Rap songs on the Hot 100: A POLL

"quicksand," "back in blood" and "throat baby" are my leading contenders. i'm also partial to the two lil durk songs and "no more parties."

the worst ones are "what you know bout love" (50-esque loverman mode is far from my favorite version of pop smoke), "whoopty" (formulaic in many different ways), and that travis scott remix

whoopty is good imo

whoopty is hella good

it feels very non-specific when compared to some of my favorite brooklyn drill tracks, there's nothing to latch onto lyrically, and the beat was done much better by memo600 and king von in 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29Lcebg0J-I

it's also frankly obnoxious hearing it every time i leave my apartment lol

thats on you for leaving your apt

good question

a song that is definitely good, was on the chart as of a week or two ago, and might've gotten my vote if it were still there is polo g's expert keef impression on "gnf"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxykC33lTiQ

i like maybe a quarter of these (haven't heard em all yet)

"call my phone" is such a random song to have become the big mainstream smash for lil tjay

i haven't listened to the pop smoke album but i prefer "what you know bout love" to most of the other singles

"call my phone" is such a random song to have become the big mainstream smash for lil tjay

that's how tiktok does lol

wrt lil tjay, i find he's much better as a guest artist, like on polo's "pop out" or pop smoke's "war," where his wispy, whiny voice can be a counterpoint to a stronger lead artist and not the main focus.

Lil Baby & DaBaby
"Cry Baby" ft. DaBaby

lil baby and dababy teamed up for a song called "baby" in 2019

thots

3. Lil Tjay & 6LACK - "Calling My Phone" - sleepy, but not unpleasant. mentioned upthread that i prefer tjay in single-verse doses, and i'll that i also prefer him when he's a bit more uptempo. his vocal strength lies in his nimble delivery, not his timbre.

5. Cardi B - "Up" - cardi doesn't really miss with her singles, tbh. she makes her hooks stick through sharp emphasis and sheer force of personality. not as memorable or funny as "wap," but this is gonna be playing loud whenever the clubs re-open (or, if we're talking florida or georgia, right now)

8. Young Thug & Chris Brown - "Go Crazy" - have deliberately avoided the thug/breezy collab, but i guess the rest of the world ate it up. even ignoring brown's reprehensibility, this is a boring track, with the only distinctive touch being that nola-style woodblock that rotates in the background. thug sings well, but flattens the things that make him special.

12. Pop Smoke - "What You Know Bout Love" - one of the lesser songs on the album, straight 50 rip with a borrowed hook from ginuwine. it's a throwback, and it's breezy radio fare, but songs like this are not why people singled out pop as a generational superstar.

14. Pop Smoke - "For The Night" ft. Lil Baby & DaBaby - same sort of issue here as the last one, a clear radio play meant to prove pop's mettle outside of bk drill, but doesn't touch the best tracks by pop or either baby.

15. CJ - "Whoopty" - shared my thoughts upthread, but woooof.

16. Pooh Shiesty - "Back In Blood" ft. Lil Durk - pooh shiesty has an excellent rap voice with an easygoing back-of-pocket slide that's hard to teach. the hook doesn't really stand out from the verses because of any melody of cadence, but because it has the song's most memorable lines (well, shiesty's most memorable lines). durk's verse is one of his most charismatic, instantly induces rap hands.

24. Yung Bleu - "You're Mines Still" ft. Drake - has someone mashed this up with "genie in a bottle," yet? i've dug yung bleu in other contexts, but the instrumental is so delicate and he just steamrolls it in a bad way. and you don't have to do the fake jamaican accent just cause you have drake on your song. drake's phoned-in verse inspires a game of "guess the swagger jack"–i'm guessing his newfound emphasis on his higher register comes from roddy ricch?

26. Megan Thee Stallion - "Body" - like this, especially how those echoey moans act as percussion, but it's not my fav meg mode. i do love her stuttering flow in the second verse, which weirdly reminds me of andre 3k on the "walk it out" remix

27. Doja Cat - "Streets" - it's wild how hot pink songs are still charting well over a year after its release. this is a borderline rap case like some of the ones i excluded, but doja does have a rapped verse in the song's second half (the worst part of the song lol). the bulk of it reminds me of the good parts of the weeknd's trilogy.

30. BRS Kash - "Throat Baby (Go Baby)" - good song. i think it's probably filthier than "wap," and nearly as catchy. the dababy/city girls remix that's pushing this up the charts is not great, tbh, i really hate dababy's verse, and yung miami's verse is even worse. j.t. is the only one who really grasps the tone of the original.

to be continued

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

what's the best version of "beat box"

beat box
beat box 2 ft. pooh shiesty
beat box 3 ft. dababy
beat box big latto mix w/ mulatto

i can't have heard more than one of these yet but still got curious when i saw how many there are now

spotem’s original verse is the same in all of em so it depends which guest star you prefer. baby’s in a very showoffy mood on his remix verse, i think he finds the most interesting way to attack the beat. latto goes full punchline mode and lands a few haymakers. pooh shiesty has been better elsewhere

got too busy to review every song lol, but I’ll highlight some favs before the poll closes

the best of the rest

54. SpotemGottem - "Beat Box" - fun bit of post-kodak florida trap. i discussed the remixes a bit earlier, but the original is more than just a low-key loosie elevated by a tiktok trend. well, it is that, but the beat is pretty irresistible, with the two-chord pianos (evocative of young dolph's "cut it") and lively 808 programming. spotemgottem is wholly indebted to kodak but there are moments where he jumps out of the speakers, like when he toe tags the titular phrase.

70. Coi Leray - "No More Parties" - this has risen much higher since it got a remix from lil durk. gorgeous maaly raw beat, coi basically just paints around the edges. no great shakes lyrically, but each line is a snappy instagram caption-style pronouncement.

75. Pooh Shiesty - "Neighbors" ft. Big 30 - same formula as "back in blood," but pooh shiesty and big30 have been collaborating for years and their voices sound great together. this isn't my all-time favorite collab by them (that would be 2019's "hell night") but even tho it's a bit monotonous, like the rest of shiesty's lp, it packs some real menace: "we let off shots right where the tourists play"

79. Lil Durk - "Finesse Out The Gang Way" ft. Lil Baby - durk is finally a superstar, after 10 years in the game, and here he's collaborating with another superstar who blasted off only months after he decided to start rapping. the highlight of this one is the beat from chopsquad dj, who's the zaytoven of the midwest, using his serious keyboard skills to add musicality and bounce to his drill beats. the arpeggiating piano lines have the same kind of whirling dervish qualities of baby's most impressive verses

87. Lil Durk & King Von - "Still Trappin'" - rest in peace, von. he lived hard, and it's distressing to hear how violent and bleak his verses are in light of his death, but he was a truly arresting presence on every track, and he always brought out a nasty side of lil durk that i appreciate.

90. Future & Lil Uzi Vert - "Drankin N Smokin" - the uzi x future tape was in one ear and out the other for me, but this was one of the songs that stuck with me, mostly because future's style on this song seriously reminds me of rylo rodriguez

94. Morray - "Quicksand" - this is gonna get my vote. just a great song, sung really well. the moment in each verse when he switches up his flow to that against-beat triplet deal is sooo good. he's kept making good songs too, i especially like "kingdom," which borrows a lot from contemporary gospel.

what's the best version of "beat box"

beat box
beat box 2 ft. pooh shiesty
beat box 3 ft. dababy
beat box big latto mix w/ mulatto

i can't have heard more than one of these yet but still got curious when i saw how many there are now

― dyl, Monday, March 15, 2021 12:34 AM (fourteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSgIwp-lJhs

honestly I can't get past the fact that someone said "I've got the perfect stage name... POOH SHIESTY" and the world said "feelin' it"

not only that but the big line from his big song doubles down on his name: "pooh shiesty that's my dog, but pooh you know i'm really shiesty"

prefer chippass

chippass baby, new rap name i call it

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

curious, who voted for “lemonade”?