Kodak Black, Blxst, BabyChiefDoit, Wiki, YN Jay, EBK Young Joc, HeadHuncho Amir | Friday To Friday

This is Friday to Friday, your weekly rap wrapup, going through our favorite releases in rap and hip-hop from Friday, June 12th to Friday, June 19th. 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 Carrier.

Yo, what's good?

First off, I want to start out by saying that we had a tough death in hip-hop today. The day we're recording this, on June 18th, producer Tay Keith has passed away. He produced for some of the biggest artists in the world, Eminem, Beyonce, Travis Scott. So it's a big loss. Rest in peace, Tay Keith.

Absolutely. And I know it's not hip-hop, but also, uh, Oliver Tree as well. Definitely big loss, too.

Definitely worth saying. So it's been a heavy week.

Yeah.

So before we get into talking about our favorites from this week, here's the full list of projects released. We have Blxst with Labor of Love. Kodak Black with Kodak the Blessing. Wiki with Ancient History. Baby Chief Do It with Rise Against My Broken Odds. Potboy with Cut Defan on 2. Jim Jones with The Landlord. EBK Young Joc with Westside Tequila Volume 1. Fly Anakin with The Forever Dream Night Shift. Jay Chino with If You Knew, Awan and the Other Guys with Solidified. Mickey Diamond and Big Ghost Ltd with Blood of the Lamb, Lil Too Posh with Graduation Tape, YN Jay with Gaffle Boy J, and lastly, G Herbo with Lil Herb Little Heroine Edition Deluxe.

So, let's kick it off today with Kodak Black, Kodak the Blessing. The album starts with a run of four Buddha Bless beats in a row, which was dope. My favorite of which was Move featuring Gth Thug, wild dope hook, but also the songs Blessings and Chicken and Waffles were fire beats from Buddha Bless as well. I almost wish the whole album was just produced by Buddha Bless, but then we wouldn't have gotten my favorite beat on the album, which is Nunchucks featuring 1900 Rugrat and produced by Skip on the Beat. This song just makes me want to commit crimes and just crash out. It's just a raw ass song.

A couple other standout tracks as well is Most of All, produced by Nick Mira and DT, two of the earliest producers to work with and help discover Juice WRLD. And you can hear that DNA in the beat of Most of All. And then the last one that I liked enough to playlist was Loitering, produced by Derrick. It has this huge pulsing bass on the offbeat and then this gentle synth comes over top of everything that reminds me of like a chill house music synth.

I like those few as well, but my issue with this album, Matt, is that it's just very hit or miss. It's a bit bloated. The songs I like, I really like. The songs I don't like, I don't really want to ever hear them again. So this is not a play-it-from-A-to-Z album for me.

Mhm. For the most part, that tends to be a lot of Kodak projects, right? Where it's like you'll get, let's say, like 20 songs and there's 10 like heat songs and then 10 songs that you never want to hear again.

Yeah.

This one, the ratio I felt like was a little bit more towards the songs I don't need to hear again. I didn't get really that many saves. I heard right away that the Nick Mira production, though, and I found that that was like one of the first signs of life a little bit in the album. The Buddha Bless beats, I like them, but I'm still now listening to the Buddha Bless album that came out a few months ago. So to me, that felt like, I don't know, maybe the best Buddha Bless beats were kept for his album, right?

I don't think I'll go back to this project much at all, but I do agree with you. Like the song with 1900 Rugrat is just like it's a fun song to listen to. But yeah, other than that, like I didn't get what I usually get from a Kodak album, right? Which honestly was disappointing because I've enjoyed pretty much most Kodak singles since like 2024ish, when he kind of started this, like, not fixing his image but kind of like, I guess the music kind of went a notch up a little bit. Because I think for a little bit people were kind of being mean about his persona, I guess, that he's, you know, glitching or like crashing out or whatever the hell. And so there was kind of like a glimpse of like, oh [expletive], the music is like taking a step up.

Mhm.

But then to me, this album kind of felt flat from the singles that I've heard in the last couple years.

And that's the thing I really found with this album. Like, with Kodak, usually when there are songs that I don't like from Kodak, it's usually because he likes to take directions with his bars where it can sometimes be offbeat, but it creates its own pocket. And so it's sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, right?

Yeah, I totally know that. This one I felt like he almost explored less. I found with this one, this one felt a little bit more like he was exploring less of the uncomfortable offbeat, which is like it's a weird thing. It's almost like he was rapping better, but it sounded less Kodak, if that makes sense.

I know what you mean. Yeah. It's like his superpower is like his ability to sound like no one else on a beat. So when it's like he's going a little bit more generic or even just a little bit more back to what we expect from him. Mhm. I don't think it's a thing at all of like he fell off or he used to be better at all. Like even just, uh, Super Gremlin, that's not that long ago. He's kept putting out, you know, quality stuff. And albumwise, too, like I'll enjoy half an album, the next album I won't like, then the next album I love. But this one, I don't know, it didn't do much for me. I'm just happy he's working, you know. Like I'm happy he's putting out music, right?

I did see this was listed as a mixtape, uh, not an album, as far as how the label looks at it.

Okay.

So that could have something to do with the bloat. Cuz like his last album, Just Getting Started, I think that came out just 2025, like there was such an elevation to it where I was like, "Oh [expletive], like he's gearing up for something, you know, legit." But yeah, now that you've said mixtape, yeah, this felt more like the b-sides for that rather than him continuing to move forward and progress the sound. But yeah, you know, I really enjoyed the few I playlisted, the ones that I named, Loitering, Most of All, Nunchucks, and Move. The thing is just, when talking about the album as a whole, it's just way too inconsistent. For me personally, the songs I like are in the first half, so there's like a whole second half of the album that I didn't really care for.

Mhm. Yeah.

How did you feel about that?

So already, 26 songs. Not many people can keep me hooked until song 15, 16, right? This one was especially tough cuz I found by like track six or seven I was like, okay, I'm kind of cool on this, you know, right? Agreed with like, like Move was definitely like, you know, more of a standout one, Nunchucks too, but yeah, at like track like seven, eight it kind of just...

Yeah, there's not much happening after, which sucks cuz then you have like you have Friday, you have Rio Rodriguez and stuff like that.

But since you've mentioned mixtape, that makes a lot of sense. It's not bad music, but it feels like music that it's like, hey, we have it recorded, we have these features cleared. We have these beats cleared. Let's just drop them, right?

Yeah.

Cuz why not?

Yeah, it felt like a little bit of a why-not project. Not a like clear progression, but overall, I still think, yeah, he's moving in a positive direction personally and musically. So, yeah, Kodak Black with Kodak the Blessing.

Let's talk about YN Jay with Gaffle Boy J. The Coochie Man himself, one of the original founders of the Flint, Michigan sound. So, of course, we have that Rio feature on here on the song Her Eyes on Me. And you can really hear how just [expletive] wacky YN Jay's vocal tone gets on this song. He's just going all over the place with his voice. Super unique. I really like it.

That's the one where he does like really weird grunting and moaning, right?

Yeah.

Is that the one? He's like, "When I go, that means I want more drink. When I go, that means I want to [expletive]," or whatever. It's so weird. I don't (laughs) even... Yeah. It's hard to even describe, but...

But I liked it, though. It was weird, but it's lively music.

Yeah, it's like...

Lively is a great word, you know.

Yeah.

Just Like That featuring Bali Baby, it's a dope song, but it has like 30 seconds of blank space at the end of the song. Just a weird miss for a legit release like this. Uh, which made it difficult to playlist even though I like the song, which was a bummer.

But I liked a lot of stuff on this. Uh, Miami, Bogus featuring Baby Face E, Poochie Smile, Million-Dollar Deal featuring Louis Ray, and Double Whammy. So I got a lot of saves. There was nothing I wanted to skip. A lot of like that cool little Detroit sound where like there's a lot of movement, a lot of little, you know, perks in the back and stuff like that. And, uh, right, I've been loving every style of this music that's been coming out in 2026. I find I've just, it's just been a great time.

Me, too. Anytime I'm in the car, perfect. Like riding in the whip music. Always.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah. So, always covering more, uh, Michigan rappers and learning about more of them and the whole Gaffle Boy scene and all that. It's just I love all of it. So, that's YN Jay with Gaffle Boy J.

Next, let's talk about EBK Young Joc with Westside Tequila Volume 1 EP. EBK Young Joc, he's from Stockton, California. West Coast rapper. It's part of the EBK Hot Boys. Uh, this project, Westside Tequila, it's just six songs, 16 minutes, but some dope West Coast hype. I love to find and cover these new school West Coast projects. And EBK Young Joc is now someone that I will be checking out all his releases from and going back through his, uh, discography because this really caught my attention. I was not aware of this scene. But yeah, standouts were really the first two songs. Is You Rocking With Us? produced by Steve Vicious, and then Record Hatton produced by Cheese on the Slap. I really enjoyed this project. This was a lot of fun. Short and sweet. Solid project. That's EBK Young Joc with Westside Tequila Volume One EP.

Next, you want to talk about Blxst, Labor of Love?

Yeah, it was really good. So, I mean, Blxst is always like kind of, this style where it's like they're victims of being too good, where it's like Blxst is just consistently good all the time. I've never heard a bad Blxst song. I've never heard Blxst on a song that he's not good on. It's just it's all great vibes. He can sing his ass off and he could rap. But the instrumentals on this are really, really nice. It's a really nice kind of like bouncy music, especially for the summer. And yeah, it's just it's kind of like a hip-hop pop R&B kind of mesh. It's really, really good. Easy listening. Very, very light. And of course, like I said, Blxst is just consistent. Definitely urge people to check it out.

Nice. Did you have any particular songs?

That second one, uh, Right Back. So that one, it just has like little, I don't know if it's a xylophone or a steel drum, and they only come on when it's a hook, but everything is just mixed so nice that it's really just like it's like backyard music, like it's a barbecue music.

Perfect for the summertime.

Yep. 100%.

Cool. So that's Blxst with Labor of Love.

I want to talk about Wiki with Ancient History. This is our only boom bap project we're covering from this week. Uh, very much abstract hip-hop as well. Fits in with like Navy Blue, Mike, artists like that. And, uh, it's very New York as well. This project, it wasn't great from A to Z, but he hit certain songs that are amazing. For me, his best songs on this project are the ones with the most straightforward concepts. Like I Hate New York, a song about hating New York. Bourbon, a song about alcohol abuse. These are very literal concepts and he's able to lyrically pull them apart and put them back together elegantly in like a complex puzzle of words.

The songs without a strong concept are not grounded enough. He's so good at expanding on a single concept. I'd rather hear that from him more often. Although, I'll admit, I'm not familiar with him as an artist. So maybe the straightforward ones are just translating better for me because I don't understand like his story yet and his lifestyle references that he's using on the songs. And I think abstract rap does somewhat rely on getting to know the artist. So I will definitely caveat the fact that this is my first Wiki project besides features. So, you know, it could be that I'm just, the songs that aren't as literal and straightforward, I'm just not picking up the nuances as much cuz I'm not as familiar with him.

I'm sure Wiki fans will light me up for not getting what the less obvious songs are about, but that's fine. Please comment and let me know what you think I got wrong or what I missed. I'd love to hear it. But, uh, he did end really strong. The last song, Ancient History, is fire. It's the title track. So I really liked a few songs, but I think I didn't quite understand Wiki well enough as a rapper to feel it as a whole project. Okay, so that's Wiki with Ancient History.

I want to next talk about something that's kind of in contrast to that. Head Huncho Amir with All My Intentions Real. It's a Dallas, Texas artist, a southern trap rapper who recently signed to 300 Entertainment. In contrast to the Wiki project, I mean, musically, they have nothing to do with each other. I'm only comparing them because they both came out this week. But this project, I love the way he broke down his story right off the bat. The first song, Amir, he let us know who he's doing this for. He's talking about being the baby of the family, but he takes care of a lot of people. And he got me invested from song one in his story and who he is. That being said, his music isn't like groundbreaking. It's just good southern trap. But his strengths are relatability and his ability to show us life from his perspective. Standout tracks for me were Certified, Not Average featuring Bunabe, and Hidden Gem. But I like this project. It was very consistent. It was of a pretty high quality. And I also just thought it was clever that his name is Amir and he made a, uh, a little acronym out of his name. All My Intentions Real. I was a fan of it. Head Huncho Amir with All My Intentions Real.

For our last full-length project, let's talk about Baby Chief Do It with Rise Against My Broken Odds, aka Rambo, another acronym title. Interesting young rapper from Chicago. He's been doing crazy numbers in the last couple years. But I really love his vocal tone. His voice cuts through the mix really well and his delivery is so strong for an artist his age. Dude is only 18 years old.

I was surprised when you told me. Yeah, that's like, especially, I didn't know that listening to the album, right? And at one point there's a song about, you know, some girl that cheated on him. Then at one point there's a song about him, he's like, "Oh, I had hits and I got into drugs and now I had to like get clean to get back in it." It's like this guy's clearly lived quite a life.

Yeah. He's got some grown ass raps for being 18.

Yeah, but man, I had never heard of him. This was something that you put me on to. Uh, and I am not mad at all, at all, at all. Honestly, this is one of those projects where this happens once in a while where I can't save anything because the whole thing from A to Z is bumpable. Like, so to me, I'm going to see in the next couple weeks if there's stuff I can save. It took me about, I think I listened to it A to Z five times before I started saving anything and then I was like, "Okay, now I can really tell which ones I'm really [expletive] with." But...

Mhm.

Yeah.

The standout tracks for me were Give Me a Kiss, Game Six, Went West, On the Run, and NY featuring BJ and Zedy Will. That NY beat is insane. That's my favorite beat on this project for sure. The hook on Rambo I thought was really, really ballsy. Uh, that's the one where it's like the army...

I didn't like it. Yeah, that one was kind of a turnoff for me.

You hated it.

I hated it. It's a very risky thing. Like you're grabbing something that it's usually in a movie where, you know, you have the army general that's an [expletive] and he's screaming at people and like spitting all over them. And so typically hearing that doesn't invoke like, oh, this is cool music that I'm listening to.

Yeah.

Yeah. So like I like the entire song and then every time that part came up, for some reason it just made me like size up. I don't know why. (laughs)

Yeah. Made you stand up straighter. Yeah.

Yeah. It was, I didn't like it. It was weird. I was like, you know, by the way, like most people would probably recognize it. It's, I don't know.

He's just using that sound.

It made me sound Canadian. It just made me like uneasy. I don't know.

Yeah. And I was the same way where the rest of the song I liked. It was like the hook kind of ruined it for me. So yeah, ballsy, ballsy hook. But really, I love to see risks. I love to see whenever there's something I've never heard before, I'm like, "Oh, I wonder why I've never heard that before." Now I know. But I respect it. Love seeing it, but I, yeah, I don't want to hear that ever again.

Yeah, I didn't play that one for (laughs) sure.

But other than that, man, this kid's got it.

Yeah, he's got it for sure.

Also interesting aspect of his age is that he actually admits to using ChatGPT to help him brainstorm and organize his lyrics, which that's the first time I've heard of an actual like big new rapper admitting to using ChatGPT as a tool for writing lyrics. I'm sure this will become a common debate at some point with the future generations. Kind of like the debate of should you write with a rhyming dictionary or not, or thesaurus or not. But this is kind of like the new school version of that argument.

At the end of the day, someone who's using AI to pitch ideas, brainstorm, whatever. I mean, it's just a 2026 way of writing down your grocery list. Like it's just people use AI for everything. People use AI to know what foot cream or what that red rash is or what. Like people are using AI for everything. And so if someone wants to collect their thoughts in there and it just helps them track things better instead of having 100 sheets of paper that are, you know, spread across your room everywhere, I'm cool with it. And at the end of the day, AI is a great tool. But that's really what it is, right? It's a tool. You can hear someone who wouldn't curate their stuff and can't flow and can't write properly. You would hear that. I didn't hear a single lack of organicness, a single lack of humanity in it.

Me neither. I totally agree.

There are songs where he's talking about things where I got to know him, you know, about what he's talking about, what he went through. And again, if ChatGPT just helped him structure that a little bit easier...

I think it sort of raises the question then, like if you're not capable of doing it without the tool, do you deserve all the fame and money and a successful career if you depend on a tool? Can you build a house without a tool?

You cannot. If you want to rely on ChatGPT to be your audience, your stuff is going to sound cringe. You know, that's for sure. But if it's an organizational tool, structural tool, I think that's fine.

That's fair. Yeah, I see your point. I wanted to play devil's advocate for the people in the audience that are saying, "No, what are you talking about? You shouldn't ever be using any tool. It's all got to come from your brain or it's not real rap."

Yeah. And see, for me it's like, I, if you would have asked me two, three years ago I would have said yeah, 100% [expletive] AI, like. But at this point now where I'll use ChatGPT like just for like some meal planning and like some random stuff, like there are so many ways that you could use it as a tool. Now it's just really it depends on how the person wants to use it. If they want to use it as like a soulless thing to just create everything, we're going to hear it.

Yeah, we're going to be able to tell. Yep.

But this is a great thing. I'm happy that people are being open about it. It shouldn't be a hush-hush thing, you know, like talk about it. If you're using ChatGPT, be open about it. Start the conversation.

Yeah. Yeah. I do respect that he was just open about it. And I think that's part of his age group, too, is like they're not trying to hide behind that in the way that older generations would be. But yeah, super interesting project. Definitely excited to hear more from Baby Chief Do It in the future.

And quick note, the production, we didn't, we talked a lot about him like as an artist. Production was really, really good. A lot of stuff that sounded like someone bigger could have hopped on it. I mean, mind you, he does have like quite a few monthly listeners. I think it's just my first experience with him, but a lot of the songs were like, yo, the right person had the right hook on this. This could have been a hit on the radio or something for sure. The beats were really, really, uh, well done.

Yeah. And he has like radio potential. He has very mainstream potential, I think.

Mhm.

But I'm, look, I'm taking a look at it right now. Specifically, I have to shout out NY is produced by Emerald Beats. And then also, let's see, Cyski, Questioners, Charlie Heat, Ramy, Bucky 808. So some names I recognize, some names I don't, but yeah, I agree. Excellent production.

100%. Honestly, better than some of the big-name albums that we've heard this year. Like this to me was a surprise. I feel like I haven't fully digested it since listening to it for the first time. Like I know I'm going to be for sure bumping this this weekend. It was a really strong project. I liked it a lot overall.

That is Baby Chief Do It with Rise Against My Broken Odds.

The last thing I want to talk about this week is the YG single Insecure featuring JID and Ab-Soul, off YG's upcoming The Gentleman's Club coming out June 19th. I love that this was picked as a single ahead of the project because it feels more like a deep cut than a single. Really, it feels like a really good deluxe version deep cut.

Yeah, as a single it's such an odd choice besides the fact that it has the features on it. That is the part that makes it make sense as a single. Not at all what I was expecting.

Yeah, completely different vibe.

The subject matter, I mean, the theme of the song is about being insecure, right? I don't know if he's, um, if he's still dating Saweetie or not, but like his verse is talking about like being insecure about like nutting too quick and like all that stuff. And like from YG as a single with JID and Ab-Soul, like what universe am I living in right now?

Wild. Not what I expected at all. But I love the song. I was just like, what? This is the single.

So it makes me be like, what is this album going to be if this is the single? I will say I love YG. I do. But for the most part, every album does tend to be around the same kind of sound. Every time, for the most part, it elevates and sounds better, but it does always stick to the same kind of thing, right? To have JID and Ab-Soul, you're kind of setting a bit of like an image of like, hey, I'm going to have some spitters on this album. This is going to be like, you know...

Yeah, definitely. And there's some great YG verses, but you don't typically think of that level of rapping, right?

And like listening to the song, I can't sit there and go like, "Oh, YG didn't belong on a song with Ab-Soul and JID." Like it actually really flowed well from A to Z.

Yeah. You know, he's singing the hook and he has a verse, so he kind of sets the tone and then JID and Ab-Soul just nail their verses, keep it perfectly on topic. Yeah. This was really fascinating. Um, made me way more interested in The Gentleman's Club.

100%.

So YG album June 19th, that'll be next week. We'll be covering that. So hopefully we'll get some more interesting unique stuff like this.

That's all our releases from this week. Before we get into our releases for next week, let's do plugs. I mastered a song for a rapper called A to the Sea. I'm basically in full album mode at this point for this project. We got Cooking with Terry right now. Mixed and mastered two more songs for that as well this week. We're making some good progress on that. Very excited. And you can check out our beats on frequencyoverflow.com and follow us everywhere at Frequency Overflow. What do you want to plug, Matt?

Uh, yeah, so I've been working on finalizing some releases for, uh, my artist Lucious Speed Thundercat. And other than that, just kind of planning the stuff ahead. Um, listening to the Terry songs too, you know, the mixes, running in the car, listening to see how it sounds in there. And, uh, yeah, I'm excited to see what's going to come out. Other than that, I just wanted to quickly just throw out there that so far the album I've been going back to the most this year has been the, uh, Benny Yx album. It's just been random, but for some reason, every day I have these random songs stuck in my head, and that's the one I've been going back to the most. Just wanted to throw that out there.

Yeah, good shout out. I think, is his name Benny Yx, right? Is that how you say it?

Benex.

Benex.

Yeah, Benex.

But that was close. (laughs)

So, releases coming up next week. We have D12 with D12 Forever Volume 1.

Excuse me.

Yep. Keeglock with Project X. M Honcho with The Wizard. Nicholas Craven and Baldi James with Trappers Alley 3. Heller High Water. Definitely stoked for that one.

Of course, this guy isn't asleep.

Yeah. Roll Deep with Best in the Game. Tiari Wack with Wax Museum, YG with The Gentleman's Club, and The Alchemist with Liquid Form EP.

Thank you, listeners. Like and subscribe on YouTube. Rate us five stars on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. You can follow the podcast on Instagram, Friday to Friday Podcast. You can save the F2F Spotify playlist to follow along with what we're listening to throughout the week. 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 join us every week to stay in tune with hip-hop releases from Friday to Friday. Peace.