – drug dealing sagas and misogynist romps – he sits on top of them and sneers at them. Or he transcends them by telling the stories with genuine feeling rather than going through the motions.

Ultimate Warrior starts with “#UW,” a title track for the hashtag age and a confrontational and cheeky introduction. Vitriolic peaks excuse the lack of a hook. Starlito raps from the back of his throat in a strangled croak that sounds like he’s about to throw up. The anticipative beat serves a hostile, outspoken loudmouth. “Antonio Montana” opens with Starlito reciting Scarface lesson number one, “Don’t underestimate the other guy’s greed,” before breaking into a cackle. He wavers between sardonic and aggressive throughout Ultimate Warrior.

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Every so often, I sleep on an extremely talented group. A.Dd+ appears to be one of those groups.

via A.Dd+

Huntsville rap is iridescent, but gritty; starry-eyed, but grounded; and always heavy on bass. It’s pretty much the only hip-hop scene worth getting excited about today. Family Ties came out this week, a new mixtape from O’Third, themselves a subset of great rappers and producers behind Huntsville’s relatively bigger names.

They’re much more grounded in today’s Southern rap sounds and tropes than their affiliate group G-Side. Money, weed, and bitches all make appearances. O’Third’s left turns aren’t as brazen — many of their songs wouldn’t be out of place on Def Jam release, except for the fact that they’re really good. The Auto-Tune verse on “Say My Girl” has no business on an underground mixtape, but it comes as naturally as the Hitchcockian beat on “DeBo.” Producers R.Dot, Snypa, and Bossman are in a league of their own and Monster, Zilla, DJ Cunta, and Mitch all command attention with authoritative performances. My only gripe is the line, “Killin’ ’em all like Auschwitz,” which is tasteless and offensive, even by hip-hop standards.

Still, Family Ties is a milestone in Huntsville’s winning streak and a contender for mixtape/album of the year. Believe the hype.

Despite all the exalting, ST and Yung Clova of G-Side are indeed rappers and they’re not above making horn dog sex anthems.

Download: G-Side – Hot Sex and Cold Wine (ft. Johnny Spanish) (produced by Block Beattaz)

via spin.com

Soundtrack to the no pants dance.

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via Rap Radar

Evidence’s stark, methodical bars lend themselves to slow, droning beats. So basically, Alchemist beats. As fate would have it, Ev and Alch are old chums, so Evidence’s sophomore album has five appearances from Alchemist behind the boards as well as one verse. The standouts for me are “James Hendrix (StepBrothers),” “Crash,” “Where You Come From?” and “Well Runs Dry.” On “Well Runs Dry,” Evidence (or maybe producer Sid Roams) has the wisdom to put Krondon of Strong Arm Steady on hook duty. Krondon’s uniquely, charred voice adds a note of harshness to a song about the fragility of success, which is tied to the economy with a series of news clips. You can listen to my picks below and the rest here.

Related: Evidence told LA Weekly that he and Alchemist will eventually make a StepBrothers album:

Well, [Alchemist and I] never announced that we were a group, we just started putting “Step Brothers” next to the music that we created and people demanded it, so I don’t know. We make music every day; we’ve been doing that since we were ditching high school together. There’s a lotta youth energy attached to that project. When we have enough songs done, and we have the time off together to promote it and give it a real campaign, that’s when it’ll come out. We’ll make time. Definitely.

Buoyant, fun single from Bootie Brown of The Pharcyde with an 80s vibe and lots of nonchalant wordplay.