Every week, seemingly a gazillion songs are released on streaming services. From Soundcloud and Bandcamp exclusives to the endless array of songs on Spotify and Apple Music, it’s a lot to take in. Additionally, some of the tracks aren’t nearly as good as they should be. Who wants to waste their time sifting through records in fear that some aren’t very good? How can one possibly have the time to even do it?
This is where Noisey has you covered. We’re saving you time in the playlist department to narrow it down to the three most essential songs in hip-hop and R&B you should hear. Maybe you’ll find a new favorite artist or album in the process.
3 of the Best New Hip-Hop Songs and R&B Records of the Week
“100Days100Nights” by Niontay
“100Days100Nights” sounds like a recession indicator. It might as well be stripped straight out of 2008, where Young Jeezy was telling us the president was Black and his Lambo was blue. Parents were stressing about the housing crisis while their kids mindlessly played on the Wii. Music bathing in excess was underscored by chaos, trying to figure out how to ball when debt felt suffocating.
Niontay juxtaposes the titanic-scale, Dylvinci production with an icy demeanor. “If you gon’ hate, then n**** hate, just be outwardly with it. Throwin’ rocks and hidin’ hands, that is not the business,” he snarls. Hating feels almost trivial when he moves with such menace (“We got a hunnid muthaf***in’ gangstas in the van, ain’t no room for sentimental”). Similarly, he makes a hater feel silly because they don’t have the legitimacy for the tough talk in the first place. “For a n**** that ain’t puttin’ no pain in, they got a lot to say,” Niontay scoffs. When the world seems to be falling apart, “100Days100Nights” shows Niontay to be cold-blooded and unflappable amidst it all.
“Own Terms (feat. Kwame Adu)” by Heno.
Heno. raps with the wisdom of an oracle, someone who’s seen older mentors and young kids alike die in the streets. There’s a grizzled quality to the Maryland rapper’s voice, hardened by the world but never looking at cynicism as an excuse to give up. Instead, it’s this tragic unpredictability in the world that defines the fire in his delivery. “Fact, I survived in the trenches, really inspired this sentence. ‘Cuz most of the n****s I know ain’t get to decide when to end it,” Heno. sighs over the kind of gospel chords heard in humid churches with older women trying to cool down with hand-fans. If we’re bound by the inevitability of loss and death, it’s only more reason to make the most of what we have.
“glimpse of you” by redveil
Grief is the way we hold and cherish the memories we love and have lost. As debilitating as it may be, there’s something profoundly beautiful in remembering that we loved in the first place. It’s how we keep those long-gone alive—holding on to our experiences with a vise grip, the little details about them that defined them. We refuse to let them fade as a passing relic of our lives.
redveil tenderly embraces the beauty and sorrow of grief on “glimpse of you”. Mere moments and glances become enough to empower us through the tragedies of everyday life. We long for their voices, their touch, but just to know that they were very real to us is a blessing in itself. “glimpse of you” sounds like the sun shines on redveil through the window, rapping about how misty eyes can still mean gratitude and the kind of life updates that feel like peering into a diary entry. There is a remarkable vulnerability to the album’s closer, where perseverance opens the door to healing and, eventually, peace.
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