Every week, seemingly a gazillion songs release on streaming services. From Soundcloud and Bandcamp exclusives to the endless array of songs on Spotify and Apple Music, it’s a lot to take in. Additionally, some of the tracks aren’t nearly as good as it should be. Who wants to waste their time sifting through records in fear that some aren’t very good. How can one possibly have the time to even do it?
This is where Noisey has you covered. We’re saving you time in the playlist department to narrow it down to the three most essential songs in hip-hop and R&B you should hear. Maybe you’ll find a new favorite artist or album in the process.
3 of The Best New HIP-Hop Songs of the Week
Young Thug- “Man I Miss My Dogs”
Ever since Young Thug got out of prison, he’s been in the news for everything but the music. Dialogue about snitches and rats, talks on street ethics from the peanut gallery. Then, a myriad of leaked phone calls from jail came out all over social media. All of a sudden, the Young Thug experience became something of a gossip column, from calling GloRilla ugly to lamenting his problems with Gunna. However, we never really got the chance to see if Thug is still musically sharp.
On “Man I Miss My Dogs,” he certainly indulges in the public drama via numerous apologies. He begs and pleads to his girlfriend and R&B crooner Mariah the Scientist for her forgiveness in making her look bad. He plays mediator and tries to patch things up between Drake and Metro, desperately wants Lil Baby to stop giving him the cold shoulder. Thug empathizes with Future and his grieving, apologizing to him and Gucci Mane for his calloused words.
Sure, people can rip this apart for chatty purposes. But the reason this works is that Young Thug bears himself emotionally. Over somber, throbbing production, he shelves his vocal dexterity and lavish gallivanting for the raw and honest. When Thug sings with the vocal sample, his voice cracks under his wheezy crooning.
Could it be posturing for public validation after all the eyebrow raising? Possibly. If he is, it’s great acting. But what made Thug so great over the years is that he’s always been aggressively straightforward. He never comes off as disingenuous, almost too revealing if those leaked calls are any indication. While a record like “Money on Money” feels incredibly belabored and vanilla, “Man I Miss My Dogs” strips all the pageantry and centers Young Thug back to the raw rapper we all loved over the last decade.
Kwame Adu- “Heavy Metal”
The future is a difficult concept to grasp creatively. Sure, it could all be fantasy but the most impactful art roots itself in a sense of reality. Even if it heads in directions we least expect, where does humanity fit in the scope? How do we place ourselves in the future?
Kwame Adu pulls this gambit off by examining a dystopian present and siphoning its elements to conjure up visions of what’s next. Sometimes, it animates itself pretty simply. Take “i Love You” from his Black Ant 2 project back in July, a dizzying intergalactic romance filled with uncertainty in the vacuum of space.
However, on his latest track “Heavy Metal” off Black Ant 2.5, he centers himself in the uncertainty of the present. While the sweet chords feel like gazing into a sky full of stars, the drums are vast and explosive. Meanwhile, Kwame croons about endurance of the world’s ills with exhaustion. The dreams feel increasingly distant with allusions to climate change and the stress of surviving, the larger weight of the world. The concept of the future lacks tangibility when living in the present is so uncertain. Kwame Adu, ever the abstract prophet, feels the pulse of today and envisions how it aligns, or misaligns, with our ideas of the future.
Anysia Kym & Tony Seltzer- “Great Escape”
Anysia Kym and Tony Seltzer revamps the energy of classic R&B interludes. Back in the day, records like 112’s “Sexy You” were sparse in their structure, room for the bare minimum for vocals to strut on tender chords. If a regular song intends on carrying you through a journey, a great interlude lets you float in the ambiance.
“Great Escape” extends the energy of the R&B interlude with seemingly never-ending space, galactic and spacious while remaining intimate and close. Tony Seltzer’s production feels like whirring your hands through stardust, the gray ambience expands the musical architecture for Kym to explore. Meanwhile, Anysia channels these color palettes and futuristic tones with sensuality, hair raising whispers in the ear. She works within a fascinating intersection of influences, where Aaliyah’s soft croons on “I Care 4 U” meets Erykah Badu’s windy, fluid rhythm. Many artists try to approximate this idea of the future in art. But Anysia Kym and Tony Seltzler come closer to prophesying it through expanding history and creating a dreamscape from it.
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