Posts Tagged ‘griselda’

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Benny the Butcher – Burden of Proof (2020)

December 9, 2020

Benny the Butcher – Burden of Proof (2020, Rap)

Release Date: October 16th, 2020

Song Rating Scale

  1. Burden of Proof – 3.5
  2. Where Would I Go (feat. Rick Ross) – 3.5
  3. Sly Green – 4
  4. One Way Flight (feat. Freddie Gibbs) – 4
  5. Famous – 4
  6. Timeless (feat. Lil Wayne & Big Sean) – 4
  7. New Streets – 3.5
  8. Over The Limit (feat. DOM KENNEDY) – 4.5
  9. Trade It All – 3.5
  10. Thank God I Made It (feat. Queen Naija) – 3.5
  11. War Paint (feat. Westside Gunn & Conway the Machine) – 4
  12. Legend – 4.5

Spin Rate: 9.5
Average Song Rating: 3.88
3.5+ Percentage: 100%
Cuts: 0
Bangers: 7

Thoughts: Much like with Conway, I was slightly worried that Benny’s solo project was going to be too much of the same stuff we’ve already heard over the last few years, but Benny stepped his game up and shows a lot of versatility on this album. For the second straight project, Benny scores incredibly high in average song rating and, honestly, some of the 3.5s could have been 4s. Every song on this album is good and there is no weak spot, plus have the songs are straight up flames. It’s kind of strange how much better the production is on this album compared to the recent Nas album since both projects were produced entirely by Hit-Boy. Not saying the beats Nas got are weak, but the production here is way more my flavor. This album cements Benny’s status as one of the best rappers in the game right now.

Verdict: 9/10 (Amazing)

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Conway the Machine – From King To A GOD (2020)

December 3, 2020

Conway the Machine – From King To A GOD (2020, Rap)

Release Date: September 11th, 2020

Song Rating Scale

  1. From King – 3.5
  2. Fear of God (feat. Dej Loaf) – 3.5
  3. Lemon (feat. Method Man) – 4.5
  4. Dough & Damani – 4
  5. Juvenile Hell (feat. Flee Lord, Havoc & Lloyd Banks) – 4
  6. Words From Shay (Interlude) – N/A
  7. Front Lines – 4
  8. Anza (feat. Armani Caesar) – 4
  9. Seen Everything But Jesus (feat. Freddie Gibbs) – 4
  10. Words From Shay (Interlude 2) – N/A
  11. Spurs 3 (feat. Benny the Butcher & Westside Gunn) – 4
  12. Forever Droppin Tears (feat. El Camino) – 3.5
  13. Jesus Khrysis – 3.5
  14. Nothin Less – 3.5

Spin Rate: 9.7
Average Song Rating: 3.83
3.5+ Percentage: 100%
Cuts: 0
Bangers: 7

Thoughts: These Griselda boys are having one hell of a 12 month stretch. Including the Griselda project that dropped last December with Benny the Butcher and Westside Gunn, this is Conway’s fourth project in like a ten month period and they have all been good. This album is his most complete and diverse project that I’ve heard (I haven’t checked out all his older stuff) and it’s incredibly refreshing. Some critics point to Griselda as a whole being sort of one dimensional in that they only rap about drugs, but Conway steps comfortably outside that box here while maintaining his wit and high level lyricism. The production on this album is pretty elite and basically every feature is excellent, with Method Man coming through with an insane verse. Every song on here is good and there are many bangers. This is one of the best rap albums of 2020.

Verdict: 8/10 (Must Listen)

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September 2020 Music Playlist

October 1, 2020

ALBUM OF THE MONTH

Conway the Machine – From King To A GOD

Notes: So this is mostly how I listen to music these days. Every Thursday night at 9 PM (Pacific Time), I look at all the new releases and add anything I’m interested in to my library and throw it in my Brand New and Current Rotation playlists. I used to have one playlist for newer albums, but I started leaving stuff in there for too long and it got really bloated and I wasn’t giving the newest music the attention I wanted to. Now I use the Brand New playlist for the latest music and have a strict policy of removing it after exactly one month, unless I’m really not into an album and decide to remove it earlier. My Current Rotation playlist consists of music from the last 4-6 months, with my favorite albums lingering around even longer, plus I’ve decided to start throwing older stuff on there, like artists I feel I’ve overlooked or albums I want to revisit. I probably listen to my Brand New playlist the most, but I give my Current Rotation multiple spins throughout the week and I also have a Goats Doing Goat Shit playlist of all my favorite rappers and albums and a Rappers from the Old School playlist of rappers that mostly came out in the 80s that I listen to semi-regularly. You can follow me on Apple Music @DarkKnight1717 to add any or all of my playlists.

This has created a somewhat interesting dynamic in my lists below. Half the albums on my top 20 list for September… I have never listened to all the way through. Somehow one of those albums (Jaden Smith) cracked my top 3. I have never actually listened to that album other than when a song comes up on shuffle. Numbers in parentheses are how many songs I listened to on each album or from each artist over the past month and/or the year the album was released if it didn’t come out in 2020. I spent basically all month surprised that Big Sean wasn’t getting more spins and I didn’t realize until a couple days ago that I never put his album in my Brand New playlist. Whoops. He will be in there all through October now. Also, note how high Eminem is on my top artists list despite not having any album in my top 20. I’ve started the long process of doing a profile on Eminem, in the same vein as my DMX and Notorious B.I.G. profiles. Eminem’s discography is much deeper than either of those guys, so don’t expect me to publish something anytime soon, but do expect Eminem to be near the top of my artists list until I do. As of now, I’m still on The Marshall Mathers LP. I will publish my Em album reviews as I write them though.

* indicates September 2020 release

Top 20 Albums in September

1. *Conway the Machine – From King To A GOD (75)
2. *Big Sean – Detroit 2 (57)
3. Jaden Smith – CTV3: Cool Tape Vol. 3 (50)
4. Nas – King’s Disease (45)
5. The Lox – Living Off Xperience (44)
6. *Spillage Village – Spilligion (39)
7. Amine – Limbo (37)
8. Black Pumas – Black Pumas [Deluxe] (37)
8. Dua Lipa – Club Future Nostalgia [DJ Mix] (37)
10. Ransom – Directors Cut** (36)
11. Rich Brian – 1999 (33)
12. Dave East – Karma 3 (31)
13. The Streets – None Of Us Are Getting Out Of This Life Alive (31)
14. The God Fahim – After Every Dark Day Comes Sunshine (30)
15. Spillage Village – Bears Like This Too Much (2016, 28)
16. BUCKWILD – Music is My Religion (27)
17. Apollo Brown & Locksmith – No Question (2018, 25)
18. CunninLynguists – Southernunderground (2003, 25)
19. The Weeknd – After Hours (25)
20. Lil Wayne – No Ceilings (2009, 24)

**Ransom actually released three Directors Cut albums this year. They weren’t on my radar until last month and I decided to make them all one album, but if you wind up searching for it, you’ll see that it is actually three shorter albums.

Top 20 Artists in August

1. Spillage Village (86)
2. Conway the Machine (77)
3. Eminem (68)
4. Nas (66)
5. Big Sean (59)
6. Lil Wayne (53)
7. Jaden Smith (50)
8. CunninLynguists (48)
9. The Lox (44)
10. Dua Lipa (38)
11. Amine (37)
12. Black Pumas (37)
13. Ransom (36)
14. Rich Brian (33)
15. Dave East (31)
16. The Streets (31)
17. The God Fahim (30)
18. Buckwild (27)
19. The Weeknd (27)
20. Apollo Brown & Locksmith (25)

Bangerz Playlist Additions – Follow me on Apple Music @DarkKnight1717 to add my playlists

Amine, “My Reality”
Amine ft. slowthai & Vince Staples, “Pressure In My Palms”
Amine, “Burden”
Big Sean ft. Nipsey Hussle, “Deep Reverence”
Black Thought ft. Pusha T & Killer Mike, “Good Morning”
Conway the Machine ft. Method Man, “Lemon”
Conway the Machine ft. Freddie Gibbs, “Seen Everything But Jesus”
Conway the Machine ft. Benny the Butcher & Westside Gunn, “Spurs 3”
Conway the Machine, “Front Lines”
Conway the Machine ft. Armani Caesar, “Anza”
Deante Hitchcock, “I Remember”
Felt, “Alexander F’real”
IDK & JID ft. Kenny Mason, “Cereal”
Jacob Latimore, “Love Drug”
Kaash Paige ft. Isaiah Rashad, “Problems”
Nas ft. Anderson .Paak, “All Bad”
Nyck Caution, “Demons Don’t Take Off From Work”
R.A. the Rugged Man ft. M.O.P., Vinnie Paz, Chris Rivers, Onyx, Chino XL, Brand Nubian & Ice-T, “The Slayers Club”
R.A. the Rugged Man ft. Sarah Smith & Kelly Waters, “The After Life”
Ransom, “I Am Legend”
R-MEAN & Berner, “Lost”
R-MEAN & Berner, “Would You”
Saigon ft. Marsha Ambrosius, “Pain In My Life, Pt. 2 (On God)”
The Lox, “Gave It To ‘EM”
The Lox, “Loyalty And Love”
The Weeknd, “Too Late”
The Weeknd, “Snowchild”
The Weeknd, “Escape From LA”
The Weeknd, “Blinding Lights”
The Weeknd, “Missed You”

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November 2019 New Music

November 30, 2019

I always hear people complaining about how bad music is nowadays and they couldn’t be more wrong. In fact, there is more quality music flooding the industry than ever before. It’s impossible to listen to it all, but… I try to. I give everything a chance and at the end of every month I’ll post everything I listened to and how much, what my favorite album was, what the other must have albums are, and what songs I added to my 2019 Bangers Playlist.

Stop complaining and take some guidance!

Because some albums come out later in the month and I don’t get much of a chance to listen to them before making my post, I’ve decided to make my new music posts containing all albums I’ve listened to over the last two months.

November Notes: Midway through the month, a great hip-hop Twitter account I follow – @HipHopNumbers – started a countdown of his top 15 albums of the decade and I spent a good portion of my month either relistening to those albums or giving a few I skipped past another chance (I’m looking at you IGOR). It’s a list I have a good amount of agreement with, so I’ll put it at the end of this post. Also, if you’re on Twitter, you should give this account a follow. He does all sorts of statistical analysis of pretty much any relevant hip-hop release and I’ve found his work to be very entertaining.

Also, check out my 2019 Albums page. I added rankings for D Smoke, Danny Brown, Emeli Sande, Raphael Saadiq, and Emotional Oranges… and one of them is an Album of the Year contender.

* indicates albums I added in October

HEAVY ROTATION (heard whole album many times)

*D Smoke – Inglewood High
*Danny Brown – uknowwhatimsayin?
*Emeli Sande – REAL LIFE (added in October, released in September)
Griselda – Wwcd
*Silas – 1998 (added in October, released in August)
Tyler, The Creator – IGOR (added in November, released in May)

SOLID ROTATION (heard whole album at least twice)

03 Greedo & Kenny Beats – Netflix & Deal
Brother Ali – Secrets & Escapes
Emotional Oranges – The Juice, Vol. II
Gang Starr – One of the Best Yet
*Kanye West – JESUS IS KING
Michael Kiwanuka – KIWANUKA

COURTESY ROTATION (heard whole album)

Action Bronson & The Alchemist – Lamb Over Rice
Apollo Brown – Sincerely, Detroit (added in November, released in October)
Beck – Hyperspace
BENNY THE BUTCHER – The Plugs I Met (added in November, released in June)
Bishop Briggs – CHAMPION
Earl Sweatshirt – FEET OF CLAY
FKA twigs – MAGDALENE
*G-Eazy – Scary Nights
IDK – Is He Real? (added in November, released in September)
Kota the Friend – Foto (added in November, released in May)
Lana Del Ray – Norman F*****g Rockwell (added in November, released in August)
Larry June – Product of the Dope Game
Rod Wave – Ghetto Gospel
Salaam Remi & Joell Ortiz – BoxTalk – EP
Smoke DZA & BENNY THE BUTCHER – Statue of Limitations – EP (added in November, released in October)
*Summer Walker – Over It
*Tobe Nwigwe – THREE ORIGINALS (added in October, released in March)
Trippie Redd – A Love Letter to You 4
Various Artists – Queen & Slim Soundtrack
*Wale – Wow… That’s Crazy

SKIM ROTATION (haven’t heard whole album)

*Angel Olsen – All Mirrors
CRIMEAPPLE – Viridi Panem
Dave East – Survival
*Flawless Real Talk – 24Flaw7 (added in October, not sure when released)
Jacquees – King of R&B
Kembe X – I Was Depressed Until I Made This (added in November, released in October)
Tory Lanez – Chixtape 5
*Tuxedo – Tuxedo III (added in October, released in July)
YNW Melly – Melly vs. Melvin

Out of Rotation (removed from my current playlist)

TOO NEW/NO LOVE (zero listens)

Fabolous – Summertime Shootout 3: Coldest Summer Ever
Jvck James – DETOUR – EP (added in November, released in October)
Smoke DZa & Curren$y – Prestige Worldwide
The Game – Born 2 Rap

ALBUM OF THE MONTH

Griselda – Wwcd

I was having a tough time coming up with a truly standout album from the November releases, but then Griselda dropped a genuine banger at the buzzer. Normally, I don’t get around to listening to last minute album drops before making this post, but I must have listened to this album five times in a row the day after it dropped. Let me note something real quick: historically, I have not been a giant Griselda fan. They have tons of content and I’ve listened to a decent amount of it, but I’ve never thought of them as the second coming of Wu Tang like their biggest fans seem to think they are. However, I hadn’t ever listened to BENNY THE BUTCHER before this month and I’m definitely a fan of his and the more I listen to Conway the Machine, the more I like him. Westside Gunn is my least favorite in the group and he’s also the guy I’ve had the most exposure to, which could explain why I was lukewarm on the collective as a whole before this album dropped.

I was pretty shocked when I heard these dudes signed with Shady Records and you have to give Eminem some credit because Shady now has two huge wins this year (Boogie being the other). This album is 13 tracks deep but only ten of them are actual songs. However, all ten songs are pretty damn good and even the non-songs have a vibe to them. This album has only been out a few days and I’ve already added two tracks to my Bangerz Playlist and I expect more to be added in the future. I don’t think this is an Album of the Year contender like I’ve been reading from some people, but it’s undeniably good from top to bottom and has no real weak spots. The thing about Griselda, in my opinion, is that they make good songs and execute above average in all the key areas of making rap music, but I don’t really think anything about them is exceptional. Still, I give Wwcd a very strong recommendation and it’s probably the best new album I listened to in November.

2019 Bangerz Playlist Additions – Follow me on Apple Music @DarkKnight1717 to add my playlists

BENNY THE BUTCHER ft. Black Thought, “Crowns for Kings”
BENNY THE BUTCHER ft. Pusha T, “18 Wheeler”
Brother Ali, “Father Figures”
Danny Brown, “Combat”
D Smoke, “Lil’ Red”
D Smoke, “Honey Jack”
EARTHGANG & Tiana Major9, “Collide”
Emeli Sande, “Honest”
Emeli Sande, “Human”
Emotional Oranges, “Not Worth It”
Gang Starr ft. J.Cole, “Family and Loyalty”
Gang Starr ft. Group Home and Royce da 5’9″, “What’s Real”
Griselda, “Cruiser Weight Coke”
Griselda, “Freddie HotSpot”
Kota the Friend, “Foto”
Larry June, “Something Gotta Change”
Michael Kiwanuka, “Rolling”
Raphael Saadiq, “This World is Drunk”
Raphael Saadiq ft. Rob Bacon, “Something Keeps Calling Me”
Raphael Saadiq, “Rikers Island”
Tyler, The Creator, “IGOR’S THEME”
Wale ft. 6LACK, “Expectations”

@HipHopNumbers Top 15 Albums of the Decade:

15. Rapsody – Eve
14. Joey Badass – ALL AMERIKKAN BADASS
13. Lupe Fiasco – Tetsou & Youth
12. Jay Rock – 90059
11. Mac Miller – Swimming
10. Pusha T – DAYTONA
9. Kid Cudi – Passion, Pain & Demon Slayin’
8. Tyler, The Creator – IGOR
7. Earl Sweatshirt – Doris
6. Mac Miller – Watching Movies With the Sound Off
5. Kid Cudi & Kanye West – Kids See Ghosts
4. Isaiah Rashad – The Sun’s Tirade
3. Kendrick Lamar – Good Kidd M.A.D.D. City
2. Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
1. Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp a Butterfly

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