elyslime!, “3100volts”
The only thing “3100 volts” is missing is a police siren. It sounds like New Jersey drill caught in Midtown traffic at rush hour: claustrophobic, rattling, somehow still moving full speed. The frantic claps land like bricks smacking pavement, or a series of belly flops at the public pool, while elyslime!’s vocals slip into something almost hallucinatory. Depending on the hour, or where you are in life, it makes you want to dance, start breaking shit, or both.
elyslime!, a name that suggests a prep-school gangster who doesn’t play about his Amiris, attacks djessimidjeqa’s production like a music obsessive: he seems to hear every loose wire in the beat, then finds exactly where to wedge a bar. When he warbles, “We don’t play no games, Sega,” before accelerating again, it feels less like a punchline than a warning. It is an electric showing from the French underground’s rising star, who was born in the West African country of Côte d’Ivoire, where the streets can be every bit as crowded, kinetic, and alive as this production makes them sound.
Kodak Black, “Little Birdie”
There’s something especially intimate about Kodak Black’s flip of “Little Birdie,” a song originally featured on Drake’s surprisingly dense Iceman. Drake’s version captured that heart-sinking realization that people are talking about you behind your back—and may not be wishing you well. Kodak takes those smaller, everyday betrayals and turns them into a boast: they may hurt, but they ultimately do not own him. “I been rocking with you but I don’t feel the same vibe/Lately when I been going through my pain, you entertained by it,” he raps. His voice comes through the microphone so closely that you can hear every small noise, as if he is fighting through exhaustion or tears, just to get the thought out. Leaving the vocals muddy is a small but crucial choice; it makes the pain land harder.
It recalls the heartbreaking, unpolished “When Vultures Cry,” where Kodak either recorded his vocals in one take or deliberately made them sound spur-of-the-moment, leaving in the moans and groans of somebody hopelessly sick and tired. They are the sounds of a man battling addiction and fame, and often seeming to lose. But the fact that Kodak is speaking so plainly about his vulnerabilities at all suggests a different outcome: for today, at least, he is still here—and still winning.
Cash Cobain, “Betcha Can’t” f/ BabyChiefDoIt
Cash Cobain has stayed in the conversation by handing out his signature lo-fi grooves to just about every hot rapper in the game. After years spent refining his sound, he fully cemented himself among the genre’s biggest names in 2024 with tracks like “Fisher” and “Rump Punch.” On “Betcha Can’t,” he is back in the driver’s seat, joined by BabyChiefDoIt, the young Chicago rapper whose restless energy fits neatly beside Cash’s goofy one-liners. “Damn, why you stink? You must got that million-dollar pussy, yes I think,” Cash raps to open the track, setting the tone immediately. The beat leans more West Coast than New York, which is a compliment in this case. It’s also refreshing to hear Cash’s DIY charm get a little ratchet for a change.
Rio Da Yung Og & YN Jay, “New York Minute”
For the first time in my Rap-Up career, I make an on-screen cameo in the very music video I’m writing about. You can see me on the stairs near the beginning of the video, posted up in the background talking to AssPizza, a fashion designer who also owns an art studio in Manhattan where Rio Da Yung OG held a listening party for his newest album, The World Is Yours. Both the show and the listening party went off without a hitch, with Rio spending time playing new music and listening to the freestyle rhymes of a man who survived a coma, only to come link with Rio to rap for him and follow him for the East Coast leg of his tour. “New York Minute” finds Rio and YN Jay in familiar form: loose, funny, and casually reckless. Rio delivers lines like, “My brother did some bullshit, I’m finna tell our mama,” while the track also nods to the September 11 attacks—an especially pointed reference given that Rio’s album arrived on their 25th anniversary.
Fatt Smaxk, “Box You In” f/ Selfmade Bally
“Box You In” samples a slowed-down version of a long-forgotten, one-hit wonder by Smilez N Southstar, “Tell Me,” which I’ll sometimes throw on at a kickback just to see people’s reaction; that alone warrants a write-up. This song continues the hot streak of one Fatt Smaxk, coming out of Mobile, Alabama. He’s slowly gained traction since releasing his first mixtape in 2020, but really exploded in popularity this year thanks to an excellent triple album, Smaxk Season 3: Banks House, the lead single of which was remixed by Playboi Carti (though the original is much better).
Fatt Smaxk lands somewhere between Young Thug’s elastic, whimsical instincts and Playboi Carti’s vamped-out menace. He channels Thug’s freewheeling melodic weirdness, then drops it into a shadowy world of dark trap production, clipped cadences, and staccato flows that recall Carti at his most nocturnal. Not that Fatt Smaxk is content to live in the shadow of these Atlanta greats. He actually seems pretty dedicated to creating a world of his own. He does this with literary repetition, often borrowing bars from earlier songs and building on top of them. For example, “Box You In” begins, “Huh, hop straight out on feet, I get surgical with that chopper, huh.” Then later on the album highlight, “Butta B, he builds on the “hop straight out on feet” line with, ”.308, knock that boy from here to ‘cross the street/From here to ‘cross the street, make me mad, hop on feet.”