Image via BLP KOSHER/Instagram
Donald Morrison is going to tell his kids that the latest Cash Kidd x Bfb Da Packman track is Biggie and Tupac.
Thereās been a surprising staying power to BLP Kosher, the skateboarder-turned-rapper from Broward County, Florida who first went viral on TikTok in 2022 for being a jewish kid with wicks who can rap. Heās since racked up an astonishing 100 million streams, filmed a hit Cole Bennett-produced video with Baby Tron and released a solid debut tape with a DJ Premier feature. He has taken the punched-in flow popularized by Detroit rappers and made it accessible to a wider audience of white kids and children of the internet.
BLP Kosher is currently headlining his first national tour and I attended his sold out show at Irving Plaza in Manhattan on October 12, where I was met with a young crowd and an undeniable energy to turn up despite an endlessly nightmarish news cycle.
āI feel bad even turning up and getting lit right now and stuff, you feel me?ā BLP Kosher said. āBecause I love everybody and all people. I love everybody, I love all people, I love Palestinians, I love Jews and one day there will be peace in the Middle East.ā
I went to BLP that night with a Jewish friend of mine. His dad texted him earlier pondering if it was safe going to see a Jewish rapper on the night before the Day of Jihad in the midst of a war in Israel. Others I spoke to at the concert also wondered if āsomething would happen.ā There were uniformed police officers outside the venue, which I thought was a little strange until my friend told me the NYPD put all officers in uniform ahead of the Day of Jihad. But aside from the aforementioned brief dialogue in between songs, the conflict in Gaza wasnāt really discussed at all by the artists and the energy in the venue among the concertgoers was positive and unworried.
Trapland Pat opened the show with an incredible set that had half the crowd in mosh pits for the majority of the performance. Trapland is clearly the more adept performer of the two and could have easily been headlining the tour with BLP opening for him. He spent a good portion of his time rapping off-stage into fansā cell phones. His signature Bonks, a hairstyle popular in South Floridaās massive Haitian community, make him appear cartoonish and larger-than-life. He appears from afar to be one serious hit away from the type of life-changing stardom afforded to BLP in such a short amount of time.
Thatās not to say BLP isnāt worthy of his buzz. The 23-year-old rapper has mastered a type of rapping that consists of an onslaught of witty punchlines and reference-heavy musings. Heās also the real deal on a character level, having said in interviews that heās still very much connected to his faith and that itās a huge part of his life beyond just his image. He has a decent ear for the type of dark beats that mix the Detroit sound with the grittier side of Florida, giving his own spin over piano-laden production stuffed with some of the heaviest bass in rap music.
BLP opened with āThe Nac 2,ā a single from last year hard enough to help catapult him into my YouTube algorithm and onto numerous Spotify playlists. The crowd was mostly young people with a few exceptions. A healthy-sized mosh pit formed in the back of the venue and remained for the entirety of the show. After āThe Nac 2,ā I saw an older man with a yarmulke exit the mosh pit glistening in sweat, before dapping up a younger, shirtless man with a lime green shiesty who heād been moshing with. Next, BLP slid into his single ā2000ās Baby,ā which prompted him to ask the crowd if there were any 2000s babies in attendance. The crowd went crazy and Iāve never felt older in my life.
The highlight of the night came with the three-punch knockout of āJew on the Canoeā, āMazeltronā, and āSpecial K.ā Listening to these three songs in a row cemented my belief that BLP Kosher is here to stay, like it or not. Heās possessed with a nimble flow and a dedication to standing out among the overly-crowded rap scene by leaning into the parts of himself that are unique as opposed to copying other rappersā formula for overnight success. His fans werenāt here just to moshpit, they were there to see Kosher in all his wicked-up glory and the moshing was an added bonus. I donāt see BLPās star dimming anytime soon.
Veeze is your favorite rapperās favorite rapper. Thereās something about his one-liners and non sequiturs that manage to burrow deep into my psyche and stay stuck there for days. Iāve had āpull up with that Mickey Mouse clip, this aināt Disney,ā stuck in my head for weeks, with no sign of abatement.
This week, the Detroit-rapper released five new songs on the deluxe drop of this years best album, Ganger, Veezeās sprawling, long-awaited debut that blew past the lofty expectations placed on it by fans whoād been waiting the better part of three years for it. āGet Luckiā is early proof that this deluxe drop is more than just an industry ploy to boost streaming numbers. The production matches Veezeās lackadaisical flow in a way that reminds of the synergy between The Alchemist and Prodigy on old Mobb Deep records. Weāre seeing history in the making.
Nef The Pharaoh is the only rapper from The Bay Area since Mac Dre to really nail down the type of conversational, pimp-like flow that made the original Furly Ghost so immediately likable. Thereās a sort of effortless gift of gab on display when Nef says āIf you think you found a sucker and a chain, I big doubt it,ā dissuading The Bay Areaās now-infamous scourge of stick-up kids and car thieves from trying him.
The beat so captures Mac Dreās early eccentricity and island-vibes that I can almost picture him gigginā and turning up to this song in 2023. The video shows Nef and LaRussell, who raps better than I ever imagined he could, doing a remake of the stoner, high school comedy, How High?, with Nef reprising the role of Redman and LaRussell playing Method Man. Itās a fun video that matches the irreverence of the song, which deserves to break out of the regional limits placed on a majority of Bay Area rappers.
Valee has always felt like the Top Shelf of rap music. His songs have a fine-wine quality, somehow getting better and bolder with age. If aliens descended onto planet earth and wanted to learn about our way of life and what can be possible in terms of music and auditory pleasure, I might show them Valee.
So it makes sense his latest single with fellow extra-terrestrial rapper Pink Siifu is titled āCreme De La CreĢme,ā another exercise for Valee to show off his never-ending rolodex of inventive sayings and clever wordplay. āWalk around like a lick, no bling, old school like a fossil, pristine,ā he says. Over a beat from MVW, Pink Siifu easily matches Valeeās labyrinth-like flow, injecting quick-pace energy to an otherwise somber and brooding track.
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