Strap yourself in, because there’s a lot of contemporary internet rap to cover today. Sometimes, that’s just how the damn cookie crumbles. Regular readers of the blog know all about the skewed Myspace-ish dance rap of TisaKorean. Sitting in the bubblegum continuum that connects Rich Kidz with Sicko Mobb, Tisa’s newest tune "Ucci” is catchy—real catchy. It had me bopping while walking to the Dunking.
Papo2oo4 indulges in a little Lloyd Banks cosplay, and I’m transported back to some of my first trips to New York City as a young touring musician. Let me paint a picture for you mofos: I’m in the passenger seat of a minivan, listening to a middling Green Lantern mix on Hot 97, looking in vain for a parking spot somewhere in North Brooklyn. Then I go and play a noise show.
Hixxy “More and More (99jakes Remix)”
It’s time to take a halftime break from internet rap and move into a cheeky bit of internet rave. Here, the old and new school of happy hardcore meet at a diner and have a malt together. It’s wholesome rave action through and through. Listeners who get to the breakdown will be rewarded with a synth arpeggio so euphoric that it might make giant white Mickey Mouse gloves appear on their hands. Mental!
XavierSoBased “90 Down The Block”
Our trip through the online rap buzzbin continues with a track from perhaps the most loaded avatar of zoomer musical incomprehensibility currently uploading tunes to SoundCloud. I’ve been waiting to stumble upon a Xavier song that feels “right,” whatever that means, for America’s Dumbest Music Blog. What I found this week is one-and-a-half minutes of melodic warbling over crunchy, snappy snares and Playstation pop punk. Art damage: It comes in many shapes and sizes.
Somebody had to sample that viral “merrily we fall out of line” tune—yes, I’ve seen the TikTok—and, honestly? I’m surprised it wasn’t DJ George Costanza. I’m glad quinn stepped up to the plate, though. They turn the cut into a cringecore classic. There’s a lot of heart here.
On a different tip altogether, I present a 2023 mix from Andy Noble—he and his brother are legendary Wisconsin record diggers: Tom owns a store in Brooklyn, and Andy has a few in the Midwest. There is a good documentary about the two and their other brother Davey that I would recommend to anyone looking for both a snapshot of a certain strain of Y2K-era retro aesthetics, which are now retro in their own right, and a timeless study of a life in counterculture. Anyway, “Jewels” is a good block of rare soul, spanning eras and styles. How rare? Noble says that he possesses the only known copies of the first and last records in the mix.