biggest rap songs on urban radio 2012

Gotta soft spot for 'Drank In My Cup' although it feels like more of a 2011 thing. Probably go with 'Mercy' or 'Bandz...'

shock surprise: I voted Kendrick

Actual shock surprise: I almost chose between "A$$" and "The Motto"

kinda already ranked these, so i'll just link that instead of being redundant: http://narrowcast.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-20-best-rap-radio-hits-of-2012.html

other ones not on that list that i like: Dance (A$$) (which I decided was too 2011 for my year-end list but not for this thread, if that makes any sense), Magic, Birthday Song, Round Of Applause, Sabotage, Touch'n You

this list is actually wacker than i expected. my fav song on here is prob "gotta have it" but i'm gonna throw a vote at "amen"

better than last year's list or 2010's imo though: best mainstream rap hit of 2010

top 15

1. gotta have it
2. don't like
3. amen
4. mercy
5. the motto
6. rack city
7. clique
8. dance
9. turn on the lights
10. nobody's perfect
11. ayy ladies
12. cashin out
13. same damn time
14. beez in the trap
15. faded

bottom 10

10. my homies still
9. diced pineapples
8. swimming pools
7. sabotage
6. take it to the head
5. bag of money
4. til i die
3. work hard, play hard
2. right by my side
1. another round

i can't tell if "swimming pools" showed up on a lot of publications' YE lists because they just wanted to throw a kendrick single up there or if people genuinely like that song cuz wtf it's really kind of awful

also, jeez is wale popular. never ceases to amaze me.

Rick Ross f/ Nicki Minaj - "You The Boss"

lol wtf how is this so high on the list btw

better than last year's list or 2010's imo though: best mainstream rap hit of 2010

― some dude, Monday, December 31, 2012 9:48 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

for some reason i feel like the 2012 stuff that will show up on the 2013 list will be better but i have nothing to back that up

this looked better the more i looked over it

lol wtf how is this so high on the list btw

― dead cera (J0rdan S.), Monday, December 31, 2012 9:52 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it was a pretty tragically huge song! pretty funny that the biggest single from the God Forgives campaign ended up not being on any edition of the album

"swimming pools" is one of the best songs on the kendrick album, when did people start hating it?!

am i the only one who prefers "burn" to "amen"?

my favourite songs on this list are a bit 2011 :/

"Turn On The Lights" or "Amen", definitely.

"swimming pools" is one of the best songs on the kendrick album, when did people start hating it?!

check the year end lists thread, i don't think very many people hate it

i don't agree w/ "burn" > "amen" but i certainly wouldn't argue it... first time i ever considered that big sean might not be the worst thing ever

i dunno that was well after "dance (a$$)" though

yeah but i still give sean like 2% credit for "ass"... which i only fuck w/ the remix btw. one of nicki's best verses + that beat/sample/hook... my grandma could be rapping on that and it would still bang like crazy

sean is too easily ignorable to be the worst thing ever, he's just there and it's just sound

obviously Nicki owns that song but it's pretty good even before her verse starts, the orig w/o her is basically the best case scenario Big Sean song. surprised you hate "My Homies Still," also works pretty well.

i actually don't hate that song... i could've put a handful of tracks where i ranked it. i just wanted to shoehorn a solo wayne track in there to register my general disgust.

so you're just saying you didn't catch that "No Worries" was on the list

i was actually surprised with n_z didn't put "my homies still" on his year-end list since he'd seemed to really like it at the time, but maybe he was making a point of no wayne on the list which i can respect

with=when

i like "no worries" a bit more

mercy and clique always banged so hard when they came on in the radio

*shields self from some dude* have a special place in my heart for 'no lie'

haha

"No Lie" became more tolerable for me when i bought the album and realized that the unedited Chainz verses flow better, the radio edit is such a mess

i would've voted for "i'm different" had it made this list

yeah it'll def be on the 2013 list but it broke too late this year. i'm sure i'll be the only person w/ it on my p&j ballot.

song I'm most ashamed of for getting stuck in my head too often is 'another round'

re "i'm different" it seems pretty rare to me in these days of producer oversaturation that an established rapper really catches the hottest producer's wave for a single track and just blows it out of the water and w/o it coming off as "the one track produced by the hot producer"

buzza on that beat ho

well i mean mustard only really has 2 big hits so far, so i kinda feel like "i'm different" just works and isn't getting burn because it's by the "rack city" guy, otherwise he woulda had the year mike will had.

lol xp

Waka Flocka Flame f/ Drake - "Round Of Applause" is underrated

yeah got lost in the shuffle but i always enjoyed it

"turn on the lights" by a mile then "clique"

the ranking of rappers on the r&b/hip-hop chart 'top artists' list is kinda lol but mostly sad

1. Drake
2. Wale
3. Lil Wayne
4. 2 Chainz
5. Rick Ross
6. J. Cole
7. Nicki Minaj
8. Kanye West
9. Future
10. Big Sean
11. Young Jeezy
12. Jay-Z
13. Tyga
14. Kirko Bangz
15. Ca$h Out

Turn on the Lights and nercy are probably deserving, but I can't get Ca$hing Out out of my head right now, so I'm going with my gut.

grew to like/love over time: cashin' out, mercy, beez in the trap, take care
liked then didn't (due to being way overplayed): the motto
basically always liked: rack city, drank in my cup, ayy ladies, dance (a$$), bandz a make her dance

i think i will vote cashin' out w/ mercy close behind (a$$ disqualified for feeling more like last year)

i like swimming pools but it is not exactly one of the more interesting ones from the album to me so who knows, maybe j0rdan is partly right on that

i'm different was played in the music round of a trivia thing i went to last night, i got pts for knowing it was 2 chainz but i couldn't actually name the song #embarrassed

"swimming pools" is garbage, particularly as a single

ie, if you liked the song (and the album) you could make a reasonable case that the song is vital to the album's identity or flow but why anyone who wasn't a fan of his would want to hear that on the radio idk

if the song were omitted from the album it wouldn't make a big difference to me

WITH THAT NINA!!!

1. mercy
2. my homies still
3. bands a make her dance
5. the motto
6. swimming pools
7. the boss
8. rack city
9. clique
10. ayy ladies

top 15 like

Future - "Turn On The Lights"
Future - "Same Damn Time"
Drake f/ Lil Wayne - "The Motto"
Ca$h Out - "Cashin' out"
Big Sean f/ Nicki Minaj - "Dance (A$$)"
Kanye West f/ Big Sean, Pusha T and 2 Chainz - "Mercy"
Chief Keef f/ Lil Reese - "I Don't Like"
Tyga - "Rack City"
Nicki Minaj f/ 2 Chainz - "Beez In The Trap"
Kirko Bangz - "Drank In My Cup"
Future f/ T.I. - "Magic"
2 Chainz f/ Drake - "No Lie"
Meek Mill f/ Drake and Jeremih - "Amen"
Young Jeezy f/ Jay-Z and Andre 3000 - "I Do"
Drake f/ Rihanna - "Take Care"

and bottom ten like

Drake f/ Nicki Minaj - "Make Me Proud"
Wale f/ Miguel - "Lotus Flower Bomb"
Drake f/ Lil Wayne - "HYFR (Hell Yeah Fucking Right)"
Waka Flocka Flame f/ Drake - "Round Of Applause"
J. Cole f/ Missy Elliott - "Nobody's Perfect"
DJ Khaled f/ Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne and Chris Brown - "Take It To The Head"
Wale f/ Rick Ross, Meek Mill and T-Pain - "Bag Of Money"
Rick Ross f/ Nicki Minaj - "You The Boss"
Fat Joe f/ Chris Brown - "Another Round"
Drake f/ The Weeknd - "Crew Love"

Wale f/ Lloyd - "Sabotage"
Chris Brown f/ Big Sean and Wiz Khalifa - "Til I Die"
Kendrick Lamar - "Swimming Pools (Drank)"
Rick Ross f/ Wale and Drake - "Diced Pineapples"
Lil Wayne f/ Detail - "No Worries"

oops, those 5 at the bottom just didn't get deleted from the post. i've actually only heard "swimming pools" and "diced pineapples" of them.

i don't remember who said it or where, but i basically agree with whoever it was that said big sean is fine as long as he's just ripping off travis porter

big sean sounds amusingly kendrickish on 'mercy' imo

haha I agree with that.

I always get "white girls politiciking / that's the sarah palin" stuck in my head, but then I had Peter Andre's "Gimme Some Kind of Sign Girl" stuck in my head all day yesterday so what does that really prove.

kendrick influencing other rappers is always hilarious, drake especially

yeah "now we out in paris that's that perriering / white girls politiciking that's the sarah palin" is actually the exact bit i mean, sounds just like the "pirus & crips all get along" on 'maad city'

thought about this long and hard today and am gonna vote mercy, feel bad because I feel like I voted for mercy in some other similar poll

xp everytime i'm in the street i hear HANH? HANH? HANH? HANH?

all i care about is that beatswitch for ye's bit on 'mercy', the whole song is an elaborate pretext just for that

"let the suicide doors up" = one of the MOMENTS of 2k12

i voted Future, boring answer but w/e

http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/32721044.jpg

every time

kanye part is good but kinda feels like pretext for 2 chainz verse imo

fake-ass young dro verse imo

i mean it's still hot but

acting like dro owns the patent on car color/food lines is such an ilx construct

"all this polo on i got horsepower"? please

even if u took every reference out it's still dro flow

yeah now that you've said it i can totally hear dro rapping it. never occurred to me before but prob an influence on tity.

wow this verse is very dro-ish, never occurred to me

also i kinda agree w/al re ilx constructs but also think its kinda bs, depending on context; he was definitely one of the first to go heavy on the color lyrics & im sure ethan or someone could drop some earlier precedent for it but thats true of basically every rapper who popularizes something first

as sad as it makes me that frank ocean thought he was imitating lil mouse when he did the money dance on snl

color/food stuff was big with jadakiss and at least a couple other ny cats (maybe fab? trying to remember any lines in particular), dro just took it to new extremes and made it a southern standard, kind of a variation on houston candy paint punchlines

and there are probably still precedents for kiss but it was very much his 'thing' circa '04

"let the suicide doors up" = one of the MOMENTS of 2k12

― r|t|c, Monday, December 31, 2012 3:02 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and to think he used to be all about "thank gaaaawwwd i ain't too cool for the safe belt". what happened to you, kanye?

and there are probably still precedents for kiss but it was very much his 'thing' circa '04

― some dude, Monday, December 31, 2012 5:21 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i feel like kiss rapping about his "aston vanquish the color of dandruff" on the "made you look" remix is a seminal moment. dro did up the bar all the same.

otm

I like most of these songs. Future though.

but which future?

You lookin fooor it?

since young dro isn't getting thrown on any tracks these days i'm cool with 2 chainz doing his best young dro impression

you mean 3krazy

to everybody talking abt 2 chainz on mercy, here's a reminder: CHAIN THE COLOR OF AKON

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

"money tall like Jordan" always cracked me up because 2 Chainz is only like an inch shorter than MJ

I quite liked abt half of these. cash out, loverance, keef, flocka, meek mill, kanye (or, more importantly, tity boi [or more importantly big sean? prolly not pusha tho.]) all deserve it. not voting for future seems kind of silly though, doesn't it?

gotta have it was played on the radio?

yeah it was a light rotation fav in the months after "paris"

rap radio is in a weird place when jay z and kanye are riding off jay z and kanye's coattails

i dunno what that means. you ever heard of a follow-up single?

oh. yeah of course. no I just mean in regular circumstances jay z and kanye would be getting heavy play regardless. but their time is kind of over (for singles anyway) and after the monstrosity of paris dominating the charts, I wasn't really expecting them to show back up. so like, I get that it's a follow up single, but I just find it interesting that things have changed in such a way where they even need a follow up single.

like obviously they're still two of the biggest names in music on the planet, just, charts are weird and fun and interesting

1. I just realized how dumb that sounds, my head is in a really weird place tonight 2. although I kind of stand by it, cause ye more a curator at this point and jay really is on his way out 3. wait no it sounds dumb 4. on going over kanye's peak chart history on wikipedia, maybe I overestimated his dominance in previous years?

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

interesting results!

love that all the "Beez In The Trap" repping from 6 months ago disappeared

What an incredible year for rap this was. Mega stars at their peak. Two Meek Mill releases. Good Kid and Pluto. "Round of Applause" and "Mercy" and "Rack City." Even J. Cole and Wale had great singles. Habits and Contradictions and R.A.P. Music. Tons of great stuff bubbling underground.

This was probably one of my favorite years ever for rap.

sadly the song on this list i might hear the most now is "pop that"

"Mercy" is definitely the one I hear in the wild the most. Or "A$$"

Ha, I never hear "A$$" anymore.

I've kind of come to love, like, 90% of this list, though, even "A$$" and all those shticky Nicki Minaj songs. Even my least favorite songs on the list have a kind of energy and commitment that I really respect.

The one hit wonder singles have held up, too.