Image via Enpahmus/Instagram
Steven Louis does not acknowledge the state of Indiana.
To the legion of publicists hitting our inboxes – this right here is the preferred format. “I heard them five cool ass ladies that be poppin’ it are back again,” Milly Mo leads with, surrounded by newsprint and tube TV sets. Simple, effective. It helps that Cuzzos x5 have collective charisma to power a planet. The quintet began rapping together just two years ago as a group project for the homie’s 25th birthday. They’re now rising stars with a veritable LA anthem and a clear path to the rim. RTBWEST laces them up appropriately – triumphant horns and arena bass skitters, the music that plays when the popular girls step onto campus.
Everyone is gold plated on this intro. Milly Mo kickflips and stacks syllables through an alias. Yes, her tank-top says HUSBAND BEATER. BB is an early summer breeze with “I am, who I think I am.” BIG I-N-D-O orders the All-Star special, then eats it in front of us. Jasscole swishes the game-winner in icy monotone, the Kawhi Leonard-ness upped by her subsequent Popovich bar. And Teaawhy cashes out in a forest green Kith rugby polo. “Got some D’usse in my cup and money coming in abundance / we gon’ give you melodies and poetry, we droppin’ sonnets,” she says. Consider us stuck off the iambic pentameter.
This would be the part in the movie where a rival college pulls up to the competition and does their thing in rebuttal. Here, Tha Hot Girls reignite the original lighter fluid from 1997, boosted and bent for our present. Live from the corner of Louisiana and Claiborne, the four “HGs” fashion a two-bar baton pass in olive jumpers and camo bandanas. Seatbelts remain unbuckled, the Third Ward gets repped and Webbie is evoked. It’s the squad’s second Wayne/Juvie/BG/Turk rework of this spring, and though we’ll need to see more of their own thing down the stretch, “We On Fire” is an extremely digable salute to soil.
Atlanta trap princess Anycia was zero years old when Hot Boys released their first album. Her latest drop is more of the 2005 persuasion – gold fronts, Baby Phat denim and a Benz truck on standard-definition camera. The opening cut sounds like a fully-preserved MTV bumper. Anycia’s flow is unshakable, like neon pink speckles in a sheet of cloudy ice. She makes scenes, not friends, and she expertly hits the bends on Tony Shhnow’s high-speed tracking. Seriously, this beat sounds like we’re rumbling through a Lil Jon & The Eastside Boyz-themed pinball machine (business idea: Crunk Arcade). “I really don’t care to be cool,” Anycia scoffs, knowing damn well that she’s doing it anyway. Shoutout to Montreality, which has been running an aughts-styled video series all year.
More 2000s unearthing! Let’s not short ourselves by remembering Chingy as a one– or two-hit wonder. He had smackers, lots of smackers, and “Pullin’ Me Back” was maybe his best stuff. This week, Port Arthur Texan Dc2trill pours new concrete on that lush foundation, touching up a new-era remix in dedication to the L word. Yup, lean is everywhere in Trill’s universe – we’re talking about the leader of the Drank Babies, after all – but he raps with precision and real vigor. Schemes are opened, then constricted in the front-halves of two bars, and he’ll decelerate a line only to double-time its closeout. “Think I need codeine up in my life” grafts the hook melody onto an extended southern blues flow. They’re the type to rage-bait on Twitch, and he’s the type to trip with three ladies IRL. This is something to sage the room to, until the room smells of grape Jolly Ranchers and rubber-banded hundreds.
In this oversaturated industry for unattentive listeners, a rapper is really only as good as his first line. So we know this is worth committing to when the ATLien Enphamus jumps out with “I ain’t nothing like Tom, I’da shot Jerry / took the boss out the back and went binary.” Enph’s flow is propulsive, matching danielwsp’s hulking chant of a beat. He’s a leadoff hitter with a cleanup swing. Norbit, Freddy Krueger and Fetty Wap all catch strays in the opening verse. “Don’t nobody look tough in the graveyard” is a haymaker punchline. Up next is Real Recognize Rio, a Zone 6er with a more leveled tone. The thick-framed glasses won’t fool us, because Rio reveals himself as a no-breaks walk-down jabber. “He got hit up in Georgia now he in a vegetable state” should instantly reclassify the peach. This Atlanta trio is rounded out with Bhm Pezzy, who adds a more liquified texture after the first two spit straight up. He laughs at the BBLs that look as plastic as new furniture, then rhymes furniture with terminal and hernia, which absolutely rules.
Midwest house with Northern California bounce out? Yup, this will work. DaBoii has one of the best uptempo deliveries in the game, and he goes end-to-end with controlled sprints across Drewbyrd’s spacious dancefloor. From new jack swing and Stevie B to dorm room R&B and now this, we have yet to find a sample that DaBoii doesn’t glide on. On the other end, 22nd Jim has three phones – like that Joe Dumars picture, perhaps – and there is a lot of money on each of them. The party hides beneath every canary yellow Serv-U Market awning.
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