Posted by These things take forever to write. Back in the day when I had 2 classes every day and it was like Intro To Paper Mache and Italian 101 these things were nothing to write. But now? I have like an hour of free time between work, making dinner, watching 6 episodes of Stranger Things in one sitting, and sleeping. So after writing this my whole day is done. Please read so it wasn’t for nothing. We’re talking Old Town Road de-throning Despacito, Stranger Things Season 4 being a musical, Ed Sheeran’s new collab album, and debate who’s the best rapper of all time (Pitbull or Flo Rida, obviously). If that teaser won’t make you read idk what will.
What’s Good?
Look What I’ve Become -Mike Posner (feat. Ty Dolla $ign)
I mean, this is the most underrated thing happening in the world right now: Mike Posner is literally walking across America. The whole damn country. Straigh Forrest-Gumping it. He’s already like halfway there.
You can follow along with his journey here, but there’s something so pure about this. Does he look insane in the video? A little bit. But he looks happy as hell too! Seems like he’s meeting a lot of people, becoming very spiritual and it’s just something bigger than himself you know? It’s not some stupid marketing stunt it’s something he clearly thinks is going to just be a cool experience. I’ve always been a Posner guy. “Cooler Than Me”, “Please Don’t Go”, and “I Took A Pill In Ibiza” are all certified heaters (especially this stripped down version). A video I regularly visit is his “Started From The Bottom” remix too.
So when I see him doing something as wild as walking across America and making an actual dope song along the way (with Ty Dolla too as an added bonus) I couldn’t be more on the Mike Posner train. Hoping he gets more recognition for this soon I wanna see this bearded angel everywhere.
“Old Town Road” -Lil Nas X, Billy Ray Cyrus, Young Thug, & Mason Ramsay
This is now the 3rd iteration of an Old Town Road remix that’s been released (of course, Billy Ray was the first and Diplo’s remix was also officially released), and I mean Lil Nas X just keeps the heat coming. He hasn’t made one mistake in his rise to fame. Not one. First, he’s got the best features he could possibly get on this track. Young Thug is the actual respected visionary rapper that we all wanted on a remix and then MASON FREAKING RAMSAY??? Yodel boy was spitting BARS. “If you ain’t got no giddy up then giddy out my way”. BARS. It’s the perfect mix of funny and surprisingly good that made the single blow up in the first place. Then drop it alongside a video of them all storming Area 51 (the biggest meme on the internet right now), including a scene of Keanu Reeves Naruto running? It’s such a weird collab and release but that’s what’s worked for Lil Nas X so far.
The Old Town Road with Billy Ray is now one week away from tying the record for longest time a song has been #1 on the Billboard charts. The reigning champs? “One Sweet Day” from Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men…which I’ve never heard of to be honest so I hope it beats that, BUT ALSO the latin bieber fever dream “Despacito”. Is that something we want? Do we want to dethrone Despacito? I feel like there’s something so funny about it holding the record but also I don’t want to hold back Lil Nas X’s meteoric rise by any means. Regardless, we’ll know next week. And if he drops his remix with Smash Mouth it may be enough to give it that boost to secure the top spot.
Faith -Bon Iver
Looking for some good “Curl Up In the Fetal Position and Cry Yourself To Sleep” music? You’re in luck! We got new Bon Iver this week! It’s rare that I actually understand what this man’s saying, but damn I love his music. There’s something so emotional about it. “Skinny Love” and “Holocene” are Top 2 songs to cry to hands down. His last album was a little too experimental to cry to, I was a little too confused about the instruments and noises and stuff, but this song is a perfect compromise. Sounds like newer music, has a new sound, but I could still see myself sobbing to this in a Target parking lot late at night. Really pumped to have this mans back and can’t wait for his new album to drop in August so I have a go to sad album for the Fall 🙂
What’s (Kinda) Good?
No. 6 Collaboration Project -Ed Sheeran
I am still digesting this album. I gotta let this one marinate folks. Every track on this album is night and day for me. I’m a fan of Ed Sheeran. I liked almost all the songs on his first album, his second album was dope and I actually got to see him in concert for that one and it was great, and his 3rd album I enjoyed! But this one…just not great? I didn’t like the singles at all. Not one of them. The Bieber one was boring, the Chris Stapleton & Bruno Mars one is unlistenable, even the Chance one who I usually stan was just weird? The Khalid one was the best one but nothing special.
So when this dropped I wasn’t looking forward to it. There’s a lot of songs that I enjoy enough, like “Antisocial”, “Take Me Back to London”, “1000 Nights”, and even the one with Eminem (who I notoriously despise) was catchy! But ALL of these songs I would rather have just had the features make. Like they would be way better without Ed Sheeran on the songs…that are on an Ed Sheeran album. He just doesn’t fit with them. He’s like rapping about having money and getting boozed up and stuff but that’s just not him? Can you see Ron Weasley making a music video trying to flex on people? NO. OF COURSE NOT. If you’re a ginger you should automatically DQ yourself from trying to make rap music. That should be a general rule of thumb. Now, are these bad songs? No. Just not great ones.
What tracks do I like? The ones where it blends Ed’s strong suits with his guest features strong suits perfectly. “Best Part of Me” with Yebba sounds like a classic Ed Sheeran song with a fitting feature. “Put It All On Me” with Ella Mai, WORKS. Sure it’s a little more funky than a normal Ed song there are some more trappy drums on it but it feels like him. And the best song on the album by a mile for me is “I Don’t Want Your Money” featuring H.E.R. This is what I wanted! It’s a different sound for Ed Sheeran to be doing but it’s tweaked to fit his style and it makes for an awesome sound that doesn’t feel awkward.
Speaking of awkward, uhhhhhh “SOUTH OF THE BORDER”
What the hell is this shit? Can we stop making Camilla Cabello sing songs that are all about banging latin women??? “Havana”, “Senorita”, and now THIS? Imagine Ed Sheeran going up to her like uhhh hey so you’re kinda mexican you wanna make a song called South of the Border and she’s just like jesus I guess just give me the paycheck. GIVE HER A BREAK. I hate this song and just thinking about Ed coming up with this idea and approaching her with it makes me so uncomfortable. Alright, that’s it on this.
Don’t Sleep On It: The Guy Who Made “D*ck In A Box” Just Released An Unironically AWESOME Song
You heard that right folks. This is Electric Guest, starring Asa Taccone. Does he look familiar? That’s because he looks exactly like his older brother, Jorma Taccone (a member of the Lonely Island, and director of the music video for this song).
Asa worked with the Lonely Island basically the whole time they were making songs on SNL. He would write the actual music while the members wrote the lyrics. He made iconic songs like “3-Way (The Golden Rule)”, “Motherlover”, and even won an Emmy for making the all-time banger “D*ck In a Box”.
This song is so funky and fun and the music video is fire. They just signed a deal to Atlantic Records and this is their first single on a major label so I’m so hype to see what they got coming.
Stranger Things Should Pivot To Being a Musical After This Scene
I know I’m late (even the show’s only been out for like 2 weeks) but I just finished Stranger Things and if you know what scene I’m talking about you have to agree with me. Don’t want to spoil anything but out of no where Dustin sings this GORGEOUS duet with his GF. I mean, they harmonize PERFECTLY. Listen to this kids PIPES.
Just gorgeous. This show can only go a number of ways and they’ve proved after 3 seasons they can do no wrong, so how about a musical season 4? Why not? They somehow get sucked into a dimension where everyone sings all the time. Idk, just spit balling here (no pun intended Dustin). But Gaten can sing, Finn Wolfhard’s in a band, Millie Bobby Brown can rap, and Caleb McLaughlin met Gaten Matarazzo on Broadway doing the Lion King before Stranger Things even happened. SO IT’S DO-ABLE. Make it happen Netflix give the people what they want.
What To Look Forward To
We’ve got 2 big things coming up. I’ll start with the smaller, more expected news. Chance the Rapper revealed last night his album will be titled “The Big Day” (he teased the release date as ‘TBD’ which is clever) and it’s coming out July 26th. He revealed this on Jimmy Fallon last night and dropped a teaser for the album that got me very excited.
He said the album was inspired by songs he listened to at his wedding and this song sounds like the exact vibe I want to hear. It’s sentimental, some fun rhymes, and a classic almost-nostalgic sounding beat that reminds me a lot of his flip on Family Matters.
I was already excited but now I’m excited and less nervous. The snippet alone from this song and the title and inspiration of the album makes me think this is gonna hit. Not to mention he’s definitely teasing a Kanye collab and also looks like we might get some Gambino on it, which can only be fire.
Speaking of things Chance the Rapper and Gambino worked on, we got more Lion King news. Beyonce dropped “Spirit” last week, but we found out this week there would be a companion album to the movie called “The Gift”, sort of like the Black Panther album.
And check out this tracklist.
A Beyonce, Jay-Z, AND Gambino song? Get out of here. It’s called “Mood 4 Eva” too??? It can only be gas. No question about it. Then we got a Kendrick feature, Pharrell, and a lot of great afrobeat artists who are lesser known, it’s gonna be unreal. Keep an eye out for this dropping Thursday night.
The last thing I wanted to touch on in this post, never try to one up Pitbull.
French Montana dropped a song using the same sample that Pitbull used for “Hotel Room Service” and expected none of us to notice or compare it to that???
I mean, what an idiot this guy is. Trying to make a song using the same sample as Pitbull? Bro, Pitbull doesn’t lose. He only makes bangers. You know what his net worth is? 80 MILLION DOLLARS. Know how much French’s net worth is? EIGHT. ONE DIGIT. LMAO.
The only man who should ever compete with Pitbull is Flo-Rida. They’re the two best rappers of all time (obviously). They’ve worked on bangers together to just flex on people, exhibit A being the slapper “Greenlight”.
But when it comes to taking fun ass beats and rapping nonsense lyrics over them, nobody does it quite like Pitbull and Flo Rida. Obviously Pitbull you’ve got songs like “Fireball”, “Time Of Our Lives”, “Timber”, just timeless classics. But worthy opponents from Flo Rida with all-timers like “Wild Ones”, “Low”, and “My House”. I mean, it’s indisputable these guys are the best rappers of all time, I won’t even bother debating that, but out of these two…it’s too hard to choose.
Which brings us to the Question of the Week:
Who is the best rapper of all time? Pitbull or Flo Rida?
and also, what’s your favorite Pitbull or Flo Rida song?
Let me know on Instagram, Twitter, Venmo, etc. you know the drill.
See ya next week.
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