Chris Crack / Image via Skyhighjpg
Steven Louis is pitching on three days rest.
“They have money for war, but can’t feed the poor” – 2Pac
“Religious people starting to scare me, shit, the government wrote the bible” – RXKNephew
In the precedented unprecedented that we’ve been thrown into, remember to show love in public and blast rap music at high volume. Here are your weekly recommendations on that front.
Through unshakable cool and a steely prolificness, Boldy James has become my favorite rapper in the game right now. It’s not that I’m new to his work – we did an interview for My 1st Chemistry Set back in the halcyon blog days of 2013 – but I think the Detroiter’s veteran run has been next-level brilliant. He’s dropped 19 (not a typo, nineteen!) projects across the last three years, and he’s put out seven different full-lengths in the first half of 2025. He is not the only artist releasing new music at such a dizzying rate, but he may be the only one doing so with zero (0!) throwaway bars. The man has a “turpentine” rhyme scheme and a “Corsica” rhyme scheme. Of critical importance – Boldly James is not a nerd, even if he can indeed mop Aesop Rock in that stupid vocabulary data plot.
I know this because I just hit the opening leg of his biggest solo tour yet – an affirming development for any 42-year-old, but especially in today’s hollow live music model. Boldy played tucked-away Highland Park on a mid-June Wednesday, and though his stuff is far more conducive to hoodie-up head-bopping, the room was still packed with barbecue energy. Yes, there were all types of baddies at the Fronto leaf rap show, grow up. Boldy hit all the words of his many verses, and did so without an ever-present backtrack or even a volleying hypeman. One singular stumble prompted his re-do of “Flying Trapeze Act,” which is an expert-level undertaking with a 10-syllable (ten!) rhyme scheme in its hook (“ninety circles with a wire hanger / fire hurdles like a lion tamer.”)
As promised, the latest batch from hip-hop’s Bo Jackson is thorough, clever and grooving. “Nice Try Wrong Guy” melts the permafrost, and “Legend of Zelda with the scorpion eye when the corner was dry” is a shoegazing 30-foot heat-check. Boldy James is the best noir frontman since Humphrey Bogart. Here’s to a future Maltese Falcon sample, with a Nicholas Craven jazz guitar flip, about moving contraband through … I want to say Duluth, Minn.?
In which the Sound of the Beast is droned out by G-funk synth and Poblano chili guitar plucks. “Gangslide” is a needed and appreciated bit of Black-and-Brown unity. The production would fit right in on The Documentary or Cali Iz Active, but the energies are precisely of this moment. Palm Springs’ Blanco15 hits leadoff, grinning and chiefing and proudly repping the 16th letter. He’s not a particularly skilled rapper, and seems unconcerned with all that as he sets tempo and kicks up dirt on the basepath. We conclude that the “P” inscribed on his torso might as well stand for “polyamory.” Up next is 4XTRA, the Rolling 40s rhymer and podcast pugilist, who keeps the [redacted] on him as he weaves through a Golden Era sunshine flow. San Bernardino rapper Doeboi909 does a slow creep through the animal kingdom’s most treacherous members, and everyone else along the 4000 block of South Fig bops in accordance. For me, the standout is TommyGunz, Pixley’s ascending star who appears to have beaten a recent arrest in Los Angeles County. Tommy’s flow is loose and uncoiled, with a quick acceleration that breathes new life into the beat loop. He shows off his permanent Mexican flag, then gets a well-earned laugh from us with “if I ran the world, I’d probably own a buster as a pet.” The four features ride out with salutes to their respective soil, and this whole crew looks just about jubilant as the track settles up. A fleet of helicopters and one thousand battering rams still can’t pry that off the pavement.
If “Gangslide” soars across various turf wars and Southern California mountainsides, then “Intervene” slinks into an undisclosed and nondescript liquor store basement. Whittier’s Manos56Duece and 18th Streeter Dkemon1800 flaunt their affiliations with low croaks and glassy staredowns. I’m primarily here for the beat, which producer Westside distills from some hot and dark alley I’ll never find myself in. Dkemon is particularly fearless (if brazen) in his callout of well-known rivals. Manos is too far gone, yet comfortably in his pocket. Music to duck to.
Surrealist nomad Chris Crack finds inspiration in his many gleeful and hyper-specific urges. The art shines when he makes those vulgarities feel recognizable, even universal, to the rest of us still stuck on the lower plane. Here, Chris Crack discloses that he wants to have sex with Iggy Azalea – her? It’s 2025, my dude! – but he lets us know about it through warmed delivery and a Stylistics summoning. It’s like his Trojan Horse for weird shit. Come for the soulful bars and tight-handle delivery. Stay for the WNBA rants, dinosaur conspiracies and pre-paid abortion debit cards. If we listen closely, we’ll hear Chris Crack still stunting outside that parking lot, refusing to pay for “event day” pricing. Knowing his ethos and commitment to the bit, Chris Crack probably doesn’t even have a car. If he does, he probably already parked it on Simon the Zealot’s massive ugly forehead, or something.
Closing with this. Blaccmass is to rap rework what Pusha is to pure disdain.
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