The game has been on fire the last couple months as some of
NY’s heavyweights have been dropping freestyles over classic 90s beats, with
Fabolous leading the charge (and far and away giving us the nicest ones). It’s
both refreshing and nostalgic as we’re not only hearing beats we haven’t heard
in years but something else we haven’t heard in years, New York rappers being
lyrical and killing it, and especially after New York has been called out by
fans from across the country and even some rappers outside the city, it’s dope
as hell to see the vets come out and remind us all that part of what made this
rap shit so great in the first place is MCs coasting over solid production.
What’s interesting is how the generations are being pulled
together at what feels like a perfect time. We all love those 90s beats, and we
all respect the work that Fabolous, Jadakiss, Styles and Lloyd Banks have previously
put in, and yet if any of them were trying to bless these tracks when they were
first around we wouldn’t have been ready for it. We’d still be thinking “yeah
but I’d rather just hear the original” because at the time a lot of tracks
these beats are from still weren’t old enough to feel truly classic, and as
nice as all four artists were at the time they also hadn’t proved themselves
yet and we hadn’t had time to appreciate them either. Banks gave us “Victory”
and a classic debut album, Jadakiss gave us The Champ is Here, Fabolous was
never not slick whether it was a radio freestyle or a guest spot on a smooth R&B
joint and Styles easily provided the best album catalog, but now that we’ve had
time to digest that, and miss it, we now can accept that they’ve earned their
spot to make those classic 90s beats their own and they have certainly done
them justice, whether it’s Jadakiss taking us to the gutter on “Where I’m From”,
Banks not saying a damn thing but effortlessly coasting through the blunted
boom bap production of “Passing Me By” and “How Many MCs” or Fabolous crushing absolutely
everything he’s gone in on.
This generational overlap isn’t just with veteran rappers
though, as some newer hungry cats are tearing through beats from the same era
as the class of MCs tearing through the beats that preceded them. Both capable
of one day being mentioned in the same breath as the aforementioned greats, Dave
East and PUSH! (or ROB WH!TE) dropped verses well worthy of being on Beanie and
Jay’s “It’s On” and if you’re still sleeping on PUSH! then I truly feel bad for
you. Following three of the most insightful and authentic projects: this generation’s blueprint of knowledge in
the form of “Fresh Dope”, the Gangsta Grillz feature heavy “When PUSH! Comes to
Shove Vol. 2” and the magnificent marriage of passion and lyricism found on “Black
Roses”, and after a way-too-long hiatus, PUSH! challenged the epicness of the Just
Blaze powerhouse “Breathe” and his verse arguably won the battle, and he has
since torn through a Jadakiss track, effectively mirroring the same veterans
who are ripping through the beats that preceded their time.
All this is coming during a period when we’re either getting
a slew of dope singles with not much following or full projects that are
including way more than just bars and hooks to solidify their replay value. Shmurda
got locked up after having the song of the summer last year and although Fetty
Wap got a couple gems and Future gave us the anthem “Fuck Up Some Commas”, the
only real solid complete albums we’ve seen in a long while are from Drake and
Kendrick. The first one of those is a masterpiece and the second one you gotta
light a candle and truly absorb to appreciate the brilliance, so to have a
couple mixtapes worth of straight up great rapping over the last couple months
is more than welcomed. We’re in a great time in hip hop and we’re still getting
a new Kanye album soon so the game really couldn’t be better right now (except that
Young Thug and Game corny beef shit but that’s a whole other discussion).
Oh and Freddie Gibbs is still consistently killing everything he’s
doing and if you’re really still sleeping there then when you look back in 10 years
you’ll realize he gave us a Black Thought level of dopeness catalog.
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