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Harley Geffner is considering teaching a course on nervous music theory.
Kasher Quon x Teejayx6 x 10kkevv – “Back in Motion”
This song reserved a spot in the Rap-Up the moment Kasher Quon opened with a bar about safe sex. If Kasher Quon and Teejayx6 are the dynamic duo, then add 10kkevv to the mix and we’ve got the triple threat of scamming. The three forces of the scam rap microgenre are responsible for bringing VPNs in to rap Twitter dialect and for countless grandmas and nephews who are just as confused as the bank tellers about what happened to their accounts.
They rip this beat apart by the seams, sliding bars back and forth and back again through the cracks, ending the song by each of them talking about the methods they’d use to off themselves themselves in the face of federal charges for scamming Chase bank. Teejay drives three hours away to throw himself in a lake, 10kkevv puts a bunch of needles in a crate before sticking his hand in, and Kasher Quon drinks bleach and eats a steroid. Teejay also takes down multiple institutions of power in a single bar, robbing the army for a bomb to blow up the bank. He’s a man of the people.
I was at his first live show last night and he paced the stage like a mad man meticulously recounting his complex schemes, reciting almost every bar on pace in the two and a half songs he performed, as Drego looked on like a proud uncle from behind. This was, of course, before Teejay was “arrested” by U.S. Marshals. The cartoon villain cops stormed in during his third song to whisk him off stage while the lyrics “walked in Verizon on the plot for iPhone X’s,” harmoniously played behind them, leaving the crowd and DJ baffled. It felt plausible because No Jumper posted a video of him five hours earlier walking out of a Wells Fargo with a bunch of cash, implying he had just cashed a fake check or something, and also … all his lyrics. But video emerged of the marshals hilariously driving away towards a dead end with green and orange lights flashing from their car after they got him out of the venue. Internet sleuths sniffed it out pretty quickly too, identifying a website where you can rent fake cops in LA and matching up a “Deputy Burke” for hire with the white marshal in the videos.
Teejay may have gotten signed by a major label on the low who planned this stunt, or he could have just as easily concocted it himself or with Adam22. But nobody should be surprised if “Concert Scam” is his next loosie to hit the web.
Xanman – “Story”
One of my favorite experiences as a listener is hearing an interpolation of a melody for a single bar or two and vaguely recognizing the ditty before racking either your mind or the Youtube comments to figure it out where it’s coming from. The moment it clicks feels so gratifying, even if you had to cheat from the comments. Blueface does it with B2K’s Bump Bump Bump on the hook to Disrespectful, off his new Dirt Bag EP, Teejay does it with possibly the most well-known Sada Baby bar on Back in Motion, but Xanman is a king of interpolation. He’s flipped or interpolated Lauryn Hill, Ciara, and just today “Hey There Delilah.” He loves casually interplaying random melodies and lyrics to varying degrees of once-popular songs. On Story, he tosses a bar and a half from the leadup to the hook of Fun’s We Are Young and then filters the last part of the melody into a whole new flow. The video is a perfect encapsulation of Xanman’s vibe too, with magnetic Lego type animation flying around him and Xanman smiling at a piano and disobeying traffic laws on his Lime scooter.
Blueface – Dirt Bag
Speaking of Blueface’s new EP, leave it to our favorite cryp to summarize the appeal of his music better than any music writer could, on Stop Cappin’:
“I’m literally talking in this bitch and it’s still knocking.”
Drakeo the Ruler – “Rich of Mae Ling”
It’s nice to hear a fresh Drakeo SHEEEESH. This one comes from a jailhouse rap he wrote and recorded over the phone. Over a sample of the Get It In beat, Drakeo’s grim reaping, street sweeping, and double parking the Bentley at your mama’s house. He is still awaiting sentencing for his gun charge conviction on September 3rd, when the jury will decide whether or not to refile two murder-related charges that the jury hung on. Get home soon Mr. Mosely.
Melvoni – “Ask About Me”
While I in no way, shape, or form support assaulting educators, as Melvoni does in the opening to the Ask About Me video, this song is too catchy to not write about. Mano has compared the rangy Brooklyn prodigy to Justin Beiber and he lives up to the billing. He gently lifts his melodies above the chopsticky keys, before raining the strokes back down from his puffy cumulus. He feels like he’s daydreaming, but he’s really putting us in one, on his rooftop, where we can dance with him and share in the celebrations of success. The track really kicks in to high gear when the ukulele plucks drop in on the bridge and he slows down the pace before jacking it back up in to a more bountiful hook.
YSN Flow – “Want Beef 2”
There are no rules to rap. This isn’t actually a part 2 to 15-year-old YSN Flow’s hit Want Beef, it’s a remix of YNC Capo’s Feelin like Kevo. When YSN previewed it on Insta, it was called why type, but given the success of the original Want Beef and a similarly twisty Spanish guitar pattern, “part 2” it is. That’s fine. He sounds even better here than on the first.
