Houston’s TisaKorean and Mighty Bay might be the best duo in live rap right now. I’ve seen them warm up thousands of ambivalent 100 Gecs fans. I’ve seen them take a half-full Manhattan club and turn it into a madhouse. The rally towels they hand out to the crowd certainly don’t hurt their cause. “bEat uP dAt bOy” is choreographed sparring over Neptunian marching band madness. Another great piece of Texas rap content that I consumed recently: Monaleo rapping over Z-Ro’s eternal “Mo City Don” beat.
Zach Bryan? I think I’ll pass. Noah Kahan? No thank you. When it comes to contemporary Americana that bridges the gap between Walmart and Whole Foods, I’m on team Shaboozey. The above few sentences came to me fully formed one morning. Not great…
Mercury has been on a bit of a streak lately. Her recent singles have made good on the promise of her earlier music. Here, she attacks an upbeat shmacker—think Milwaukee; think Xaviersobased—and adds a level of casual finesse to the track that makes the song satisfying in a way that almost feels middlebrow. There’s a chorus.
I miss Tokyo. Will I ever go back? Or will I have to live with my memories of the scalding cans of coffee and the tiny smoky clubs and the long-haired action rock heroes? Anyway, “Tokyo Funky Breaks” is a full-on breakbeat frenzy that conjures cities far away from Japan. It’s a little bit Orlando, a little bit Baltimore. Someone get this tune over to Jubilee, if she doesn’t already have it in her e-crate.
John’s Music Blog exists so I can do things like post a new Nappy Roots song. Low-key—or maybe high-key, I don’t know—they have come through with the best neo-Native Tongues track I’ve heard all year. How did I even find it to begin with? I’ll never remember.
It’s easy to hate on the contemporary internet. Those who write critically about the “endless scroll” and the algorithm and all that aren’t necessarily wrong, but sometimes it’s nice to be reminded that on the other side of that doom there is an internet full of unbridled human creativity, moving a mile a minute. That’s why I’m glad that people like Billdifferen exist. They dig, in real time. They swipe through the stream. Take this mix: It’s over 150 minutes of new Brazilian baile funk, which is music that sounds like an android barreling through a neon junkyard. It’s music that should be playing under the audiobook of the Portuguese translation of Neuromancer. It’s music that is both exciting and overwhelming, and it’s good that someone is trying to sort through it.
Excited to dig into that billdifferen mix. Defector had a great article last week about Brazilian funk: https://defector.com/a-washed-americans-guide-to-the-boundless-underworld-of-brazilian-funk