Say It With Your Chest

Mach-Hommy “Sonje”

Sometimes I do a little research about artists I don’t know a lot about, and let me tell ya, I was not surprised at all to find out that Georgia Anne Muldrow is the child of session musicians. Muldrow, who produced this track under the alias Hephzibah, creates music with the casual sophistication of someone born into jazz. “Sonje” is a rap track and operates on those terms, but even within the relative rigidity of a hip-hop beat you can find her getting playful with the bass. It’s a very busy bass line for a rap track but Mach-Hommy maneuvers around it with ease, sometimes lining up in tandem and at other moments cutting between the bass notes, like dancing between raindrops.

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Freddie Gibbs “Wolverine”

Freddie Gibbs raps through this track in a straight shot with only a few seconds between verse breaks. His writing is a little too composed and structured to feel like a freestyle, but he does sound like he could keep rapping over this drowsy, jazzy track indefinitely. Gibbs burns through a few topics here, but the stuff that stands out to me is him musing on how he might make money after his rap career goes dry, a riff about basketball, and the bit towards the end where he admits that he’s still into R. Kelly’s music even if he doesn’t condone what he’s done.

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Crimeapple & Michaelangelo “Nikki Beach”

“Nikki Beach” is a good example of one of my favorite types of rap track – a kinda-sorta love song in which obvious earnest affection is obscured only somewhat by the rapper’s vulgarity. Crimeapple and Michaelangelo mostly come off as sweet guys who are very eager to brag about their cool, sexy girlfriends. It’s cute stuff. It’s the rap guy equivalent of carving a pair of initials on a tree.

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