I thought I would do different versions of this kind of post based on genre, but my overall song selection wasn't all that varied this time around. These are songs that were released in the last month (or in the case of "Fireflies," that I just properly discovered) that I thought were worth discussing.
YG feat. Tee Cee - "Meet the Flockers" (My Krazy Life)
There are people that will try to convince you that YG's album is too simple to actually be good. They are stupid. Don't listen to them. My Krazy Life is terrific. Never has a song had me wanting to set up a home invasion before. Not only is "Find a Chinese neighborhood 'cause they don't believe in bank accounts" the hardest rap line ever, it should require a proper investigation by multiple publications to see if this trope still rings out.
Ty Dolla $ign feat. Wiz Khalifa & DJ Mustard - "Or Nah" (Beach House EP)
DJ Mustard's whole M.O. is to get people to have fun. There's a happiness factor to all of his music. The "Or Nah" beat on the other hand is downright haunting. Mustard has done some interesting stuff in 2014, but hopefully this marks a transition for him as a producer beyond just going from 3-note melodies to 4-note melodies. Ty does what he does best (and does it well). And Wiz comes through with potentially his only guest verse in history that has been worth listening to.
Zendaya - "Fireflies" (Zendaya)
This is officially my favorite song right now. I'm convinced Harmony Samuels is the best producer out. There's an interview online with him talking about giving "The Way" to Ariana Grande because they needed to make this white 20-something girl from Nickelodeon "cool." So what do you do with a black teenage girl from the Disney Channel? The rest of the album clumsily toes the line between pop and R&B without quite picking a side. With this song, Samuels flawlessly combines those two worlds. You have the dance buildup, the urban breakdown with the snaps and just the most perfect, slow-mo-dance-montage-worthy chorus. Whether this was a leftover Dawn Richard song (later beefed up by Samuels) or something she and her producer, Andrew Scott, worked on together with Samuels isn't super clear, but clearly this is a combination we need to hear more from in 2014.
100s - "Slide On Ya" (IVRY)
I spent four years in Berkeley and never heard of 100s until after I graduated last May, which is unfortunate because I would have loved to witness an artist grow literally from ground zero. "Slide On Ya" is more of the pimpish flavor 100s has delivered since last year's Ice Cold Perm, but it's probably unfair to cast 100s as strictly that type of rapper. His music is ultimately about women – dealing with them, sleeping with them, ignoring them, etc. While his music does have a flair for the theatrics (and expletives and misogyny), there is an aspect of his music that is entirely relatable. "Slide On Ya" is also the perfect example of 100s absolutely commanding the beat – a bangin' 80's-influenced one at that – with a flow reminiscent of DJ Quik, Too Short and a young Snoop Dogg.
Wiz Khalifa - "We Dem Boyz"
Over the last couple years, Wiz Khalifa has proven more and more how unnecessary he is to the hip-hop ecosystem. Even while he aligned himself with awesome young talent (IAmSu, Problem, Ty Dolla $ign), there just wasn't much worth listening to. Whether he realized his music was just plain boring or Su and Ty's music finally rubbed off on him properly, Wiz seemed to realize the power of melodic delivery on "We Dem Boyz." On paper, this shouldn't work at all. He repeats the same two phrases over and over. The whole song is (slightly) autotuned. It's produced by Detail. But the end result is absolute fire. It's a perfect mix of aggression and triumph. It's also cool because there's no bass in the entire song.
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