Gangstarr had a song back in the day called “Mostly Tha Voice” where Guru literally rapped about how his voice sounded better than every other rapper, and you know what, it was true. But if Kevin Gates was around back in 1994, Guru would have had a weaker argument. Gates’s voice is deep and rich, to the point where we would be happy listening to him just read the phone book. But it’s not just the voice; Gates picks great beats and spits absolute realness over them in his Barry White baritone. Plus we don’t know if Guru could sing because the only gangster singer back then was Warren G, but Kevin Gates can croon like a songbird. His new tape is called By Any Means 2 and it might not have a hit like “2 Phones” but it’s still jammin’ all the way through.
More on the pop side than Kevin Gates, Ty Dolla $ign is one of the best out right now; his new album is Beach House 3. The features are crazy – Pharrell, Lil Wayne, The-Dream, YG, Future, Swae Lee, Skrillex, Damian Marley, Tory Lanez – like, really crazy. It’s a great record, and our pick is Dawsin’s Breek (get it?) featuring Jeremih.
Ever since Ryan Hemsworth remixed Future “Turn On The Lights” and somehow magically made the best song even better, we’ve been checking for his shit. Some of it has been a little hit or miss; like a lot of the Soundcloud generation, the emphasis is sometimes on quantity over quality, but “Hunnid” featuring Yakki and E-40, is definitely not a miss.
Canblaster is fucking genius, and “Invoc Dolemn (Canblaster Live in the Studio at 3AM),” off his new remixes album, stretches out a song from last year into ethereal house bliss.
We skipped That New New last week because we were busy talking about Halloween, but we still added new songs to the playlist, from Walker & Royce, Kastle, Four Tet, Cut Copy and more. Give us a follow!, will ya?