Hip Hop Roundup: The Best from March 2-9

Project of the Week: BBY Godard – Euphoria

Welcome to the spiritual macrocosm that is Bby Goyard’s music. For those who aren’t accustomed to this celestial experience of Soundcloud’s next great innovator, Bby Goyard is someone who thrives in an otherworldly pocket of experimental trap, dream pop and R&B. His new project is captivatingly liberating while simultaneously dark.

He hides some of the ominous subject matter with fluttering keys and affable vocal inflections. The EP’s gentleness is a stark contrast to the pile-driving bass on some of his loose singles on Soundcloud. He has a penchant for staying tranquil as he spits chilling couplets such as, “You’ve been falling asleep too much/Keep on dreaming if you don’t want to wake up.” Goyard can nonchalantly manipulate autotune like a video game-adjusting every granular nuance to his advantage. He can juxtapose high-pitched tonalities with decaf vocals (“Babylon 29 AD”). He’s bound to be featured in a Cole Bennett video sooner or later, or at the very least, the Soundcloud charts.

Notable tracks: “Keep Dreaming!,” “Babylon 29 AD,” “Rob Drydek $$$”

Lil Yachty (feat. Drake and DaBaby) – “Oprah’s Bank Account”

Rap Twitter seems to be in a frenzy over Lil Yachty’s recent YouTube output, and it’s easy to see why. He’s recently pivoted towards Detroit’s underground intellectuals and Chicago’s Glo Gang (Sada Baby and Babytron specifically) for more hardcore verses over threatening production. He’s reaching outside of his comfort zone of 30 Roc’s skeletal beat-making.

Personally, I always felt Yachty received too much flak over the past three years of his career. I think many critics and fans gave up on him too easily without first realizing how young he was at the time. He’s still in his early-20s, and yet, he already has his own niche of melodic trap. That type of Yachty is showcased on this doozy of track featuring DaBaby and Drake.

The video is nine minutes long, and finds Yachty playing Oprah Winfrey as he satirically asks Drake and DaBaby questions about rap and how it pertains to their style of music. Despite having two titans as guests, it’s Yachty’s bubbling falsetto that shines once again. The slick chorus will fester in your brain after the very first listen; and stay there for awhile. For many, Yacthy is having a creative renaissance. For diehard fans such as myself, he never left.

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OJ Nineteen (feat. Rio da Young OG) – “Talk Crazy Pt. 2”

In college football, Ohio State and Michigan are coldblooded rivals. It’s a beautifully competitive site to see when those two classic schools come together for their once-a-year matchup. The same thing could be said when Cincinnati’s OJ Nineteen and Detroit’s Rio da Yung OG formulate for a nonstop bloodbath of uncompromising lyricism. To be completely fair, I don’t think there’s a time when either aren’t talking crazy over high-BPM production. Both have metaphor encyclopedias stashed somewhere in their head. It’s always entertaining hearing what deep-rooted insult they pull out of it.

Lil Uzi Vert – “Baby Pluto”

Eternal Atake is by far Lil Uzi’s most expensive album to date. I can’t imagine how much it cost to sample Backstreet Boys, Travis Scott, and pinball in one breadth. In a way, this is Uzi’s Astroworld; an atmospheric odyssey that will surely have diehard fans drooling until the deluxe version comes out next week (maybe). Like Scott’s magnum opus, this album carried immense hype for three-plus years. Many people are in a frenzy trying to crack this unseen code riddled throughout the album’s song titles and time stamps. It’s only been a week, and EA has already reached transcendent levels of mystique.

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The jingling keys on “Baby Pluto” are the perfect appetizer for Eternal Atake’s cultish aurora. The entire first leg of the album happily contains mesmerizing acrobatics from none other than the man himself. Uzi undoubtedly raps his ass off on the first track, and doesn’t stop for almost an hour. “That Way” is almost like a breather, even though it’s the official finale.

Lil Xelly: “Let’s Go”

Yesterday, Lil Xelly released another 100-song mixtape titled More Xelly 2. Most artists love to wave their unreleased songs (the “B-cuts”) around like a badge of honor; mainly as a mechanism for garnering Twitter hype. Xelly feeds them to the public like a buffet. Your eyes become bigger than your stomach by the halfway point, and yet, I still want to indulge. Even after it’s all said and done, two more songs surfaced this morning. Xelly bobs and weaves his way through production that mirrors an X-rated funhouse. For people who want a side order, I added one of his two releases from today above. But for those who want the full course entree, I linked the mixtape below. Enjoy your meal!

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