Tag Archives: Rap

mp3: Yung Lean – GATORADE

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It’s going to be hard for a lot of people to take Yung Lean seriously at first, and the Swedish rapper definitely has a taste for the absurd, but I know his music is worth listening to.  The idea of a 16 year old kid from Sweden rapping about gatorade, arizona iced tea, and being sad is interesting in and of itself, but a lot of Yung Lean’s music is actually really good.  His two main producers, who are also part of his Sad Boys crew, are Yung Gud Shawty and Yung Sherman, and both are extremely talented.  On “GATORADE” Yung Gud Shawty puts together one of my favorite rap beats in a while with spacey synths and vocal samples and Yung Lean puts down verses that show that he definitely knows what he’s doing behind a microphone.  It’s pretty obvious that Yung Lean is going to be really polarizing with videos like this, but this song is actually really fucking good and noteworthy.

-TC

Eat Your Beaties: Vol. 20

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It’s been a long journey, but we’ve made it 20 volumes of Beaties in, and there’s no turning back now.  I think this also means the one year anniversary is coming up soon, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.  This time around we have 5 fresh ones for y’all as usual.  We start off with an experimental chanting beatie from Holm.’s beatie-a-day project, then a short verse from /broke and Maj, a Neptunes/J.T.-esque summer track from Penthouse Penthouse, a mind boggling sample collage from BitterTV, and finally a haunting and organic sounding droner from Quam.  As always, stream them all after the jump.

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The Up-Turn Presents: A Conversation With Sidewalk Kal

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Over the past year, Soundcloud and the communities building in it have played a larger and larger part in how I found music.  Soundcloud has always been great for finding new ideas in electronic music, but not so much in other genres, especially rap.  Sidewalk Kal is one of the few rappers who has really stood out to me, and over the past few months has become one of my favorite rappers in general.  Aside from getting the best beats from best-kept-secret beatmakers across the internet, Kal has never delivered an even slightly disappointing verse.  I got to talk to Kal last week about how he chooses beats, the Chicago rap scene, and total creativity as an artist and now our conversation is here for your enjoyment after the jump, largely unedited as usual.

-TC

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Enjoy It While It’s Fresh: Bukkweat Bill

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My Soundcloud feed is usually completely dominated by experimental instrumental music which is great, but every once in a while someone like Bukkweat Bill makes his way into it and I get really excited.  Bukkweat Bill’s abrasive flows, beats, and personality immediately stood out to me, not because it was something I hadn’t seen before, but because Bill was doing it so well.  Bukkweat Bill is far from being alone in making ignorant and heavily explicit rap, but he makes it with so much confidence that you can’t help but believe him that he’s better than any other rapper in his lane right now.  On “#D4MN” he opens by repetitively muttering a rap cliché almost incoherently and it works perfectly and on “Kelly Rollin” he drops lines aren’t groundbreaking but somehow are impossible not to repeat.  Bukkweat is also aligning himself with the right people as he just released a track with L.A. producer Djemba Djemba so I wouldn’t be surprised if he becomes a blog favorite within a few months.  Stream “#D4MN” below and “Kelly Rollin” (produced by Djemba Djemba) after the jump.

-TC

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Eat Your Beaties: Vol. 17

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It’s been a harrowing few days.  Lil’ Poopy apparently isn’t actually a part of Coke Boys, Lil’ Wayne is in the hospital in critical condition, and Waka Flocka got kicked out of Brick Squad.  Its days like these when all you can do is come home and huddle up with your beaties, the only entities in this world that truly understand you.  This time around we have an incredibly weird-in-a-good-way house-ish track from Baffin Nunavut, some riot inducing juke/footwork from Cake Dog AKA Ahnnu, a relaxing and intriguing cut from Leah Axel, a smooth collage from lee(fog hills) and finally a highly experimental blown out remix from naps.  Take shelter from this cruel world and stream all of these after the jump.

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Video: Impolite Society – The World

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The hip-hop video norms these days usually doesn’t deviate too far from the rappers involved in the song walking around their city, looking swaggy and doing fun/hoodrat/typical stuff.  Impolite Society are some swaggy dudes, but, as we’ve learned from blog favorite Sidewalk Kal, they also aren’t just another hip-hop crew rapping about how swaggy they are.  In the video for their awesome single “The World”, Impolite Society don’t break away from the norm (let’s be honest these dudes are swaggin), however, they still deliver the same “different” personality that makes them one of the freshest crews in hip-hop right now.  In the video, the members of Impolite Society come across as normal if not still-cooler-than-you dudes.  As a result, the guys deliver their thought provoking and socially conscious lines with a fittingly effortless vibe.

-PK

Video: Remy Banks – GLDCHN (Feat. Bodega Bamz) (Prod. PAFMilo)

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A lot of people don’t remember but rap videos used to be fucking awesome.  Instead of just trying to make the rapper look cool and have a lot of video hoes, videos used to make rappers look cool, have a lot of video hoes, AND be hilariously exaggerated (think “Get Back” and a lot of other Ludacris videos).  That’s why I’m so thankful Remy Banks took it back to that time with this video.  This video follows a day in the life of some guy who has an affliction, which I’m sure many of us can relate to, wherein he gets too turnt up every time he listens to rap.  On top of all of this, the beat for this song is a complete monster courtesy of one of our Beaties regulars, PAFMilo who, if the beats on his Soundcloud page are any indication, is about to take over the entire rap game, and both New York MC’s, Remy Banks and Bodega Bamz, deliver solid verses.  All around good stuff.  Also shout out to Bodega Bamz for trying to revive the latino rap scene and pronouncing Versace like this.

-TC