Welcome back. Here are my favourite international rap songs of 2024 which is basically just my favourite songs from the US. Bit of a fucked up country really but they seem to know a thing or two about rapping. I have included exactly two songs by Englishmen to acknowledge all our brothers in AUKUS, as a gesture of goodwill in light of today’s inspirational meeting of soulless statesmen. Plus, a few words about my top ten tracks. It’s good to get out, get the pen workin’.
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- Kendrick Lamar – Not Like Us
- It just was. It was the most fun thing to come from the beef while still keeping that kind of bleak, dirt-digging tone. The cultural phenomenon that it came to be was incredible to witness. When it dropped, I played it over and over in the whip and then for months I loved hearing huge crowds of people singing along to it. Videos of little kids singing along and DJs cutting out the song to scream “CERTIFIED PEDOPHILE” are burned into my mind. The video of a hundred Angeleno notables and nobodies swarming the stage and hitting all sorts of walks during the performance of this song at Kendrick’s Pop Out concert is one of the best things I’ve ever seen on my computer screen. He gives that wonderful Kendrick weirdness and raps like Drakeo but the best part is when he starts rapping like Sada Baby and turns it up a notch with “All eyes on me and I’mma send it up to Pac!” It just was.
- All that said, “Other vaginal option” might be the worse bar of all time.
- Nino Paid – When I Was Young
- Rawest rapper currently rapping. Soul-bearing, vivid and blunt every time, he gives his own gentle spin on the DMV punch-in flow but is more interested in sharing painful stories than puffing out his chest. Many of the excellent singles he put out in 2024 like Champagne, Relapse and Play This At My Funeral show off the interesting beats he reaches for, with some barely resembling rap beats while others are creative spins on the regional sound. When I Was Young was the first song I heard by him, with diary-like raps about his foster care upbringing and more over a serene, cloudy beat.
- He’s very deep and raps about drug addiction and depression and grief and all that good shit. Anyone who likes Lucki or drugs or depression should be tapped in. But he’s much more than that, there’s a lot of beauty as well.
- Hurricane Wisdom – Giannis
- Just some classic Florida shit with one of the smoothest, slipperiest flows and deliveries I ever heard. What’s so good about it – the zesty cadence, the Loe Shimmy-like lilt and subtle high notes, the melodic fluidity – I struggle to put into words. Haven’t stopped playing it. It’s not so much about the bars but I do love: “I weren’t too good at math/On god I run with problem solvers”.
- Starlito – Yeah 5x 2.0 ft. Don Trip
- I don’t know many other songs that capture grief as well as this one does. It almost always brings me to tears, whether at the moment Starlito wonders what his late friend wanted to tell him on that last missed call, or when Trip talks about holding the hand of his friend’s daughter as they laid him to rest. Too many moments to choose from really.
- It’s a sequel to one of Lito and Trip’s most popular songs but shares little in common with the first one (which is also a banger). Starlito is one of the most slept-on rappers of all time – a potent and poignant writer – and his latest was a brilliant album that explores things like failed romances, fatherhood AND street life with such honesty and maturity. Grown man rap music. It’s okay to rap about regular life.
- JP – Bad Bitty
- JP leaned all the way in on Milwaukee low-end silliness, gave a suave crooner flavour to nonsensical player bars and made (two) perfect, incredibly catchy songs (the other being Come and See). Must be consumed through the From The Block Performance video to sense the true aura.
- Mavi – drunk prayer
- GOAT talk of the century. The most soulful, most lyrically dexterous doing it. Maybe. Not many people could put out an album as good as shadowbox and still it have it be his third best project. IMO.
- Top 10 worst moment of 2024 contender: when they cancelled the Mavi tour.
- FearDorian – Virginia Hymn
- I love this beat. It’s as if Dorian’s sampling the cries of the angels in heaven. In his despondent, croaky mutter, he says “It’s crazy half the time I don’t know what I’m feeling” and other such expressions of coming-of-age angst loosely related to a relationship that’s coming to an end.
- PCF Man Man – No one to vent 2
- A song that is both melancholic and erratic. Man Man raps about loneliness and mental anguish with a livewire energy over sparse piano and muddy, pounding 808s. There’s only about 15 bars total in the song (with 9 of those getting repeated as a hook) and the most affecting part hits so hard in part ‘cause it doesn’t really rhyme: “Aunty stuck on drugs, she call my phone, shit fuckin’ with my mental/She say she love me, I get to trippin’, I’m sorry girl I think I’m mental
- MIKE – R&B
- Big MIKE switches up the flow and goes full swag-mode, looking sexy looking handsome hoppin’ out the whip over this dreamy beat from Tony Seltzer.
- Common & Pete Rock – Fortunate
- Old dudes were really running shit in 2024. LL Cool J released his first album in eleven years and it was wicked dope (see: Black Code Suite & 30 Decembers), Lito did his grown-man thing, Redman still rappin his ass off and Kurious released his long-awaited Majician album which was executive produced by MF DOOM before he passed. Just to name a few.
- One of the albums I played most, and the one I would most often reach for on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, was Common & Pete Rock’s The Auditorium Pt. 1. Pete Rock is the main attraction here because Common can be so damn corny with his wordplay sometimes but he’s still occasionally nice and he puts so much heart and love in his music that you can let it slide. Pete Rock might even have my favourite line on the album when he raps “Make beats on the table if I break my computer” on the uber-dope All Kinds Of Ideas. But Pete Rock is of course a producer first and foremost and he provides Common with a bevy of gorgeous, masterfully composed beats, such as on the kaleidiscopic Fortunate which Common also blesses with a boatload of gratitude. Second favourite was We’re On Our Way.
- Seiji Oda – A Gentle Gigg
- 41 – Hate The Real
- El Snappo – Back2Serve’n
- Nettspend – Nothing Like Uuu
- Jaeychino & SlimeGetEm – Me vs Me
- TiaCorine – Bonnet
- Cavalier – Custard Spoon
- Oodaredevil – Pick Up The Pieces
- LL Cool J – 30 Decembers
- El Cousteau – Words2LiveBy – ft. Earl Sweatshirt
- Polo Perks & Ayooli – BeNice2Me
- Navy Blue – Take Heed
- Yung Threat – To The Test
- Latto – Brokey
- Drake – Push Ups
- Kurious – Unknown Species
- LaRussell & Seiji Oda – Peaceful2
- Kur – Cheating To Win
- Playboi Carti – Evil Jordan
- Star Bandz – Yea Yea
- Nefew – Hi-C Flow
- B.G. – On The Radar Freestyle
- DJ Lucas – Smoke On The Job
- Mach-Hommy – #Richaxxhaitan ft. 03 Greedo
- MESSIAH! & MAVI – Daily Bread
- Veeze & Tye Beats – Wocky Sinner
- Overlord Scooch – Stunt Double ft. Doughboyz Cashout
- Jawnino – It’s Cold Out
- Doechii – Nissan Altima
- Deetranada – NO U
- Hariroc & Lil Tony – Evil Women
- Mellow Bucks – Move
- Cash Cobain & Bay Swag – Fisherrr (Ice Spice Remix)
- G Perico – Focused
- EBK BCKDOE – Can’t FWM
- Sideshow – SELL ME SICKNESS SELL ME HEALTH (EAZY T)
- YT – Black & Tan ft. Lancey Foux
- Loe Shimmy – Drugs
- Deem Spencer – How Far We’ve Come ft Mavi & Eliza Moon
- Future – Like That ft. Kendrick Lamar
24 Not From ’24
- Z-Ro – Everyday Samethang
- Pete Rock – We Roll ft. Jim Jones & Max B
- Mouse On tha Track – Big Blossom
- Noreaga – The Change/Banned From TV ft. everyone/
- Tame One – Slick Talkin’
- Witchdoctor – Holiday/Hurtin/Georgia Plains (Holy Grounds)
- Jadakiss – I Don’t Care
- Jim Jones – G’z Up ft. Max B
- Paris – This Is A Test
- Lil Boosie – Goin Thru Some Thangs
- UGK – Wood Wheel
- Slick Rick – Street Talkin
- Mystikal – Neck Uv Da Woods ft OutKast
- Lay-Lo – Take It Like a Gee
- Rich Boy – Haters Wish
- Tim Trees – Bank Roll
- Stack Bundles – I Don’t Know What You Gone Do
- Tabi Bonney – Jet Setter
- The Frontline – What Is It
- MJG – Middle Of The Night ft. 8Ball
- Big Gipp & Witchdoctor – Creeks
- Boldy James – Drops of Reign ft. Sir Michael Rocks
- Young Dro – I’m Rollin
- G Dep – Head Over Wheels/Child of the Ghetto (LP)
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