15 New Rap and R&B Songs Out This Week
This week in rap and R&B, we got a new album from ELUCID, as well as new singles from Kid Cudi, Rae Sremmurd, Pharrell Williams (ft. 21 Savage and Tyler, The Creator), Juicy J & Pi’erre Bourne, Saucy Santana (ft. Latto), Crimeapple & DJ Skizz, Fana Hues, Big Jade, Hotboii, Black Thought & Danger Mouse, Benny The Butcher, and more. Read on for all the hip hop we posted this week…
KID CUDI – “DO WHAT I WANT”
Kid Cudi has a new Netflix project and accompanying album, Entergalactic, on the way this fall, and ahead of that, and his Governors Ball headlining set on Friday, he’s shared new single “Do What I Want.”
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SZA – CTRL (DELUXE EDITION)
In honor of the fifth anniversary of her debut studio LP, SZA shared a deluxe edition with seven previously unreleased tracks.
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RAE SREMMURD – “DENIAL”
Rap duo Rae Sremmurd have been quiet lately (and breakup rumors arose), but now they’ve released their first new song in four years and apparently have a new album called SREMM4LIFE on the way. The new song finds them exploring their breezy, melodic side, and the beachy music video suits that perfectly.
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PHARRELL WILLIAMS – “CASH IN CASH OUT” FT. 21 SAVAGE & TYLER, THE CREATOR
“I knew the track was aggressive, and it doesn’t let up,” Pharrell told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe about choosing 21 Savage & Tyler, The Creator for this new infectious new single that features his unusual, unmistakable production. “So it’s like those are the two. It’s like letting two pit bulls loose. Ravenous. Two ravenous wolves….Tyler went crazy.”
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JUICY J & PI’ERRE BOURNE – “THIS FRONTO”
The one-and-only Juicy J and producer/artist Pi’erre Bourne have announced a collaborative album, Space Age Pimpin’, due June 22 via Trippy Music. J’s maximalist, catchy rap sounds as great as ever on new single “This Fronto.”
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SAUCY SANTANA – “BOOTY” (FT. LATTO)
Saucy Santana’s first release for RCA Records is an upbeat ode to butts featuring label and tourmate Latto.
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CRIMEAPPLE & DJ SKIZZ – “IN FLIGHT”
NJ rapper CRIMEAPPLE and producer DJ Skizz are releasing a new project, Breakfast in Hradec, on June 29 via Different Worlds Music Group, and if you miss the ’90s boom bap era, you should feast your ears on this hypnotic new single.
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FANA HUES – “DRIVE”
“I had a glimpse of that freedom that I hope I get in this next year creatively,” Fana Hues says of her new track, the first single off Pigeons & Planes’ upcoming compilation album See You Next Year. “When I get out of my own head and just write something that just feels good, rather than over-analyzing what it is. So ‘Drive’ was a breath of fresh air, creatively, for me, because I got to just go off and do what it is that came naturally.”
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BIG JADE – “PESOS” (ft. PESO PESO)
Texas rapper Big Jade has been on the rise, and she just gets better and better, as evidenced by this instantly-satisfying song.
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YUNA – “MAKE A MOVE”
“‘Make A Move’ is about meeting someone for the first time and you find yourself constantly thinking about them,” Yuna says. “You know that even if this person knows your name, it’s not enough to spark something real, you have to make the first move to talk to them and do something before it’s too late or before the situation becomes a ‘could-have-been’.” The airy R&B track is the latest single from Y5, which she’s releasing in a series of five installments over the year.
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HOTBOII – “WTF”
Orlando rapper Hotboii returns with this very catchy dose of trap-pop.
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BLACK THOUGHT & DANGER MOUSE – “BECAUSE” (ft. JOEY BADA$$ & RUSS)
Black Thought and Danger Mouse have released the second single from their long-awaited collaborative album Cheat Codes, and you can read more about it here.
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MOOR MOTHER – “WOODY SHAW” (ft. MELANIE CHARLES)
Moor Mother has announced a new album, Jazz Codes, which she calls a companion to last year’s excellent Black Encyclopedia of the Air, and you can read more about lead single “WOODY SHAW” here.
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BENNY THE BUTCHER – “WELCOME TO THE STATES”
Rapper Benny the Butcher has released “Welcome to the States,” a protest song about mass shootings and racism in the U.S. Specifically, the song was inspired by the May 14 shooting at Tops Friendly Market in Benny’s hometown of Buffalo that left 10 dead and three more injured, almost all of them Black. The song has Benny rapping over the beat from Kendrick Lamar’s “We Cry Together” from Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. “Welcome to the States,” he begins, “where we die over our skin color and race / ideologies formed on hate, now our grocery stores ain’t safe.”
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POST MALONE – “WAITING FOR NEVER” & “HATEFUL”
Like a lot of artists do these days, Post Malone has released a deluxe edition of his new album Twelve Carat Toothache just days after releasing the regular edition. It has two new bonus tracks, both of which are cut from the same melancholic cloth that most of the main album is.
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For even more new songs, browse our daily ‘New Songs’ lists. For more hip hop news, browse our ‘Hip Hop News’ category.
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25 Early 2000s Rap Albums That Hold Up Today
Ghostface Killah – Supreme Clientele (2000)
Deltron 3030 – Deltron 3030 (2000)
Lil’ Kim – The Notorious K.I.M. (2000)
OutKast – Stankonia (2000)
Ludacris – Back for the First Time (2000)
Eve – Scorpion (2001)
Cannibal Ox – The Cold Vein (2001)
Jay-Z – The Blueprint (2001)
Jay-Z made a name for himself rapping alongside Jaz-O and then Big Daddy Kane in the late '80s and early '90s, but took his time when it came to making his own album. And while he was watching and waiting, the young Queensbridge rapper Nas released his 1994 debut album Illmatic, an instant-classic that received a now-legendary score of five mics from The Source and changed rap forever. Jay took obvious notes from Illmatic (and sampled a line from it) when he finally released his own debut album, 1996's Reasonable Doubt. Gone was the fast-rapping Jay-Z of the Jaz-O days and in his place was an artist with a smoother, grittier style who told real-life stories of life on the streets in Brooklyn over some of the finest production of the era (courtesy of Ski, Clark Kent, Illmatic contributor DJ Premier, and others). Jay-Z intended for Reasonable Doubt to be a classic, and it was, but it wasn't the instantly-game-changing album that Illmatic was and it couldn't compete with the flashy, pop-crossover "Jiggy Era" that Puff Daddy started to lead after Biggie's tragic death. So Jay-Z went in an increasingly pop direction, and by the time of his 1998 single "Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)," he wasn't just competing with the "Jiggy Era," he was starting to take over.
Going pop in the late '90s and early 2000s also meant getting dissed by other rappers, among them Prodigy of Mobb Deep and Nas, whose feud with Jay-Z was about to boil over as Jay-Z geared up for his best album since Reasonable Doubt, The Blueprint. Months before its release, Jay made Hot 97 Summer Jam history by debuting "Takeover," a diss track aimed at Prodigy and Nas, during his set, alongside a childhood photo of Prodigy in dance clothes on the big screen. The finished version of "Takeover" ended up on The Blueprint, and the studio version proved it to be not just a brutal diss track but also a genuinely great song, and one of many on The Blueprint. Jay-Z didn't stop being "pop" on The Blueprint -- it still had the radio-friendly "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)," the sentimental balladry of "Song Cry," and other "pop" moments -- but he figured out how to put the accessibility of the "Jiggy Era," the grit of the streets, and the album-oriented structure of Reasonable Doubt into one whole masterpiece of an album. Production came largely from Just Blaze and Kanye West (plus Bink, Timbaland, Eminem, and others), and together they established a rich, soulful production style that would dominate rap for years. There's perhaps never been a better example of the classic Kanye sound than "Heart of the City (Ain't No Love)." Jay's ear for beats on The Blueprint was matched by his most consistently great rapping since Reasonable Doubt, and still some of the very best rapping of his career. Unlike his previous guest-filled albums, Jay carried the album almost entirely by himself, and he never lost steam. The only guest appearance came from Eminem on "Renegade," and look, Nas is right, Em out-rapped Jay on the track, but Jay still packed some of his finest rhyme schemes into that song.
Aesop Rock – Labor Days (2001)
Nas – Stillmatic (2001)
El-P – Fantastic Damage (2002)
Eminem – The Eminem Show (2002)
If we're picking one album per artist, a lot of people would go with 2000's near-perfect The Marshall Mathers LP for Eminem, but if pressed, I always go with The Eminem Show because it feels like the grand finale to the classic Eminem era. The Marshall Mathers LP is just as essential, but Eminem as we came to know him doesn't exist without The Eminem Show.
An artist who almost always knew how to title an album, Marshall Mathers introduced the world to his massively offensive alter-ego Slim Shady on 1999's The Slim Shady LP, he introduced us to the man behind the madness on The Marshall Mathers LP, and he took a look at the impact Eminem the artist had on the world with The Eminem Show. (He also admitted the show was over with 2004's Encore, and then made a series of failed comeback attempts with Relapse, Recovery, The Marshall Mathers LP 2, and Revival, before finally abandoning this trend on the still-just-okay-sounding Kamikaze and Music to Be Murdered By.) Eminem catapulted to the forefront of rap because of white privilege but also became a scapegoat for everything white suburban conservatives hated about rap, and there's perhaps no better response to all of it than "White America," the first proper song on The Eminem Show. And then there's "Sing for the Moment." The Marshall Mathers LP gave us "Stan," a Dido-sampling ballad about the real-life dangers of toxic fandom and the importance of mental health, and The Eminem Show gave us "Sing for the Moment," an Aerosmith-sampling ballad about the importance of rap music to young kids amidst backlash from the media, the government, and scared parents. You might argue that song ruined white rap forever (and also unfortunately convinced Eminem he needed more and more ballads on later albums), but it also spoke directly to and validated the feelings of a lot of kids who needed to hear it. The Eminem Show also attacked George W. Bush ("Square Dance"), took on personal issues like the toll fame takes on a person ("Say Goodbye Hollywood") and fatherhood ("Hailie's Song"), and also reminded the world Eminem was still better than most people at making straight-up rap songs ("Business"). One of three songs on The Eminem Show produced by the man who made Eminem a star, Dr. Dre, "Business" found Eminem packing so many career-best punchlines over a top-tier Dre beat, reminding us that -- when you put all the baggage associated with Eminem aside -- he was truly one of the greats at the pure art of rapping.