Body Bumpin' Beats, Beauty In A Beef, & BET Breakthroughs
6/19/20
Happy Friday everyone! Here’s the latest playlist, some highlights to bounce to, a lesson in feuding, and exciting Hip Hop Awards news!
Playlist Highlights: Move Ya Body, Girl
I don’t know about you, but sitting glued to a desk all day at home and not being able to go out dancing has been a struggle. Below are some playlist highlights for you to listen to when you take that much needed midday break today and dance like no one’s watching.
1. “Tap In” - Saweetie
It seems that Saweetie is trying to become the queen of sampling rap, and as a result has been causing quite a stir. Coming off the success of her two mega hits—”My Type” and “ICY GRL”—which sample tracks by Petey Pablo and Khia respectively—Saweetie dropped her latest single this week, “Tap In”, which samples Too $hort’s 2006 track “Blow The Whistle”. The single is taken from her upcoming album Pretty Bitch Music, set to be released later this year, and has already been receiving mixed reviews. Hater comments on Twitter include things like “Oh look Saweetie using another early 2000s sample....” and “when is Saweetie gonna get her own beat for a single“. While I understand people noting a pattern in Saweetie frequently relying on sampling for music, what I can’t get behind is why that needs to be criticized. I mean, sampling older tracks and preexisting beats and making it your own is kind of…essentially the foundation of hip hop? So why are people just singling Saweetie out? Regardless, with its booming bass and referee whistling, “Tap In” is quintessential West Coast bounce rap, perfect for twerking, and should totally be queued up in your summer playlist.
“Boss B*tch” - CeeFineAss
New Orleans based CeeFineAss is a young and upcoming rapper (I mean, based on her IG I think she just got her high school diploma!) who I just recently discovered for the first time. Upon listening, it becomes immediately evident in her music that she’s got that Nola bounce influence, with frequent appearances of chopped repetitive call outs, booming drum machines, and multiple references to good ol’ booty-bouncin’. Recently, her name has been thrown around several gossip sites in relation to some petty feud between a couple Gen-Z social media personalities (insert eyeroll), when one of them posted on TikTok clip of her lip syncing to CeeFineAss’ track “Payback”, which besides the obvious title reference, includes the lines “"Keep your name out my mouth cause I don't beef for free." This feud has nothing to do with CeeFineAss, but hey free publicity is free publicity, am I right? CeeFineAss recently dropped her latest thumping single “Boss B*tch”, which makes clear, as the rapper spits in the hook, that she’s a “Bad little bitch with an attitude”. The track will have you bouncing around in your desk chair, and CeeFineAss is definitely one to watch out for.
“On My Momma”- K’ona Lisa
Ok so technically K’ona Lisa’s mixtape, HERE, came out the end of last month, but I just came across it and it’s definitely worth the listen. The Houston based, Arkansa born rapper’s name has been popping up these past few months, solely based on the fact that she’s another female rapper signed to 1501, i.e. the label that Megan Thee Stallion has been very publicly beefing with. Wisely, Lisa has stayed out of the drama, instead focused on releasing HERE. Perhaps, her balancing a rap career while being a mother of four very young kids has given her the wisdom to stay out of rap feuds. And did I mention she is only 25 years old? Lisa can both sing and rap and according to her, when she raps she likes to “pop a lot of s##t” but when she sings she hopes to connect with emotions. Considering the unrelenting success of Megan this past year, it seems Lisa might be next up to bat to make it big, and her first single of 2020, “Lit Lit” has been making the rounds on airwaves. But my pick off the album is “On My Momma”, where she pairs up with fellow femcee Renni Rucci (I do love a good femcee duo) as it is perfectly full of sass and fiery attitude.
New Track Alert: The Chillest Clap Back There Ever Was
Earlier this week, Noname (née Fatimah Nyeema Warner), the most calming and level-headed poetess and rapstress of our time, found herself embroiled in a feud. Well, sort of. Several days earlier, male rapper J. Cole released a track called “Snow On Tha Bluff”, in which he addresses the current police brutality protests going on across the world and alludes to his own feelings of inadequacy surrounding his activism. Now he could have simply rapped about his insecurities in an upfront, confessional manner, which would have been humanizing to say the least, but instead Cole spends half the track dragging an unnamed woman for calling out big-name rappers’ silence after the murder of George Floyd. He spits: “Low key I be thinkin’ she talking bout me…it’s something about the queen tone that’s bothering me.” Based on various sleuthing methods, most listeners have inferred him to be talking about Noname. Lyrics in Cole’s track even go as far as to say things like: “Just 'cause you woke and I'm not, that shit ain't no reason to talk like you better than me/How you gon' lead, when you attackin' the very same niggas that really do need the shit that you sayin'?Instead of conveying you holier, come help get us up to speed/Shit, it's a reason it took like two hundred years for our ancestors just to get freed”.
Ever the sage and creative artist that she is, Noname seems to have chosen the high road to respond—not in a twitter feud or IG story—but by releasing her first new single of the year, “Song 33”. And she responds in a truly inspiring approach, because “Song 33” is hardly a diss track. Instead, Noname uses her platform to educate and courteously challenge Cole and anyone else who feels similar to him to simply do better. On the track, Noname searingly raps: “Look at him go / He really ’bout to write about me when the world is in smokes? / When it’s people in trees? / When George begging for his mother saying he couldn’t breathe, you thought to write about me?”
Noname also goes on to write about the plight that black women face even amidst their own communities “I saw a demon on my shoulder/It’s looking like the patriarchy,” and even becomes one of the first to rap about Oluwatoyin “Toyin” Salau, the 19-year old BLM activist who was murdered just earlier this week after being sexually assaulted. “Why Toyin body don’t embody all the life she wanted?/ A baby just 19 / I know Dream all black / I seen her everything immortalized in tweets / All caps.”
Overall, the track is a beautiful Neo-Soul piece of rap poetry, where Noname breathily navigates through the most pressing themes of our current day and age, including abolishing the police, valuing black trans lives, and democratizing Amazon. It will absolutely, hands down, be one of the most important songs of 2020, so add it to your year-end lists now. And even J. Cole can’t complain. He knows good art when he sees it, and even retweeted the track himself. Checkmate. Listen to “Song 33” below.
Quiz: BET Hip Hop Award Noms Are In & Femcees Win!
This past week, BET announced its nominations for the 2020 Hip Hop Awards, which is set to air on Sunday, June 28th, as a virtual show this year. Once upon a time, not too long ago, women in hip hop had to fight to even have their own nomination category exist, let alone to be featured on the cards, but this year femcees are all over the place, repping in almost every category in which they could possibly be found, and then some.
First off, for Album Of The Year, three out of the six nominations this year are by ladies of hip-hop—Megan Thee Stallion, Lizzo, and Beyonce. Lizzo and Bey are then also up for Best R&B/Pop Artist. For Video of The Year, two out of the six nominations are by women—Doja Cat’s “Say So” and Megan Thee Stallion/Nicki Minaj’s “Hot Girl Summer”. For “Hot Girl Summer”, Megan and Nicki are also up for a Viewer’s Choice Award and a Best Collaboration Award. And more on collaborations—two out of the six nominees for Best Group are spittin’ sistahs—City Girls and Chloe X Halle.
Then you have the exciting Danileigh, nominated for Best New Artist (go check her out!), and the incredibly talented Sho Madjozi from South Africa, (check her out even more!) nominated in the Best International Act category. For the BET HER award, which of course nominates only women, the nominees are almost all rappers—there’s Lizzo and Missy for “Tempo”, the super powerful and highly slept on “Afeni” by Rapsody, the anthemic bop “Melanin” which was a collab of Ciara, Ester Dean, City Girls, La La, and Lupita (yes THAT Lupita), and even Blue Ivy is nominated in there with her mom for “Brown Skin Girl”. To stretch even further, Issa Rae is up for Best Actress, (that girl can rap, period), and dang, even renaissance woman and sometimes rapper Teyana Taylor is nominated in the video director category! Whew! And after all that, we haven’t even mentioned the most important category. Last but not least, for “Best Female Hip Hop Artist”, Cardi B, Doja Cat, Lizzo (who is also R/B Pop?), Megan Thee Stallion, Nicki Minaj, and Saweetie are this year’s nominees. For that category, I really can’t choose, can you? Vote here or comment below!
Sure, looking back 2020 will unanimously not have been a good year for humanity, but the least we can say is that it was a good year for women in hip hop.