by R. Kelly feat. Snoop Dogg
(Jive)
Every few years, having coasted on his persona some more, Snoop Dogg
jolts awake and sinks his teeth into a verse, as here. The topic is
exactly what you think it is, and it’s not as if Snoop says anything
especially new, but it’s easy to forget just how good he can be. Too
bad he’s the only part of the record worth noting: Kell’s production,
verses, and hook are all middling, not to mention his nonsensical
dedication to “them nonbelievers who seem to think pimpin’ is easy.”
Um, should it be?
by Ghostface Killah feat.
Fabolous and Shareefa
(Def Jam)
If Snoop sounds alert, Ghost is completely lit up here. The
narrative is as detail-rich as usual, but even this master storyteller
has seldom been so lucid or compulsively listenable. The plot: criminal
empire in jeopardy, capped by walking in on his wife fucking someone
else—the guest stars have lines, not verses, just like the
mini-movie this comes on as (seriously). The lushly orchestrated funk
has as much hurtling forward momentum as Ghost himself, and it follows
the action every step of the way, including the slow walk to the
bedroom to discover “the black Adam and Eve, two sinful lovers,” a
scene scored by ominous strings, which the song makes work.
by Scheme
(Molemen/Sound Merchants)
I heard this on DJ Rodney Noble’s Chi-Space Vol. 4 MP3-mixtape of new Windy City rap, and it jumped out immediately.
Scheme’s grainy, staccato flow can be a little chompy, as the rest of
his Manifesto EP proves, but his life lessons (“They say keep
your feelings out of it/’Cause then they never will respect you/But if
I don’t respect myself/Then how am I going to let you?”) roll on
cannily enough. But the reason to hear the record is this track,
produced by 21 Grams from the Sound Merchants. It’s a find—a
huffing-and-puffing, gliding, ridiculously addictive circa-1972
jazz-funk-soundtrack brass pattern, perfectly symmetrical and
enormously soulful—and shouldn’t be lost.
by Freddie Gibbs
(mixtape)
Another Midwesterner, Freddie Gibbs is from Gary, Indiana, and
rhymes about pimp life with a lot of detail, empathy, and skill; he
doesn’t have Snoop’s charisma, but who does? Instead, Gibbs gets inside
the life in an everyday way, and the track is a beaut—electronic
gangsta funk that gleams while cracking and booming, with occasional,
unshowy leaps into double time from the beats and from the rapper
himself. 
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