Recently in mp3s Category

Trendy tracks that are also really good.

In which ATG carefully nourishes a monthly playlist of excellent hip-hop that is presently being touted by the streets bloggers. Flip the bass on that office Dell all the way up.


1. French Montana -- Whatcha Want
2. A.Dd+ -- Insomniac Dreaming
3. Kendrick Lamar -- Hol Up
4. Lushlife featuring Cities Aviv -- She's a Buddhist, I'm a Cubist
5. G-Side featuring Johnny Spanish -- Hot Sex and Cold Wine
6. Jackie Chain featuring Big K.R.I.T., Bun B -- Parked Outside
7. Big K.R.I.T., 2Chainz, 8Ball & MJG -- Money on the Floor
8. Jay Electronica featuring Mobb Deep -- Call of Duty
9. Stalley featuring Freeway -- Jungle
10. The Weeknd -- The Birds Part 1
11. Tal B -- Lost Gemz Freestyle
12. Rick Ross -- I Love My Bitches
13. Mr. Motherfuckin' Exquire featuring Danny Brown, Das Racist, El-P, Despot -- The Last Huzzah (Remix)
14. Freddie Gibbs -- Come Come (Kick Drums Remix)

Artwork by Joseph Devens.


It's hard to imagine nowadays with the Oprah canoodling, lifestyle blogging, and learned taste for indie rock, but Jay-Z wasn't always so antiseptic. Before "Beach Chair" and his current legacy rap period, Hova boasted a bruising batting average: ten ghetto anthems for every "Lobster & Shrimp" banana peel. Beyond the Bloomberg brunches or uptown art gallery openings with delicate bffs lies an increasingly-overlooked corpus banished in a Disney-like vault.

Jay-Z has hardened into a role model, an author, the Bohemian rap city's generous boss, and a sucker for love. He'll probably be an elected official one day. He'll probably be remembered as affectionately for foreign aid trips to the Congo as he is for hungry rapping.

Folks love to draw Jordan parallels in hip-hop, but Jay-Z is more Bill Russell -- the tireless laborer with more rings than anyone. Jordan left the court (at least the first two times) with a flawless record; like Russ, Jay-Z's had awkward, gangly moments of fatigue and error.

But the difference between sports and music, of course, is that in music the entire point is the journey, the work left for consumption. The sports winner immortalizes the present. You generally don't watch highlights of specific jumpers over and over. Jay-Z has made a double album's worth of terrible music (and that's just with R. Kelly), but he's also left behind a treasure chest of top tier, fully realized, expertly narrated albums.

It's why ATG believes that Jay-Z is the best rapper of all-time. There's an argument to be made about raw talent and iconography, a stupider one to be made factoring in wealth and branding, but because the G.O.A.T. conversation stems from music, the prevailing criterion must be the music itself. Biggie made two albums and the second one was spotty, Diddy-heavy. Tupac recorded urgently in order to fulfill an exploitative contract, and quality control suffered. Neither will stop the seekers from copying and pasting verses (over J Dilla beats, probably) long after we're gone. Who will remix "Money Ain't A Thang?"

The Blueprint III was Emmitt Smith on the Cardinals. It was playing catch with your dad during winter break, as he struggled to compose the spirals you used to have to go long for. It sucked. The long-awaited duet album with Kanye West will suck too.

Without touching any singles, ATG's inner circle spent weeks narrowing down hundreds of fantastic, somewhat deeper cuts into a spiraling, essential mix of Jay-Z at his most inventive, honest, dazzling, and charismatic. It's a mix meant to be consumed with the windows down, on the tro, during cookouts. No consideration was given to the scope of an individual track's project or date. These greatest non-hits are intended to survey Jay's entire catalogue from peak to peak. They're intended to make heads nod for more reasons than one. They are, as the man himself once taught us, for the culture.


SIDE A

1. A Million and One Questions / Rhyme No More
2. Can I Live
3. Heart of the City
4. December 4
5. Kingdom Come
6. U Don't Know [Remix]
7. Guess Who's Back
8. Never Let Me Down
9. Girls Girls Girls, Part II
10. Party Life
11. What More Can I Say
12. Takeover
13. Ignorant Shit
14. Renegade

 

SIDE B
 
1. It's Like That
2. Snoopy Track
3. Never Change
4. In My Lifetime [Remix]
5. Come On Baby [Remix]
6. Dear Summer
7. This Can't Be Life
8. So Ghetto
9. P.S.A.
10. Hell Yeah [Remix]
11. Watch Me
12. Watcher II
13. Black Republican
14. Momma Loves Me


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Your monthly run down of new, trending bangers, jams and slow jams. Photo by Callie Richmond for AThousandGrams.

It's been a few months since Reggie and I sequenced a proper mixtape; consider this a tape sans convenient zip folder, accompanying art/theme, and half-hearted one-liners. In other words, consume the below as a playlist of the fall's best, homeless mp3s as all are standouts from abandoned, unreleased, or forthcoming projects.

I advise pulling up a tab, letting the flash player work its magic.


Theophilus London featuring Blu - Life of a Lover (remix)

Chrisette Michele featuring Rick Ross - So In Love

David Banner & 9th Wonder featuring Ludacris, Marshia Ambrosius - Be With You

Drake - Fall For Your Type

J. Cole - Purple Rain

Ghostface Killah - Together Baby

Lloyd Banks featuring Eminem, Akon - Celebrity

Thee Tom Hardy featuring Skyzoo - A Different League

Curren$y featuring Boo - Still Choppin'

Emilio Rojas featuring Yelawolf - Turn It Up

Nottz featuring Asher Roth - Dontcha Wanna Be (My Neighbor)

Elzhi - Undefeated Freestyle

Yung B Da Producer - Acknowledge It

Raekwon featuring Bun B - Never Matter to You

Your monthly run down of new, trending bangers, jams and slow jams. Photo by Callie Richmond for AThousandGrams.


Big K.R.I.T. featuring Yelawolf - Hometown Hero (Remix)

Southern home cooking via rising, well-received rappers from Tennessee and Alabama.


Charles Hamilton - Kat Stacks

The introspective, isolated Hamilton pops up from a semi-absence, raps impressively over a jacked beat and releases five mixtapes at once.


Drake - Do It All

Fresh rap from the genre's biggest summer star, set for some bullshit compilation.


John Legend, The Roots featuring Common - Wake Up Everybody

Legend and The Roots are making an album together, this is the first taste.


Kid Cudi featuring Kanye West - Erase Me

Once you get over fact Cudi's latest is not a rap song in any way, it's an agreeable little number.


Rich Boy featuring Drake, Lloyd - To The Floor

Nice slow burner for last call. I've always found Lloyd's insistence on going by his unremarkable first name to be a career obstacle. There has to be gravitas behind first name solo artists. You'll never hear, "we got a fresh new joint from Frank."


Rick Ross featuring Chrisette Michele, Drake - Aston Martin Music (Extended Mix)
Rick Ross featuring Raekwon - Audio Meth

The two best holdovers from Teflon Don. I'm telling you, the best album of the summer thus far. Recovery is a masterpiece but it's too thick and layered for a season when you need quick cuts between errands.

Bro, I think he might be.

Teflon Don, arriving on July 20, already sounds stirring and boasts an epic prequel. The final tracklisting is mouth-watering: short, cohesive, boasts immaculate guests. Rick Ross's authenticity as a boss/drug lord with connections was long ago disproven but he's retained a penchant for penning enormous, swelling anthems. His voice is a welcome addition to any posse cut (Ross steals just about every moment, especially 2009's who's who roll call, "Fed Up") and without a need to federate existence, we'll get winking, relatable nods to Honey Comb Hideouts.

And more car songs!


Rick Ross featuring T.I., Jadakiss, Erykah Badu - Maybach Music III

Rick Ross featuring Drake, Chrisette Michele - Aston Martin Music

Dig No I.D.'s beat and the hooks from Tony Williams and Connie Mitchell. This one is from Teflon Don, Rick Ross's forthcoming summer blockbuster. It's scheduled for July 20.

Not to be confusing, but the picture is accompanying promo art for Kanye's latest single. Like it a great deal.


Rick Ross featuring Kanye West - Live Fast, Die Young

me:  Oh jeez nahright just posted a new eminem song from recovery...featuring Pink

With a summer onslaught of big, stuffy summer albums closer than you realized, labels are passing down hearty helpings of "exclusives," generating interest in new recordings from names. Most of these songs range from solid to tight to sweet. Initial thoughts included.


Cee Lo - Georgia

Not as good as the singles from 2004's excellent solo album or the best Gnarls Barkley. But I'm intrigued to hear what a Cee Lo solo album sounds like post-household name status.


Black Milk - Don Cornelius

Milk money.


Blu & Exile - So Perfect

Reggie loves to overrate Blu. I get why on gems like this.


Bun B featuring Young Jeezy - Just Like That

Apocalyptic hustle rap. Gimme my respect.


Copywrite - Last Laugh

Khrysis produces for a relatively unknown white guy with miserably bad promotional art. He's a good rapper though, if a bit crass.


Estelle featuring Nas - Fell In Love

Same type of house/retro beat Estelle surfed on 2008's "American Boy." The guest rap is cool. I dig the synths.


Freddie Gibbs featuring Bun B - Rock Bottom

Gibbs makes up for an average, sung hook by bringing out a marvelous narrative from Bun.


Killer Mike featuring T.I. - Ready Set Go

Get ready for Killer Mike's album ya'll.


Madvillain - Papermill

Ever notice Jay Electronica sounds just like DOOM ten years ago?


The Roots featuring John Legend - Doin' It Again

One of the most delectable, ear candy mp3s the Roots have ever leaked. Instantly likable.


The Dream featuring Diddy - Champagne

You may be asking the wrong person, I love all these silly excess anthems.


Waka Flocka Flame featuring Roscoe Dash, Wale - No Hands

Tough to really enjoy even ironically.

Kanye West featuring Dwele - Power