Tierra Whack, Key Glock, YG, Benny The Butcher, Nicholas Craven & Boldy James, The Alchemist

This is Friday to Friday, your weekly rap wrap-up going through our favorite releases in rap and hip hop from Friday, June 19th to Friday, June 26th. My name is Jacob. I'm a mixing and mastering engineer from California and your host for today, and I have with me artist, producer, and DJ hailing from the Twin Cities, Minnesota, Terry V.

Yo, what's up?

As well as producer and artist manager hailing from Montreal, Canada, Matt Carriker.

Yo, what's good?

Before we get into talking about our favorites from this week, here is the full list of projects released. We got Casey Veggies with Caught Up in the Game Deluxe, Chillin It with Wisdom Weed and Wordplay, Co Cash with Trench Town, D12 with D12 Forever Volume 1, Flyana Boss with Under the Influence, Fredo with Motion Sickness, Germ with Stay Gold EP, Key Glock with Project X, Killa Kellyon and DJ Young Sam with Come and Dine, M Huncho with The Wizard, Nicholas Craven and Boldy James with Trapper's Alley 3: Hell or High Water, RJ Payne with Growing Pains EP, Roll Deep with Best in the Game, Tana with Me, The Alchemist with Liquid Form EP, Tierra Whack with Whack Museum, and lastly YG with The Gentleman's Club. Let's get into our favorite releases from this week. Let's kick it off with something I think we all enjoyed, which was Tierra Whack with Whack Museum.

Yeah.

Right off the bat, it starts with two conductor beats in a row, which I loved. And the first lyrics we hear her say is, "They say I should rap more. What more could I ask for?" over this conductor beat. And I was just immediately like, "Hell yes, we're about to get bars. Let's go." And she delivered on that through the whole project. She was spitting this whole album.

100%. Yeah, and I mean, like, I just hope she gets her flowers, and she has a song called Give Me My Flowers and, like—

Give me my flowers. Give me my flowers.

She's the kind of artist where it's like she's just been underappreciated, underrated since the day she came out, and I find that so many of her projects fly under the radar. And very often I don't hear of them when they come out, and I'm so glad that I heard this one, like, the week it came out. It was honestly, like, it's so good and it all just kind of flows together well.

Good sequence, yeah.

But yeah, for sure, like Wax Paper, that beat is just nice, for sure, for sure.

Wax Paper.

And Siren was—Siren is kind of a chaotic song 'cuz she kind of like sings on there, but it's like the fake singing but good singing at the same time. And it's a chaotic song, but man does it sound cohesive at the same time. I first seen the video for Wax Paper online when I was looking up a video, or video ideas, and it popped up on IG, and I'm like, okay, shorty's dope. And so then to see her on the release for this upcoming week, I'm like, all right, I got to check this out because Wax Paper was dope. With the conductor production on here. But from her production to her pen, man. This is one of my favorite releases of the week. Like you guys said, in her bag. I think one of my favorites outside of Wax Paper and, like you mentioned, Siren, I like Candles Wax, Queen Crowd, 215. Highly recommend listening to Whack Museum. This was really dope. Really, really dope.

And I like that she has that self-awareness of, like, throughout the project she talks about specifically being underappreciated and wanting to get, you know, the flowers and whatnot, and she deserves the accolades and everything.

Yeah, for sure.

The pen is crazy.

It came off really well. It's dope to see more artists who care about the craft—more artists who are gimmicky and doing what everybody else is doing and trying to sound like everybody else get on, you know? So this was, yeah, this was really dope. Her own style, and she had bars. She had bars for people.

Yeah, really great project from Tierra Whack with Whack Museum. Let's talk about some more excellent women rappers with Flyana Boss with their project Under the Influence. It's a really fun rap duo of best friends from LA. Super high energy dance club music, super catchy. There's a lot to enjoy about it. It's just eight songs, eight songs of straight bangers. It never slows down. If that sounds like something you'd like, this is a really high quality take on that. So I enjoyed it a lot. Standout tracks were Wasabi, Bands Up—

Wasabi for sure.

Jungle, and Feeling It is like really impressive EDM trap fusion beat, and then it has this insane, like, electro dubstep outro. That was really cool. But the production quality and the charisma on the whole thing—really impressive. So I definitely recommend checking this out if that's the kind of thing that sounds fun to you.

Funny enough, just last week I was on—I forget what social media, but someone was like, "Hey, what happened to Flyana Boss?" 'Cuz of that whole song You Wish—that was huge when it came out, right? So anyways, just last week I saw them responding to someone saying, "Hey, what happened to Flyana Boss?" And they were like, "For some reason we got canceled 'cuz we're 30." And listening to this, it's such a stupid thing where, like, you hear this project and it's like, "Are they 18? Are they 30? Are they—" It's the—the genre is not age specific. It's not in a box, you know? And, like, especially this style specifically, I couldn't put it in a box of an age. So I don't know, maybe 30-year-olds aren't allowed to make energetic music, but I think they're doing really well and I just hope that people check out the album.

That's just some silly gatekeeping, I think. There's obviously older people—they like to go to the club too. You know, there's no age limit on the club. They don't say, "Nope, you're too old." Well, actually, certain clubs might do that to you, but that's not the point.

Weird, man.

(laughs)

Yeah, 'cuz I'm big on, if it's dope, it's dope. Like, I don't see how age makes something sound better or not. 'Cuz Jay—Jay was talking about that, but I think that's only if you're trying to do stuff to cater to like a younger audience. But even then, listening to this project, like, I didn't get that sense in terms of, like, "Oh, these are people trying to make stuff for you." Like, it's just—it's, if you like it, you like it. And that's the big thing about music. Like, we're artists—artists are creating stuff that they enjoy and that they're just sharing it for everybody else to enjoy. But it's—I don't know, it's weird because it's like the whole thing with hip-hop where it's all like, "Oh, well, you're too old to be rapping." And it's all like, I mean, some of the older guys is rapping a lot better than some of the—but that's neither here nor there. I think that's crazy. Say all that to say, I think that's crazy.

Like, DaBaby—maybe it's not the best example, but DaBaby started popping, I think, at around like 30, 31 years old. Like, there's no age—

All the time, yes.

Benny the Butcher, we have a project from him this week as well. He didn't get signed until he was 37 or 38. And that's, like, when they're telling you you're supposed to be hanging it up. Like, you're in a different game these days.

Yeah. He had that line on the album he dropped earlier this year where he said they said a young [expletive] got a butt, I ain't impressed. All the dope rappers I know are old enough to take a prostate exam or something to that extent.

Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, so speaking of that, to wrap that up, that was Flyana Boss with Under the Influence. And we'll transition that over into Benny the Butcher with The Plugs I Met 2.5.

Yeah.

First off, this is how you format a deluxe. Thank you. It's a separate EP with just the new songs. It makes it so easy on the listener. I think the point of a deluxe is to release new music, but still have it be tied to your most recent release branding-wise. But he still tied it to the other project with just the title and the cover art. That's all it needed to be to tie it back to those, to let you know it's in that same universe. It's good for branding, but really it's just his own EP. This is how you format a deluxe. I love that he did that.

That's different where you don't have a big label that has their hand on your shoulder and they're like, "Hey, this EP, we don't think it's going to do well. You have to package it with everything else and those singles that you dropped 3 years ago." And, like, every artist should do it this way. I don't know what they think about dropping these, like, crazy deluxes where—I mean, I know what they're thinking. They want you to go track and to track and trying to find which one is deluxe, which one isn't, but thank you Benny.

When you're indie, you would think that they would need to resort more to those tricks to try and get extra plays, right? But it just shows that he cares a little bit more about the listener.

Yeah, the indie labels actually care about their listeners.

Exactly.

Yeah, all the games and stuff that comes along with it versus just, here's the music, enjoy it, digest it.

Exactly.

Yeah, I love this one. Our boy Gabe was talking about this is one of his favorite series. The intro, The Dog and the Wolf, was dope. Big Difference is my favorite one on here because Fuego Base's fire. Like, every feature I've heard from this man this year is just incredible.

Yeah.

After T R U Whack, this is probably my favorite, and we didn't get this until Wednesday.

(laughs)

Yeah. So when this came out, outside of T R U Whack, I was like, "Okay, yeah." And I kind of had this thought like I wish—when Freddie Gibbs dropped, like, he did shorter projects in between his longer ones, and maybe this is speaking to that deluxe album point we just talked about a little bit earlier, but yeah, man, just give us some, you know, if you're going to constantly release, release, release, give about five, six, seven of them so we can, like, vibe to it, rock to it, and then live with it.

Mhm.

Hey, the mixing was good. So thank you Benny.

I swear Benny uses a different engineer for his projects than the rest of BSF because there's a pretty big difference in quality.

With Benny being much better.

That's what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Benny's using like an A-tier mixer for his solo projects, and then, like, they're—I think just using like their in-house mixer for all the BSF stuff. It's not quite as good, but—

Which even that feels weird 'cuz I feel like in-house shouldn't be an excuse for, like, sounds bad, right? 'Cuz there's been a few really questionable mixes.

I think they're just giving the work continually back to the same guy or the same couple guys because they're, like, the homie. I'm sure they have the money and the resources to find a better mixer, but they're more interested in, like, giving the work to the guy that they have been working with for years. And hopefully that guy will just keep getting better.

(laughs) I hope so. It's not like Griselda just came out this year though, but—

Although—

They're going to be pushing 50 by the time that the engineer gets better.

But I mean really BSF, not Griselda, 'cuz Griselda has had better consistency with mixes as a whole, stuff coming off of actual records, and just the various solo projects under other labels of the main three members, but—

Sure.

Specifically BSF stuff.

It happens, man. It happens to the best of them.

That's it. But Benny got the quality, so, you know, like, this was good. We liked it.

That's what matters. (laughs) I'm happy with it. And more Harry Fraud, man. I just keep supplying my guy.

Yeah, this guy is going crazy.

Five Harry Fraud beats and one Daringer beat, though.

It's as good as you would expect based off that. But yeah, Benny the Butcher, The Plugs I Met 2.5. To move on to another boom-bap project from this week, we got Boldy James and Nicholas Craven with Trapper's Alley 3: Hell or High Water. Boldy always killing it, of course. Nicholas Craven, very consistent. The standout tracks were Beautiful Snow featuring Chips and Dave Hill. Also Hamburger Helper featuring Chips with a great hook on there. It was really funny. My other favorite was Powerhouse. Boldy goes on this crazy run of using the word power in tons of different rhyme schemes. That was really dope. Only complaint really is that a couple songs the sampled soul vocal is running into Boldy's vocal a little too much. And I think that could be fixed in the mix because Nick Craven makes those type of beats a lot and that's not something I really notice too much with his music, but I would have just pulled out like some more 5K-ish in the sample to just clear a little bit more room for Boldy's vocal. But that's easy for me to say just listening to it, but you can't always get away with things being that separated when you're sampling because to do that you could also be turning down 5K in the drums as well, which could just suck all the energy out of the song. So, you know.

Actually at this point, like, I'm imagining that the samples he's using now are really, really deep-found samples 'cuz, like, at this point the guy is, like, what, 20 albums deep this year alone, you know? It's like the samples he's using, like, maybe he really doesn't have the range, but I'm finding—I'm happy that you found something to critique 'cuz I find these albums are so consistent and they go so well from A to Z that it's hard to find something where it's like I didn't enjoy this. It's just, like, usually a good vibe from A to Z.

Yeah, no. I'm not going to lie. I was like, I guess I'll say my one little criticism even (laughs) though it's, like, musically the whole thing is fire. I like it. Yeah, fun.

Consistent.

Yeah, just really consistent. Another fun project. They have a lot of projects together. But—

Okay.

I'll always keep checking them out. That's the thing—they are consistent enough that I'm going to listen to them every time they come out.

Mhm.

So, that is Boldy James and Nicholas Craven with Trapper's Alley 3: Hell or High Water. Speaking of Boldy James and Griselda affiliates, we got a little EP by The Alchemist called Liquid Form. The last song is featuring Boldy James, second to last one featuring Conway.

Got some 2 Chainz.

Yeah, it's a song featuring 2 Chainz and a song featuring Kool G Rap as well. Those were, like, the four main features. Kind of just did four songs with different rappers. I've never heard Alchemist release anything that wasn't good.

I'll start with that 2 Chainz song. I did not like that song. I did not like that song. I did not like his flow.

It was weird.

Uh yeah, I don't know if he was trying to do something different. I—no.

(laughs)

But I did enjoy the rest of the project. The intro, the first song Gutter Pain, fire. Streets Don't Change was dope. I just could not—I don't know. Beat Like a Key, it did nothing for me. And I like 2 Chainz.

I think, like—yeah, and I like this whole run of 2 Chainz doing this more, like, again this whole, like, I can rap by the way kind of thing, right? And, like, he's been on this run of showing, like—he was on the—was it Alchemist, Larry June recently?

Yeah.

Spiral staircases.

Again, yeah. And, like, we know he could rap. Like, 2 Chainz has versatility. It just—it felt like he wasn't able to show his personality on the beat. Like, it was just too slow and it just felt like he was, like, trying to pen something that was, like, way more rappity rap than it needed to be. I don't know. Like, like you said, it was a weird song. It was really weird.

For me, it just didn't flow correctly. Like, hearing his—I'm all like, "Why is he rapping like that?" But shout out Alchemist, man.

Yeah, maybe like having someone that would have a different take to the beat.

Honestly, I would love to hear Benny on that beat. Benny would smack on that beat.

Yeah, I—yeah.

(laughs)

But now that I'm listening to the instrumental only—

Mhm.

Okay. Yeah. That's right. Actually, I said it was four songs long, but it's actually eight songs because he did the four instrumentals on there as well.

Yeah. Otherwise, good project, though.

Yep. Well, that's The Alchemist with the Liquid Form EP. Next, let's talk about YG with Gentleman's Club. This is a really divisive, polarizing release. In some ways, it's a new direction for YG. In some ways, it's just the same old YG, but he's getting very personal and introspective. We were talking about this a little bit earlier and just over text and stuff. Matt and I agree that he has the worst song of the year on this album.

I'm glad you agree with that, too.

Yeah, with Tiffany, but we'll get into that. We'll get into our Tiffany take, but let's just talk about the album as a whole a little bit first. So, the beat direction is pretty weird. And, like we talked about last week, the single choice was pretty odd with Insecure.

No, Hollywood. Insecure. See, and I'm glad you mentioned Hollywood because Insecure being the single, like we talked about last week, felt very weird and not YG. But then you have a song like Hollywood on there, which is very YG.

Yeah.

This album is all over the freaking place. All over.

Yeah, this album has really high highs and really low lows. To talk about some of the songs I did like, OMG featuring Pusha T.

I don't like the hook.

You don't like the hook? I only like the hook. I like the hook.

I don't need grown men saying, "Oh my god. Oh my god." (laughs) over again.

That's fair. Yeah, I heard that a lot of people don't like this song. I think the beat's great and the hook is great. I don't really care for—I definitely don't care for Pusha's verse. I think YG's verse is pretty good.

Feels very, very—I don't like saying this 'cuz I'm speaking out of my ass, but it felt mailed in.

Yeah, he didn't put a ton of thought into it. I think that's fair to say, honestly.

I think that's the only part of it I liked.

Oh, wow. Dang, we all like different things, but none of us really liked it that much. (laughs) That's crazy.

But I did not like this song overall, so.

Personally, the hook—I "Oh my god. Oh my"—I don't know. It felt so—

The beat was just fire enough that it just carried it and worked for me, but yeah, that one is—seems pretty polarizing. And then there was "Simon Says," great smooth R&B track. That one was just legit good, no complaints. I really like "Simon Says."

100%, yes, yes.

And then "On the Low," YG's getting Tyler the Creator on a whisper rap track, which was so dope and hilarious because the whole time they had me so good. The whole time I was wondering, what is Tyler whisper rap going to sound like? And then his first lyric is "[expletive] that, I can't even whisper," and instead of doing a whisper rap he just goes into, like, a really laid back vocal tone and it fits perfectly. But the whole—YG's whole part I'm just looking like, wait, there's a Tyler feature coming up. This is clearly a whisper rap song. What is this about to sound like? And then it just subverts your expectations immediately.

Yeah, yeah. Tyler's becoming one of my favorite artists. So I loved "On the Low." I think these were the two songs that I liked on the album though, if I'm being honest. "Simon Says" and "On the Low," and everything else is kind of just, like—I lost—I don't know, I lost interest in it. I'm not a big YG fan and this isn't a knock on YG. Like, if you like YG, I'm sure there's parts of this album that you'll appreciate. But for me this wasn't a project that would then get me to be like, all right, I need to listen to more and more and more.

Mhm. Right. We had talked about the beat production. It didn't do much for me.

One of the songs I've been listening to the most is "Kudos."

And that one has a terrible hook.

I didn't like "Kudos."

Oh yeah, terrible.

(laughs) And so "Kudos," and a couple of times on the album especially when he gets into the whole, like, storytelling rapping—I'm good with long storytelling, but, like, storytelling with no proper ending. Like, YG has, like—nobody is questioning who he is. Nobody has any issues with it. And after listening to a lot of what he was saying on the album it feels like the whole Drake situation and YG's name being dropped and YG being like, why the hell is my name even being mentioned? I don't know if that maybe played a part in him wondering what his place is in the industry or something.

Mhm.

But half the album felt like not YG, and then half the album felt very much like YG.

That's a good point that you brought up because I seen an interview recently where he was talking about—was it B Dot? But said that one of his albums wasn't considered, like, a West Coast classic, which he was indifferent about. And so which makes it interesting is that he could very well have been in a mindset of, like, all right, let me try something different. And again, I'm all for artists trying something different. Like, his—I want to say attempt, but—well, sure. His attempt at storytelling, like—yeah, like Kudos, but nah, it just—and then part of that too is, like, you got to try to see how you stick with it. Like, if that's not what you're known for, you got to, you know, play with it a little bit until you get it to where you want it to go.

But I think with your point, maybe with this project he did take a step back and say, all right, let me give them something a bit different. They know me for this, but let me show that there's a different part inside of me as an artist that I can tap into and let me give that to the people and see how they react to it. It probably didn't—well, I don't know. It didn't land well for me. If it was more like On the Low or Simon Says, I think, you know, I would have enjoyed it a lot more.

I know you mentioned, like, you're not huge on YG, but to me I still listen a lot to Still Brazy. I still listen to Stay Dangerous. Like, there's so much of YG that I listen to. I don't know if I could say that he has a classic album. I'd be open to the conversation.

Mhm. Okay.

But really it—this felt like a step down in the sense of, like, there are YG albums that I can say are, you know, perfect play-throughs from A to Z, but, you know, for what it is, like, it is really good. To your point, Terry, about YG sort of looking at different sides of himself, that's, like, the most literal on the song Hit Man. It's about hiring a hitman and then he—it ends up being that he puts out a hit on himself. Past self.

It was a little predictable. It was a little, like, rappity rap.

It's 4 minutes and 30 seconds. A big setup. But then he responds to his own track and that's really on the album, on the song Ready to Die (Hitman Response), where he literally, like, makes a response to his own song and he's using two different perspectives.

Which is cool, but—

Yeah, that was, like, a cool attempt. It was interesting. I didn't actually like either of those songs. I was just, like, interested in them the first listen, but then it was like, "Eh, that's not something I ever need to go back to."

This sounded very—I don't want to say effortful, but it sounded like it required a lot of energy and pen to really make the story fit and develop.

Yeah.

And, like, to do that for 4 minutes and 30 seconds, and, like, at around the 1-minute, 2-minute mark, you're kind of like, "Oh, I think he's going to put a hit on himself, you know?"

Yeah.

And then you're—

(laughs)

You're waiting till 4 minutes.

Yeah, exactly. I figured it out about 2 or 3 minutes in. Sorry.

(laughs) Yeah, no. I wasn't a fan of it. It just didn't pull me in. But again, I will always applaud the attempt for artists trying to do something different. Sometimes it lands, sometimes it fails, and you don't know unless you go out there and try it, but it just didn't land for me. Just didn't land for me.

Man, and speaking of long songs, like you were saying, the long storytelling songs, let's get into Tiffany. This song is—first of all, it's almost 7 minutes long. I really don't know why it needs to be that long. I thought a lot about this song this week. I have a hard time with it as someone that has trans friends and family because it's such an uneven take. It's a story about violence against a trans woman, which is a real situation, and you can argue that YG is raising awareness of trans violence, but it's mostly just the violence without much of a perspective from the trans woman.

That's how I felt. I felt like he was straight up, like, he wanted to put out there that he feels that if you trick him, he will murder you if you have sex.

If that's your take, then you just made transphobia the song. Like, you suck.

You really listen to it, by the way—

Yeah, I had to listen to it—I listened to this like about 10 times this week because it's so dense. There's so many—there's actually a lot of—there's a lot of layers to it. There's a lot of foreshadowing about what's coming that I didn't catch the first couple times. But I just want to say that, like, it's mostly just the violence. That's my problem with it. There's not enough of the perspective from the trans woman Tiffany. We get a short verse from her perspective at the very end, but not enough of her perspective for a 7-minute song. And there's just no attempt to be nuanced. It just is what it is. He's just telling a very literal, straight-up forward story. And I would have liked another verse from Tiffany or just some sort of, like, actual take to wrap it up. Maybe another verse, if not from Tiffany, from YG saying, like, "Let's take Chris and Tiffany out of it. Here's my opinion. Like, here's what I would do." And just be more clear. I don't know. It's just—it just comes across as just pure transphobic violence. So, it was worst song of the year. Yeah.

The first time I listened to the song, the impression that I got—and specifically at one point he talks about Tiffany's asleep in the car. So, he drives back to either his place or her place. He gets there, she's still asleep. So, he wakes her up and is like, "Oh, like, you're ready to take some dick" kind of thing, right?

And they're, like, shit-faced drunk, by the way.

Yeah. Up until this point, I'm already like, the girl's asleep. She's shit-faced. You're driving. And you're right away like, you wake up, I got some D to put in you, and then, like—it literally goes from wake up, we're going to do this, to pretty much a bar or two later her saying, "Oh, by the way, I'm trans." Which that's the other thing, okay?

Mhm.

Let's see, like, okay, if you're trans, right? You go to a club. I'm an awkward guy. I don't even know when would be possibly the right time to even say that you are. Like, is it when you're in the cab driving back? Is it while you're dancing? You whisper in the person's ear, you know? Like, I don't know. So, even in that example story, there's no trickery.

Yeah, yeah.

There was full consent and honesty there. So, like, after a couple of times listening to it, you're like, "Oh, is he an ally? Is he actually making an awareness song about specifically violence against trans?" But then when you listen to it again, you're like, "Oh, no, he's just—" It sounds like he's just tone deaf and just wanted to make a song about how they'll get you. The world is a trap.

Yeah.

Even to that point, he says, "What would you do?" There's people who make songs about history and our culture, but then just totally miss the point because you're not well tuned in. And I think what this verse was, "I'm going to create something like what Shock Value—going to make people stop and think like, what would you do?" but just not fully processing how that would go over. That toxic masculinity is still in a lot of different cultures and a lot of different areas where it's all "I don't do that. That's gay" or "I don't do that because of this and this stuff," and they harp on that. So, I don't think they'll take away from this song, when I'm in that situation how should I then treat somebody like that, because it—like you were saying, it doesn't really reinforce what he believes about trans people or how one should handle that situation. It's kind of just all like, "We was out. They revealed this and this is what happened to that. And so, now I'm putting this on your plate. What do you think about it?"

Right. Yeah, exactly. And he's just like, "Okay, so that was crazy, huh?" But it's, like, it's actually your responsibility if you're bringing up such a sensitive subject to then, like, have something to say about it. Like, you're representing multiple communities in this song here and—

[clears throat]

You didn't do justice to any of them, I don't think. You didn't do—

What was it about?

Yeah, the song ends with basically a cliffhanger of her begging for his life and him being like, "Ah, I guess I won't kill you." And then, like, the song just ends. It's just, like, so open-ended and there's nothing to it.

Who asked for this? Like, who cleared this?

It just falls flat because, like you said, like, tone deaf.

Yeah.

Yeah. Honestly though, like, having listened to a lot of YG, I have the feeling that he really, really took this as literal as we're hearing it, where he just purely wanted to make a song about guys getting tricked and how it's a hard life out here.

That's what I'm worried about.

It's Gentleman's Club, right? It's how are gentlemen being mistreated, right? Like, it's so hard to be a man in 2026.

Eh, it's just—again it just fell flat, man. It just didn't hit.

This album, I just don't know who it's for. I don't know who is the intended audience for this. It didn't feel like what a Gentleman's Club should be. And then you have Hollywood sandwiched in there. So yeah, that was a big miss. I really hated Tiffany and the whole album—just high highs, low lows. Also just want to say Midlife Crisis was a strong closer. Let's see, closed it out strong, but yep, that's YG with Gentleman's Club.

Yeah, protect women.

So last, let's talk about Key Glock with Project X. So we brought this up last week, but again, rest in peace to Tay Keith. This was really sad that he passed away on the 18th of June. The very next day, on the 19th, Key Glock's album comes out and the first beat is a Tay Keith beat and we get the Tay Keith tag right off the bat. Kind of heartbreaking, but there were five Tay Keith beats on the project as a whole. But speaking on the project itself, Project X, Key Glock, super consistent. I can always expect to get some great saves out of his projects. Always great beat selection as well. The producer O Ross worked on a couple of my favorites, Big 5 and 6 AM, which were the fifth and sixth song, respectively. Little Easter egg. And then also, I loved Dummy, which was one of the Tay Keith beats, and Sick, produced by Honorable C-Note. And then a new producer to me—I probably heard his stuff before, but just the name was new to me, King Wonka. Tons of beats by King Wonka. My favorite of which was Loco and then Seeing Red. Those were my favorite of King Wonka's, but he had, like, half the album. Even the beats that weren't Tay Keith still felt Tay Keith. Like, you can hear the influence throughout the whole project.

One thing to note, which I wasn't aware of the last time we spoke about, I think, a Key Glock project, but there is an issue where BandPlay no longer works with Key Glock. And so that's something I've heard a lot in the last album where BandPlay and Key Glock had this great kind of chemistry.

Mhm.

From what I understand, basically, because Key Glock was with Young Dolph, Young Dolph is dead, rest in peace. Young Dolph is ops with Yo Gotti, which is like CMG and all that. And so from what I understand, BandPlay did a song for MoneyBagg Yo, which is signed to Yo Gotti. And so because of that, Key Glock doesn't work with BandPlay anymore, 'cuz BandPlay made a beat for the ops. Anyways, I don't know how much of that is all true, but all that to say that I'm happy there was a lot of Tay Keith on this, but you can hear the absence of BandPlay. A lot of the soul sample jazzy production feels like BandPlay type beats and not BandPlay beats. But man, good thing there was a lot of Tay Keith here, 'cuz yeah, take heed—like, definitely you can hear it throughout the whole thing. That Mannish beat, crazy. There was Big 5 too. I love that jazzy production. There was also, on Hard Knock—I don't know if you caught it, but Key Glock does the hook to Wasted by Gucci.

Oh, okay.

He like—it's like interplays, yeah.

No, I missed that.

But see, my only thing is I just wish there was BandPlay. I could hear that absence.

Mhm. Key Glock continues to be a really strong force in Southern trap, and he's definitely an easy favorite of mine. So, that's Key Glock with Project X. So, we'll wrap it up with RJ Payne with Growing Pains EP. It's a quick little five-song EP, but really strong lyricism coming from RJ Payne and dope boom bap beats as well.

Yeah, Padre is the producer on—yeah, this RJ Payne project was dope. He speaks on this thing how he's kind of changed, instead of just, like, just talking about drugs, killing, shooting, and death. And then it's, like, kind of just getting more into, like, a bit more introspective and dope bars, which you got a lot of this. As somebody who grew up on boom bap—my uncle was using a rap, so all I was listening to is KRS-One, Rakim, and all of these guys, that kind of shaped my ear. So, I love boom bap. I love the project. I love the beats on here. And it's short, like you said, five songs, you can get into it, get out of it, but RJ has some stuff to say, and I'll be looking out for the next project.

Yeah, definitely. The name of the project is perfect, Growing Pains, 'cuz he's talking about, you know, growing with the sound and personally and everything, so solid project from RJ Payne. Looking forward to hearing more.

Yeah, man, more older guys rapping.

(laughs) Yes, keep it going. Some of the best rappers.

Yeah.

All right, so that's all of our picks from this week. Before we get into the releases for next week, let's do plugs. I'll kick it off by saying I mixed and mastered tracks for Concept, Asemeko, Loveless, and our own Terry V. Busy week for me. And you can always check out our beats at frequencyoverflow.com and check us out on socials everywhere at frequencyoverflow. What do you want to plug, Matt?

I've been working with someone helping create a tool to help for submitting sync opportunities for artists. That's called First Send Music. Check that out on Instagram. And then other than that, you can follow me at Matt Carriker on everything.

Nice. What about you, Terry? What do you want to plug?

July 10th, Ego, a single that you guys all had a hand in helping create, will be releasing on DSPs. I'm excited about that. I got a batch of beats from Frequency Overflow and Gav, or Lunar G. So, I've started working on two of those and maybe we'll have something dropping pretty soon. We'll see. You can follow me on socials at Yo Terry V all over the place.

All right, awesome. Releases coming up next week. We have Fear Dorian with Tease Volume 1, Hooligan Hefs with Sixth Sense, Maya the Don with Precious Cargo, Maxo Kream with OYN produced by JPEGMAFIA, Meekz with Mr. Can't Stop Won't Stop, Prof with Good Time Boy, and T.I. with Kill the King, supposedly going to be T.I.'s retirement album. Which we all know how often that's really the case, but—so, that's next week. Thank you, listeners. Like and subscribe on YouTube. Rate us five stars on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. You can follow the podcast on Instagram at Friday to Friday Podcast. You can save the Friday to Friday 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.

Peace.