Five Good New Rap Videos

Watching the ridiculous Maybach Music Group press conference last week, I had the rare and disconcerting experience of agreeing with something that Sean “Puffy” Combs said. He said that MMG founder Rick Ross has “the best ears in the game.” I think that’s right, as exemplified by the huge, wonderful beats he chooses for his records, and by the fact that he discovered Philadelphia rapper Meek Mill a couple years ago. Meek, I think, is the most talented rapper on the label’s roster — his “Tupac Back” and “I’m a Boss” were highlights on last year’s showcase album, MMG Presents, Self-Made Vol. 1. And judging from his recent single, “Lean Wit It,” and now the above video, his new mixtape, Dream Chasers 2, is likely to be great. Man, does he sound hungry and intense! (And I still can’t over how much I enjoy the fact that a tough-guy rapper calls himself “Meek.”)

Meridian, Mississippi’s Big K.R.I.T. is much less intense, but is doing a good job of both honoring and pushing forward the thoughtful, soul-steeped tradition of mid-’90s Southern rap. Cars are important to this type of music, and K.R.I.T. got some nice ones for his new video.

Juicy J has spent the past year reminding us over and over and over again how much he likes drugs. Somehow, it has not gotten boring yet. (I guess that has something to do with how he knew that a mundane phrase like “calculator and a lighter” could sound really cool as sort of frozen-faced zombie chant.)

M.A.R.S is a supergroup made for people who think that rap has never gotten any better than Nas’s 1994 debut album Illmatic. Nas’s old Queensbridge partner Cormega (or ‘Mega, thus giving the acronymic name its first letter) has assembled Action Bronson, Roc Marciano, and Saigon to join him on this vintage-sounding track from Main Source producer Large Professor. “Boom bap,” this style is sometimes called, because of prominence of the interplay between the bass drum and the snare. It’s a very straight-up-and-down sound, and distinctive to New York.

Here’s another nod to Nas — Yasiin Bey (formerly known as “Mos Def”), Dead Prez and Mike Flo have remade the Queens star’s 2003 hit “Made You Look” (which was built around the classic break-beat from The Incredible Bongo Band’s cover of the Shadow’s “Apache”.) Except they changed the words in the chorus to “made you die” — to protest the shooting of Trayvon Martin.