Copyright VICE
Sometimes, the best song isn’t the single. There are times when you have to dig in the depths of an album to find the real classics and unsung gems. Maybe the song that dominated radio and cultural cache doesn’t hold its weight when looking at the rest of an album. This is especially true for the hip-hop deep cuts. Perhaps there’s a storytelling record or a B-side to the big hits that should’ve taken off more. Any real music lover has those kinds of records they swear by as the real crown jewels of an artist’s album or catalog as a whole. It’s important to catalog these kinds of records so as to not be swept up by poptimism alone. Moreover, it also ensures we don’t lose anything in the annals of history. We should always encourage one another to dig in the depths for those diamonds in the rough. Videos by VICE This is where we come in at Noisey: to revive some of the songs that have gotten lost in the grand scheme of things with common fans. Those songs that only exist as leaks, loosies on SoundCloud, mixtape cuts, or certain records that got taken off of streaming services. In doing so, we maintain a proper archive of artists’ creative expression. (You might also gain a new favorite song along the way, too.) Five Hip-Hop Deep Cuts From the 21st Century You Might’ve Missed Earl Sweatshirt- “High 6AM Rambling at the 5th” Earl Sweatshirt was always good for a random unreleased record or an incredible SoundCloud loosie. WIND IN MY SAILS and solace are foundational records in understanding both Earl’s style and his story alike. However, given the sheer volume of records you could dig up, there are plenty that can fall under the radar. Take “High 6AM Rambling at the 5th”, a straggler from the Doris days that didn’t see the light of day until 2014. It’s the kind of galactic, Adult Swim-esque record that could only be bred from smushing your face on the couch while high out of your mind. Still, as hazy as it might be and as brooding as Earl might sound, there’s a deep sense of intentionality in how he tinkers with his rhyme schemes. “Bottom of a rocket hot as tamale, ganja lit, squad legit, armored whips. Roll call, state your name – Sweatshirt. See ’em flex tweeted, vexed, seeded, engaging my ex-demons,” Earl raps. The way he sketches lines may not be fully realized until Genius places a highlighter on all the varying rhyme patterns. Migos & Young Thug- “YRN” The funky thing about streaming today is that it’s seemingly impossible to account for the hundreds of mixtapes dropped over time. Atlanta in the 2010s was great for this. Migos, Peewee Longway, Rich The Kid, Young Thug, Rich Homie Quan, Jose Guapo, and more were notorious for orbiting each other’s mixtapes. It showed a contagious sense of community that made their chemistry undeniable. Take “YRN” from the titanic Lobby Runners tape released on Christmas 2013, hosted by Longway. Migos and Young Thug slide and hopscotch over the kind of lounge record you’d hear from Antônio Carlos Jobim in the 60s. All of their cool, occasionally bizarre instincts and creative eccentricities are on display, further legitimizing Atlanta as a hub of hip-hop creativity. They could rap over Zaytoven keys to brooding Southside 808s to slippery, tropical canvases like “YRN”. It doesn’t matter how it sounds, they have plenty of color and the paintbrushes to create Atlanta with limitless imagination. Kendrick Lamar- “Spiteful Chant” Ever since “Spiteful Chant” practically vanished from streaming services, some people have almost discarded its existence. There’s an awkward gap on Section.80 without it. “Chapter Ten” is improperly placed on track 9, and the updated sequencing runs far too smoothly, nearly grazing over the head if not for Kendrick Lamar’s hyper-precision as a rapper. There’s still no word on whether fans will ever get “Spiteful Chant” back on streaming, either. Rumors suggest a pretty understandable reason why it was taken down. Sounwave and Dave Free sampled French musician Woodkid and his record “Iron” pretty liberally. Typically, this wouldn’t matter if Section.80 maintained its status as a classic mixtape you could only get on Datpiff. However, once TDE decided to sell it and didn’t clear any necessary samples, this likely created a conflict of interest. The only problem? It would make no sense if TDE didn’t have the money to clear “Spiteful Chant” by now. In order to continuously preserve an integral part to Section.80 and a great part of Kendrick’s legacy, they need to find their way to get it back on streaming. It’s vital to ensure the new crop of Kendrick fans don’t miss history. Lupe Fiasco- “I’m Coming (Freestyle)” Similar to a lot of the 2010s Atlanta mixtape circuit, learning about Lupe Fiasco’s mixtape run requires a bit of research. None of his Fahrenheit 1/15 tapes are readily available on Apple Music or Spotify. You would’ve had to have been a forum user back in the day, or really curious, looking around different mixtape sites. That’s the tricky part about these hip-hop deep cuts: the information isn’t immediately available at your fingertips unless you know what to search for. If you didn’t already know or didn’t have someone to share it, you likely would’ve never known. When you do run into the Lupe Fiasco mixtape run, you find more examples of one of the best rappers to ever speak into a microphone. The lyrical density remains without any of the musical hurdles. Instead, most of what he chooses is contemporary: either plain remixes or something just a bit more approachable. On “I’m Coming (Freestyle)”, Lupe lifts The Game’s “Runnin’” off of The Documentary. There’s a murkiness to the original beat that he maintains through his descriptions of Chicago. Still, amidst his portraits of dealers and addicts, he funnels them through video game and film references. “Uh, momma raised a trooper. They trynna hit me in my head like Koopa, but I move like Super,” he raps. It’s one of the strongest distillations of what makes Lupe such a strong figure in hip-hop. He never looked down at his environment or felt ashamed of his interests juxtaposed with said environment. Instead, he embraced both wholeheartedly. Jay-Z- “Pump It Up Freestyle” Perhaps one of the most underrated diss records of all time by one of the greatest of all time. Those who lived through the 2000s and witnessed Jay-Z in his prime can recall how he completely eviscerated Joe Budden’s breakout single, “Pump It Up”. Nowadays, it’s easy to imagine newer fans of Hov being unfamiliar with it, unless they’re one of the select group of people still paying for Tidal. Otherwise, it takes a listener who still scours mixtape sites or has cobbled together quite the YouTube algorithm. Regardless, for those who know, it’s Jay-Z at his most scathing and surgical. Hov’s freestyle on “Pump It Up” handily washes Joe Budden’s rendition. What Jay-Z lacks in catchiness compared to the New Jersey rapper, he makes up for in plain disrespect. Every rapper believes they’re the Michael Jordan of rapping, and Hov initially gives Budden his flowers. But what goes from a Kobe to Tracy comparison quickly devolves into a Murderer’s Row of the biggest NBA busts of all time. Any devout Jay-Z fan can quote “you ain’t no athlete, you Shawn Bradley,” from the tops of their heads.
