The Rap-Up: Week of September 1, 2025

Art via Evan Solano

The Rap-Up is the only weekly round-up providing you with the best rap songs you need to hear. Support real, independent music journalism by subscribing to Passion of the Weiss on Patreon.

Steven Louis is wearing Off-White after Labor Day.

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Nasaan is the 21-year-old son of Detroit staple-turned-patron saint Proof, and he does a lot of things on wax and film that his father never did. His vocals are strident and acute, compared to dad’s famous sibilance. Proof wore Kangols to match various D12 monochrome sweatsuits; the progeny has gelled, spiked hair, rocking shorts above his knee and multiple collars around his neck.

There are more than enough resemblances, though — the dusted smirk, wrestler’s eyebrow rise, controlled delivery and understated penmanship. Nasaan’s latest single is a rather spirited effort, stacking visual gags and set pieces across a brisk 111 seconds. The Def Jam letterman jacket has never held less cool, and carbonated 10 milligram THC drinks should be soundly rejected by all listeners of conscience. Nevertheless, I’m digging what he is putting out right now, and his lurching ambition deserves a stable place to incubate in. Good to see that the blues, yellows and purples are still waiting for us on the mountaintop.

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Nothing about the new Kairo Keyz is mind-blowing or brand new. There are a few misdirects on camera, and the Londoner’s lyrics pop up on redesigned street signs as they roll through the record. Ls turn to Ws, choosy women look good, the clothes match the sports cars, etc. Sometimes, it’s just assuring to see a rapper with juice charm the arena pit. “Pilates” is carried by a buoyant backdrop that double-bounces its bass, like a giddy and very fat child atop a trampoline. This is the kind of beat that sticks to the club floor and gives any emcee an immediate +10 potential boost. Raef is the credited producer — it sounds like he took the mid-2010s Broward layout and made it, well, fun, from “scaring the hoes” to comping their vodka energy drinks. I for one am a huge fan of the phrase “ex ting.” I wouldn’t blame Kairo for prematurely ending several relationships, just to set up elaborate stunts on more “ex tingz.”

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In which we’re reminded how “outside” and “southside” rhyme neatly with “‘bout mine.” Somewhere, Lush One grumbles Suge Knight at the ‘95 Source Awards into an empty BuzzBall. OTR Records rarely puts out music with this much saxophone, or this much Mississippi River church organ. It works here, as Serio compares sex to handball (really happens, why would I lie about this?) and KeepItHood speeds through a light eight-bar booster. Affiliations are inscribed into flesh; snares are turned up to scratch the freeway traffic and sanitize the city’s endemic jealousy.

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This is my first time blurbing Wifigawd for The Rap-Up, but I’ve long considered him a consummate Rap-Up artist. Maybe that’s because Lucas Foster (never late, always great) pushed him as a generational creative with an abstract futurist’s sleight of hand. Maybe it’s due to the Washington, D.C. trooper’s relentless output and his roulette beat selection. “Honeybun” is a drifting dispatch of zero net weight. This was his fourth loosie of August, and my favorite of those drops by a long shot. Its production flutters out from the Uptown sewers and makes a vortex of cold air for the Gawd to pair “Xs and Os” with “sexiest hoes.”

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Port Arthur, TX’s latest lineage trades his purple linens for honorary blues here. PatvFoo is a rapid jabber with end-to-end breath control, which belies the molasses-and-mud trappings he righteously flexes. His 2025 full-length, Talking 2 Texas, has those local flourishes we’d expect — 808s tailgating right up on the bumper, plus screwed outros and neon clippings. But “The Blue M&M” is a sincere (and stylish) shout out to Atlanta’s Peewee Longway, who still sits in jail after last year’s federal drug bust. To show the right amount of love, Pat dumps cough syrup into his Lipton tea, and crushes rattling snakes beneath his suede cowboy boots. Wholesale product hovers over from The Bay to Dallas like Klay Thompson (or Monta Ellis, or Erick Dampier, just saying). The rest stays redacted.

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In which Bronx barrer Doley Bernays raps at an incline and traces Ottoman Empire history from the empty Shiraz jug. Jandre Amos compresses and smothers soul layers for his teammates to actually shine on, rather than get engulfed by — which is my least-favorite pitfall still plaguing rap music this year (other than throwaway lines about hating opps like the KKK, or lines about being the shit like a Pamper). Doley is, in his words, “doing them things that make momma think I’m a psycho.” She likely won’t be dissuaded when Chris Crack pulls up on horseback with the plug he met on Temu. “I don’t like it but I trust pain / finna be a lonely weekend like Kacey Musgraves” is short-listed for couplet of the year. Together, their pyrotechnics put money on respective nephews’ books, while forcefielding from the insincerities that never stop glaring up.

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