In a week where there was both a new Drake album and an epic Kanye West interview, you could be forgiven for thinking that the rest of rap took the past seven days off. But rather than waiting for Kanye to stop talking (which, if you've heard the entire BBC chat, you know could take quite a while), folks kept going and created some amazing new music. A side note: now that it's been a few weeks, the fallout from Kendrick Lamar's “Control” verse has finally died down. But there are still aftershocks, and a few of them made it to our list. Below, the lines of the week:
5. “Your sire on the throne/I grew up around the Stones, the Rangers/So I stand alone” — Common, 'I Stand Alone' lyrics
Common has never been shy (get it?) when discussing his upbringing in the City of Wind. Here, he nods to one of the city's most notorious gangs, variously known as the Almighty Black P. Stone Nation and the Blackstone Rangers.
4. “We just fucking, she just sucking, and I'm just busting on her hiney/Big ass, big tits — why the hell they call her Tiny?” — Freeway, 'Dot' lyrics
A raunchy couplet from our favorite Philly rapper. The ending punchline here had us literally laughing out loud, much to the puzzlement of our RG cohorts.
3. “I really try to keep to myself, but keep getting caught up in all the hype/I hope the verses y'all made for Kendrick bring our economy back to life” — Chamillionaire, 'Don't Shoot' lyrics
In the first of our “Control” commentaries this week, Cham pokes fun at the flurry of responses that Kendrick's “King of New York” comment unleashed.
2. “Powers that be mistreat us, mislead us/Thinking eventually, we gon' bite the hands that feed us/And son 'em, and try to keep all of it from 'em/Novus ordo seclorum, E pluribus unum/New order of the ages; out of many, one/While the rest of us is conned out of pennies, none” — Rakim 'Don't Call Me' lyrics
The R teams with, of all people, DMX for this new number. As if reinventing rap in one language wasn't enough for one lifetime, the God drops (and then helpfully translates) some Latin for our lazy, English-only asses.
1. “Do I think he the king? Never that /But hol' up, give that nigga a dap/Now these lame-ass artists gotta think when they rap” — Sheek Louch, 'Hood Cake” lyrics
The Lox have a long-awaited return with this street-centric remix of Drake's “Pound Cake.” Sheek gives surprising dap to Kendrick for “Control,” acknowledging that, despite the Compton rapper's hyperbole, he still made artists step their game up.
