Art via Evan Solano
Donald Morrison aka Donthany Morristano here, the internet’s most chopped music nerd.
To no one’s surprise, 2026 is already awful in almost every way. ICE agents are shooting American citizens in Minnesota, firing on drivers in Oregon, and terrorizing immigrant communities nationwide. A mass shooting in Salt Lake City killed two. Even the adult pacifier that is the internet feels off. Social media’s lost its buzz. Google hardly works. Everything’s getting worse, and hardly anyone reads anymore, which makes dedicating my life to writing feel almost comically tragic. I feel like a soldier fighting a losing war.
Artists feel it too. Making money is harder than ever, and holding people’s attention for longer than the duration of a TikTok video is even harder. The mainstream punishes risk; every new “star” sounds like a cheaper echo of something better. Just look at the vacant sheen of New Country or the social media savants masquerading as musicians.
That’s what makes Los Angeles native Cletus Strap so vital. He’s making music, not content. You get the sense he’d be creating even if no one listened. His work feels like pure catharsis, a curious and joyful response to a world trying its best to stamp out both. This constitutes a radical act in times this shallow.
His new video for “Sorry Not Sorry” opens with a blunt declaration, with “rappers suck” flashing across the screen like a challenge. Then Cletus dives in: “I could be a friend to you, or a worthy adversary, why can’t you be there for me? I create imaginaries.” Even in his deadpan delivery, there’s a mischievous spark. He’s also refreshingly grounded, tossing in a line like, “You still clenching on that bottle, baby, it’s already done, we can call a Waymo to get you home, if you want.”
But it’s his beat selection and flow that stick with you. You can hear mid-career Earl Sweatshirt or even Curren$y in his lo-fi sensibility, his love for clever bars. But Cletus Strap isn’t a clone. He’s building his own world, one smoky, surreal track at a time. And honestly, it’s a world I’d rather live in than this one.
Peysoh steals the show on “Wrist Froze,” the new single from San Diego’s Lil Weirdo, a Chicano rapper who’s spent the last four years camped out on the edge of rap stardom. Lil Weirdo is still one of the loudest names in Chicano rap, firing off tongue‑in‑cheek bars with that trademark mischievous grin, like when he says, “One perc ain’t enough, I got a tolerance, my little homie shot an opp, I was proud of him.”
But it’s Peysoh whose verse sticks in your head, continuing his climb since his standout turn on the title track of Kendrick Lamar’s GNX in November 2024. (Honestly, he’s aging better than some of his co-stars from that song. Young Threat just got indicted for murder, and HittaJ3 seems more locked into Twitter than the studio most days.) Peysoh crushes the hook, spitting, “I like my whip stolen and bitch thick,” his nimble flow gliding over the booming West Coast production in a way that hits harder than it has any right to. He keeps finding new ways to level up, and he still hasn’t stopped surprising me.
In 2023, while serving time in Soledad State Prison, 22-year old MoneySign Suede was stabbed to death in the showers, right as his career was starting to catch fire. The circumstances around his killing are still murky, but the hole he left in the LA rap scene is impossible to miss. “Disappear,” featuring LA staple Zoe Osama over a predictably cold Cypress Moreno beat, is destined to go down as one of the defining records of his short run. The production has the playful menace of Bay Area slap with that extra LA bounce, damn near forcing your head to nod as Suede talks through the legal trouble that landed him inside: “I’m a felon on parole, I can’t take no flights, I can tell you about some shit that’ll clear your appetite.” In 2026, it just feels right that Suede’s name is still ringing.
An LA New Year’s anthem sounds about right: a filthy posse cut about abusing Citizen, the so-called safety app that blasts live alerts about crimes, fires, and whatever chaos is hitting your block. The hook on “Citizens App Lurkin” by ASMTOOCIE, BOPSTER, and FatJahk TheGrimeyLoxc sets the tone right away: “Has that dot turned red up on Citizen? Got God with me, pulling skits in my Christians.” That red dot is supposed to mean major emergencies; here, it feels more like a target.
The whole track is grimy and ruthless in the best way, riding a beat that sounds like something Drakeo the Ruler would’ve floated over in his prime. Each verse somehow tops the last, like everyone’s trying to out-menace the previous bar. This song is begging for a video — we’re already late.
Blue Pesos, one half of LA duo OTM (along with Duffy), has Drakeo’s drawled, mumbling cadence down so well it teeters from tribute into straight-up mimicry. OTM had just signed to Drakeo’s Stinc Team before his death, then fell out with Drakeo’s brother, Ralfy the Plug, not long after, but Pesos has never stopped carrying the torch.
He keeps Drakeo’s spirit alive in name and style, rapping like he’s half-asleep and somehow daring you to keep up anyway. His latest track, “Batmobile,” is a direct nod to Drakeo’s use of the term on “Flu Flamming” (“I bought the Batmobile, I’m Bruce Wayne in these Maisons”), but Pesos pushes it further, flying through LA in his own blacked-out coupe, Batman gone pill-numb and looking for trouble.
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