Yaay!!!! It’s Friday again and you’re welcome to my weekly playlist. I hope you enjoyed my article from last week, If you did, please do tell me what you thought about it in the comment box and if you didn’t also tell me what you were or weren’t expecting and how we can improve. Thank you.
On this week’s playlist, we’re traversing from soulful music to music that will shake you up a bit…….. If you guessed hip hop then you are right. Hip hop or Rap music is mostly called a very popular genre of music, it was developed in the United States by African-Americans, Latino Americans and Caribbean Americans in the Bronx borough of New York City in the 1970s.
At the inception of Hip hop as a genre of music, it was used as a voice for the youths in the marginalized areas of the United States to talk about the social, economic and political realities of their lives.
Fast forward to the present, virtually every country has their variation of hip hop which has its own characteristics built from the foundation of American hip hop; Take, for instance, Nigerian hip hop artists add a mix of some of our indigenous languages in their songs, use their Nigerian accent that is most times infused with mother tongue interference and talk about the ills of the Nigerian society and Nigerian government or any other Nigerian-related issue.
Here’s My Hip Hop playlist for this week; it consists of 6 songs from different countries.
FREAKY DEAKY BYTYGA FEATURING DOJA CAT
RELEASED FEBRUARY 25,2022
“Freaky Deaky” is the lead single off Tyga’s eighth upcoming album. This is the second collaboration between the two artists, the first being “Juicy remix”, In which Doja Cat featured Tyga in 2019. This song is a really sensual song that begins with a hook sung by Doja cat in the sexiest voice you’ve ever heard and then it’s followed by Tyga rapping about his sexual preferences; ‘itty bitty waist, but your ass so fat’ and then a fierce rap by Doja.
Personally, I’m not really a hip hop person, I actually prefer the song slow and soulful but trust me, this song has found a way to worm itself into my heart.
I guess it’s because of Doja’s sultry voice or just the way Tyga explains exactly what he wants but I believe that it’s just because the song is a great song and the artists have wonderful chemistry because other people have tagged it ‘flirtatious and cool’.
CITY OF GODS BY FIVIO FOREIGN, KANYE WEST AND ALICIA KEYS
RELEASED FEBRUARY 11,2022
This song by Fivio Foreign featuring Kanye West and Alicia keys is a tribute to New York City, and Fivio makes it known in his verse that New York City and most especially his home borough of Brooklyn is his holy hood, he goes ahead to rap about how it is a city of money and violence and how only the strong can survive. He then makes reference to the late rapper; Pop smoke and says that he has taken over the throne as ‘The King Of New York’ since Pop has now passed on.
This song is a typical American hip hop song with all the violence and swears words in it but Alicia keys somehow found a way to soften it with her really interesting voice which she made a bit raspy, I guess to fit the genre. Then in Kanye’s verse, he talks about how he’s not originally from New York but it has become his adopted hometown and Yorkers respect him as the resurrected Jesus (The Nigerian in me is boiling because of that sentence). If you enjoy a good rap then I recommend this song.
SHAKE IT BY KAY FLOCK, CARDI B, DOUGIE B AND BORY300
RELEASED APRIL 15,2022
Before I say anything about this song, I just want to say that Cardi B is IT and anybody comparing her with Minaj is just plain bitter. I am not going to lie, all the other people in this song are unknown to me, I might have heard one of their songs before but their names are just outrightly strange and the only reason I listened to this song in the first place is that Cardi talked about it on her Instagram page and I heard her verse and decided to hear the whole song and I don’t regret it.
The song features a chip of Akon’s ‘belly dancer’ in the background till the end. All the artists in this song put in their best in making the song sound violently hip hop in its drill form and then featuring Cardi was the icing on the cake because we see her rapping in quite a different way than she normally does and she outdid herself with the rap in this song. Sincerely it’s a great song, and with Cardi featured in it, It’s a wonderfully great song. Please listen to this song and tell me what you think.
BODY(REMIX)BY TION WAYNE AND RUSS MILLIONS FEATURING ARRDEE, E1, BUGZY MALONE, FIVIO FOREIGN, ZT,DARKOO AND BUNI
RELEASED 25 MARCH, 2021
Do we all remember this song from all the TikTok trends? Yeap, what’s a hip hop playlist without UK drills? American hip-hop and that of Britain are almost the same except that our colonial masters have very unique accents that make their music very unique.
The original song is very catchy as well but this remix with a mix of British and American rappers is the perfect Drill song, there’s another remix but I feel this is the best because of the wonderful artists featured on this one. So the song is basically appreciating women with coca-cola bodies, that is ladies with hourglass figures that have huge busts as well as huge hips and bottoms.
English, English girl named Fiona, African girl, Adeola
Body-ody shaped like Cola, back up back up, ayy,come closer
The original song was the first Drill music to claim the UK’S number 1 spot and even if you are not a fan of HipHop music you’ll enjoy this song.
https://youtu.be/oorVWW9ywG0
DIOR BY POP SMOKE
RELEASED FEBRUARY 11,2020
The first thing that draws you into this song is Pop smoke’s voice, He has a unique voice that is just the perfect fit for HipHop, really thick and sexy if I must say, too sad he died early. The song has a pretty heavy beat and in the lyrics, Pop smoke raps about how the girls like him and the way he moves and then they go on to make it clap for him(twerk their fat ass) and then he gets them the latest designers. After talking about getting a designer for his Girl, Pop smoke goes on to rap about gun violence till the end of the song, He also goes ahead to pledge that he will raise hell until the authorities release his pal from Rikers Island jail.
This song literally became an anthem during the Black lives matter protest after the killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, but apart from that I think it’s a beautiful song to vibe to and twerk to….hehehehhe
SECOND SERMON REMIX BY BLACK SHERIFF AND BURNA BOY
RELEASED 2021
Please I had to add my dear Kweku Frepong to this list and to top it up he features our own African Giant from Nigeria; Burna boy. I can bet on it that you’ll listen to this song more than once because even if you don’t understand the Twi language, you’ll be captivated by Black Sheriff’s voice . The song is mostly rapped in Twi which is a Ghanaian language with a mixture of a little bit of English and then Burna’s verse which he rapped in English telling us how his money is long and how they hate him but he’ll rise above them because they have no licence.
I watched an interview with the Black sheriff and he explained a bit about this song which is a sequel to his ‘First sermon’, The 20year old artiste said in the interview that this song is for the boys that had to grow up early and lost their way and started living the bad life because of the environment that they grew up in, he went on to say that the song is dedicated to his cousin who lost her life and referred to a line in the song; Silence for a minute, Rest in peace to Sister Miriam.
This song is a fusion of both Ghanaian and Nigerian hip hop variants and is a really sensational song. I would also recommend that you watch and listen to the live performance of this song on Glitch Africa’s Youtube page.
