870glizzy, RetcH, Kahlil Blu, Sy

This is Friday to Friday, your weekly rap wrap-up, going through our favorite releases in rap and hip-hop from Friday, July 3rd to Friday, July 10th. My name is Jacob. I'm a mixing and mastering engineer from California and your host for today. And I have with me producer and artist manager hailing from Montreal, Canada, Matt Kerier.

Yo, what's up?

Before we get into talking about our favorites from this week, here's the full list of projects released. We got PS Hit Squad with Life on License. Ken Carson with Experiment. La Rezi with Skittle Bandana. Arthrita Chili Man with Rich Rapping 2. Rio Rodriguez with Skate. Infamous with No Biggie. Wretch with Finesse the World 2. 870 Glizzy with Bam. G Money DT with Pay Crypt Face. MG Lil Bubba with Bubba Story. AMG Twins with Slimy Birds. Kahlil Blue with Whoa Here Must Feel. I don't know if I'm saying that right. Lil Bean with Yeshop. WTM Solid with Turppian Two. Fat Girl with Fat [expletive] Summer. Miles Natu with The Front. Loot with Hard to Reach. Sy with Time Pass. Mooney with Capsule. Dose One and Hike with Wood Teeth 2. And lastly, Diamond with Bling Slime Volume 1.

Lots of releases, but not too much stuff I'm familiar with this week. So, it's probably going to be a little bit shorter of an episode. But I'll kick it off with 870 Glizzy with Bam. So basically what happened with this was that I was so annoyed that the music is as good as it is because I hated this title and cover so much. But it's a homage, I guess, to Kendrick Lamar's Damn. He has an album cover that's like standing in front of red brick with the same kind of look on his face facing in the same direction. And then this, the album's called Bam instead of Damn. I was like, "Okay, this caught my attention. This is really annoying. I guess I'll listen to it." And then the funny thing was I immediately loved the music.

I was thinking, too, it just would have been so much worse if it was like a conscious rapper that was trying to do this, but he's just making like fun hype music. And musically, the influences are way more like Memphis trap than Kendrick. But he does have some Kendrick references scattered through the lyrics. Just little things here and there. But yeah, this was interesting.

Yeah. Yeah, me too. Like at first when you mentioned liking it, I was like, "Oh, this is going to be like a full like a Kendrick, like every song is going to be a dedication," and it literally just had nothing to do whatsoever.

I would have hated that if that's what it was.

Yeah. Yeah. But not even, and even soundwise it literally is not even in the same realm. And that's the only way that it makes sense.

That's it. Yeah.

But yeah, the rage beats are really good. Not too distorted to where it's just like throwing out all sense of engineering out the window. It's dirty, but it's clean. So, I'm pretty picky about rage beats, but I liked all the rage beats on here.

But yeah, standout tracks. I like Bam. Everything I didn't want to like is so funny cuz I just ended up liking it. Bam was an amazing song. The production is so wild with all the layered synths. And then he's also doing some really cool vocal layering where he's doing a lot of effects. He's doing pitched layers to get it to sound super full and thick. It's really cool.

Mhm.

And then The Program, which was produced by Vince M10, that was one of those really good rage beats. Other standout tracks: I Tuck Blocks, Not Chains, featuring One and Only, Dat Law, Eyes on Me, Gank. Yes. Yes. I liked a lot. I playlisted like a bunch of the album. It's so funny. Like threw me totally off guard.

Yeah. And for me, like it's, I hate picking the first song as a favorite song cuz it feels so cliche. But again, like Bam was just like, that was the song where like right away I was like, "Oh, I'm invested." For like the first 10 seconds, I was like, "Oh, okay. I actually going to go get through this the whole album." And it's not short. That's the thing. Like it is 15 songs. So, at first, if like just by the cover, it's daunting, but then the second you start, you're like—

It held my attention really well the whole time. I listened to it a few times and then I ended up playlisting like almost half the album. So, damn, I was surprised. Like he caught my attention in a really annoying way, but then he had great music to back it up, so I respect it.

And I'm glad you mentioned the engineering cuz for me too, like it's harder to pinpoint that, but it was pleasing to the ears. Like for me, I just knew that it was loud, but not like gross loud, you know? It just sounded good.

Yeah, super clean for how much distortion and like thick synth layers and thick vocal layers they were using. It was really well mixed. That's 870 Glizzy with Bam.

Next, let's talk about something pretty opposite. I want to talk about Kahlil Blue with Who See a Hear Must Feel. I have no idea if I'm saying that right. There's a song on the album called Who Can't Hear Must Feel. But I was so impressed with this. Like, this just had so much style, and you can tell he has great taste and personality because there's so much attitude in every song. And he self-produced everything.

Oh [expletive]. Okay.

Yeah, it's really well produced. He plays some guitar on there, some cool guitar layers, and he's just good at creating these really deep vibes in his beats with these huge drums and lots of saturation. It just keeps everything feeling super warm and big. It was really cool. I enjoyed it a lot.

Standout tracks: Who Can't Hear Must Feel, The Rock. Anywhere But Here was like a dark grunge rock song. It just shows his versatility, but it still fits in the same universe that he created for the album. Powder Springs/Petted Bone, that one is just like super rugged and raw '90s rap. And a lot of the drums on the project remind me of like '90s records. I also like Blue Boys. It samples Bam Bam by Sister Nancy. It's like a classic dancehall track that's been sampled a lot, but I liked his take on it.

It Sucks to Love, it's a super wild psychedelic rock song. So, it just jumped over a lot between genres, even though it stayed sonically pretty similar. Like God, Do You Hear Me? was a song that he hits this really awesome pocket. It kind of reminded me of like classic Madlib records. And then you go to a song like I Can't Lose, which was like a classic Kanye beat and flow. He kind of moved from more '90s to early 2000s for that song, which makes sense cuz it was kind of later in the album. So it kind of felt like a cool progression. And then he ends it super strong with this track Goodnight. Another heavy '90s influence track. So I was just super impressed overall.

I like the Rock too. That was my save for that one. And so the whole time I was listening to it for him, I found I got a lot of Tyler the Creator vibes, but not the Tyler that we have, if that makes sense. Like if there was an alternate reality where Tyler was more of that like gritty New York sound.

That's what it would kind of sound like.

Throughout the whole time, I kept getting little glimpses of a Tyler feel, but like another direction of Tyler, if that makes sense. I think he has the uniqueness of a Tyler where no one's going to ever sound like Kahlil Blue.

Yeah, like it's definitely a lane that there's space in it. There's not many people exploring that kind of sound right now and sounding that way, and it really worked.

Yeah, it was cool.

So, that was Kahlil Blue with Who See Hear Must Feel.

Next, I want to talk about Wretch with Finesse the World. Wretch is a New Jersey rapper. I've been listening to him since the blog era. I found him through Dash. He used to work with Dash a lot. Super dark beats. Like every single beat. His name really matches his flow. He sounds like he's wretching on the beat. Like everything has this really forced tone to it. But I love these type of beats. So it was a really good listen for me. Check it out if you love dark hip-hop beats. I don't think you'll be disappointed. But you kind of have to know that that's what you're in for. This is like gritty ass dark hip-hop. Standout tracks were Martin Luther 6, Hood Days, Dayshift to Nightshift featuring Shahf, and Rainstorm. But even the ones I didn't list are strong. If you like this sound, it's really consistent throughout the whole project.

I find that kind of vocal mixing so interesting where it's like the voice kind of sits in a different place in the beat kind of thing.

True. Yeah.

I never thought of like the voice sounded wretched. That's kind of a good way to put it.

Yeah. So, that's Wretch with Finesse the World 2.

Lastly, I want to talk about Sy with Time Pass. Sy, it's just spelled S-Y. And the reason why this caught my attention so much is because Sy is a producer and I just wanted to shout this out as how you present yourself as a producer on your own project. He got great vocalists for these beats and it's sequenced perfectly. He really put it together like a full album as a producer. And on top of being well produced, it's exceptionally well mixed as well. I noticed it, actually want to shout out engineer Exact, killer job. Every drum hit hits perfect. Every vocal sits perfect. Just chef's kiss.

But favorite songs were Sleep On, features Reuben Vincent, Guap Dad 4000, and Stocks. Some really good spitters on there. And then Cancun, features Reuben Vincent, Guap Dad 4000 again, and then also Topaz Jones on that one. And then All We Need, incredible drum work and a great bouncy bassline on that one as well. But this was just like a masterpiece in being a producer that can put together a project without being centered around a single vocalist.

Mhm. That's pretty cool. I didn't check that one out, but I love all the producer projects that have come out this year.

Yeah, it's been a really strong year for that for sure.

Well, that's all we're going to talk about this week. So, before we get into releases for next week, let's do plugs. I have been editing a music video for Terry Ve for his single Ego that just dropped. So, shout out that. You can check that out on Spotify. And then you can also follow us everywhere at Frequency Overflow and check out our beats at frequencyoverflow.com. What you got, Matt?

Just been producing, working. Follow me everywhere, SVR Karier. Follow my artist, Lucious P. Thundercat. We're going to have some stuff coming out in the next couple weeks. Got that to look forward to.

Releases coming up next week. We have Chuck Strangers with Glory of the King's Hand, Raz Fresco with Y Equals Self, Future with The Realme, Lance Skywalker with #invite Sessions Only, and Slayer with Avant Nova. Slayer is one of the new double XXL freshmen this year. So, good timing for that EP to come out for him. That's cool.

But thank you listeners. Like and subscribe on YouTube. Brad's five stars on Spotify and Apple Podcast. You can follow the podcast on Instagram at Fridayto Friday Podcast and you can save the F2F Spotify playlist to follow along with what we're listening to throughout the week, and you can find that link in the description. Our intro and outro music by Lunar G. Find him at Prod by Lunar.g. Podcast edited by me, Jacob from Frequency Overflow. And please join us every week to stay in tune with hip-hop releases from Friday to Friday. Peace.