Harley Geffner also has a wooden boat in case some shit goes down.
Fivio Foreign x Gino Mondana – “Noah’s Ark”
There were a few defining moments seared into my brain during the rise of Chicago drill: Keef splashing Henny in slow mo during the “Fool Ya video.” Reese holding the boys back, rapping “I can’t trust a soul so I bought a hundred round / Silencer up on that 30, that bitch don’t make a sound;” the phone call intro to “Love No Thotties” with the denim jacket.
I’ve harped on the similarities in previous Rap-Ups, but Brooklyn drill has a new signature image to me. Never mind Fivio Foreign’s typically tough GDK bars, Gino Mondana steals the song with one of the most vicious verses of 2019. The beat mutes for his brash entrance and continues to build back up through the verse. It feels like a fairly normal drill song until he puts on his murder face, lights up his automatic, and turns up the murder rate.
Switching into a new flow, he raps “slide through you block moving militant, this time Fivey got a mask on,” unfurling Fivio’s ski and slapping his back to confirm they’re ready to slide. Gino repeats the bar with psychopath eyes from atop a white motorbike. Those eyes and that bar have been burning through me since the video dropped.
YungManny – Snippet
finnwad u think they ready for #HeyManny2 cus i don’t?… they gotta show me @_bigwinnn pic.twitter.com/A5hLihdUVN
— HEYMANNY2 OTW (@ItsYungManny) January 12, 2019
“Walk down with the *uh, uh* excuse mee,, I’m coughin / *bah*, put em in the coffin” is an irrationally hard opening. Yung Manny’s flurry of exasperated puffs and hesitations can be difficult to annotate, but it feels like you’re getting punched in the face by flying Woah fists on every word.
Manny’s quick edit snippet sits at the heart of the new DMV absurdism, with him and friends hitting wild thrusts and dolphin dives over the moody piano. He punctuates each thrust with these potent one-liners, one after the next. “How often you shoot… often // stick named batman cuz im robbin (huh (hey))”
We don’t even know how old he is. I thought he looked older than 14 when I first saw him referenced as that, then he quoted a tweet asking how he got everyone to believe he was 14 with a few shhh emojis.
Rich N****z – “Pay Em a Fee”
Houston’s Get Money Click is full of baby-faced assassins. Consisting of Rich Baby, Rich Kidd, Rich N****z and more, the group has consistently been putting out heat via Mr.Getmoneytv’s YouTube that has gone severely undercovered.
On Pay Em a Fee, Rich N****z (one person) looks angelic in the all baby blue denim. He raps with the same uplifting ethos of With My Team. He’s threatening to put you on a stretcher, but also naming his baby lil Treasure because he knows how precious life is. He’s internalized the gravity of it all, having seen his brother get sent up the river. Now he’s ridin’ with his brothers forever and they gon’ kill em together.
Philthy Rich x G. Perico – “What You Say”
On a dreary LA day, Philthy Rich and G Perico do what they do best and take us through a day in the life over some haunting G-Funk synths. G Perico reminds us about selling dope out of the spot he had on 103rd, where the deaf dude would watch for 12. Philthy’s with bad bitches in Calabasas, with a couple hundred in the safe and a couple in the mattress.
