I hear: Navy Blue, “Pillars”
Niontay: “Thank Allah”
The Boston Celtics, Niontay's favorite basketball team, do not need your approval. From the luck of the Irish and the toughness of each possession, they will coach and make your team win. This is what it feels like to listen to the Brooklyn-via-Kissimmee rapper's silent opus “Thank Allah”: No drums, no frills, just bar and a prayer, Florida's warmth rolls wildly around the swampy keyboard and crazy bass. As Niontay's dizzying verse unfolds across plays, Irish goodbyes and map trips, he remains poised and cool, like a buzzer beater in slow motion: “Get a bag and go home, nigga, it's the playoffs / Took a nigga shit, he got his job, it's not a day off.” When the drums finally hit at the end, it's like confetti raining down on TD Garden. –Mano Sudaresan
I hear: Niontay, “Thank Allah”
Name: “First Name”
Noname is not afraid to delve into the chaos of creating art with a global consciousness while toiling within a capitalist economy. On “Namesake,” he laments the spread of complacency, admits we're all complicit, and rails against war crimes through a cloud of blunt smoke. Over a piercing funk beat, Noname calmly deconstructs the very concept of sacred cows, adopting a fake cheerleader as she connects the dots between Super Bowl headliners Beyoncé, Kendrick and Rihanna, and the NFL's longstanding relationship with the military industrial complex . In the next breath, he calls out the woman in the mirror who played Coachella after saying she wouldn't. “Namesake” is a ruthless song about accountability that no one is safe from – not even Noname. – Matthew Ismael Ruiz
I hear: Name, “First Name”
Ot7Quanny / Leaf Ward: “Power”
This year it felt like half of the Philly rap scene was riding the feel of good club music (see: 2Humpy and the Philly Goats), while the other half was summoning evil spirits. Punchline wizards Ot7Quanny and Leaf Ward fit perfectly into the latter camp. Their best output as a duo is “Power,” where they lay the smackdown over an armageddon-ready beat. Leaf Ward, clearly raised on a steady diet of Meek and Major Figgas, has that old-school Philly freestyle rapper vibe: He can make you smack a stinky face from his crumbling flow alone. Quanny's patient delivery makes him sound like a boogeyman with an encyclopedic knowledge of Disney animated sitcoms from the early 2000s: “Blue pockets look like sisters The Proud Family.” The half-second pause after each punch-in is loaded, like the floor creaking in a horror movie. – Alphonse Pierre
I hear: Ot7Quanny / Leaf Ward, “Power”
RealYungPhil / Gud: “Winners Circle”
In the mid-2010s, rapper RealYungPhil and producer Gud appeared far apart on the hip-hop map: Phil delivering rhymes over Connecticut dance rap. Gud cooked up faded synths as a member of the underground Swedish group Sad Boys. But this distance makes their collaborative album unlikely, Victory music, much more exciting. On the record's best track, “Winner's Circle,” Gud's rhythm moves like melting Arctic snow. To match the mood, Phil raps like he's at three-quarter speed, while his East Coast monotone sounds like the voice of God. – Alphonse Pierre
I hear: RealYungPhil / Gud, “Winners Circle”
RXK Nephew: “Yeezy Boots”
In all the debate about Kanye West's place in our current cultural climate, no one has gotten to the point as quickly as nephew RXK: 'You don't even like Jay-Z', 'all GOOD Music made bad music' , and the most damning, “you signed Big Sean.” The latest in the dating rapper's ongoing line of diss tracks, “Yeezy Boots” works pretty well as a litany of opinions on Kanye's rapping (mediocre), street cred (non-existent), haircut (dumb) and the shoes (same ). But it's also a meditation on a major concern for RXK Nephew, whose utter disregard for social decency jeopardizes his career almost every time he drops a piece: how much out-of-pocket can one say before suffering actual concequenses; “They're making Kanye like R. Kelly/I don't care, I don't wanna listen to his music,” Neph mutters, knowing full well that most of Ye's sins would have been absolved if he'd still been making hits. – Ian Cohen
