Vice Recommends

Cassie

Ali & Gipp

Too $hort

Right now, I’m really liking laid-back hip-hop from the dirty south—the kind of stuff you could almost imagine people dancing to while lying flat on their back. They wouldn’t exactly be dancing though, more just gyrating their hips very, very slowly. One of my number one jams right now is Young Dro’s “Shoulder Lean”, which is the first single taken from the Atlanta rapper’s major label debut,

Best Thang Smokin’

. Featuring guest appearances from Snoop Dogg and T.I., and with a lot of talk about him over in the U.S., it seems that this album may finally launch his career. Dro has been around for a while, so it’s nice to see him finally getting some shine.

Long before the advent of snap music, Atlanta was best known for off-the-wall rap group Outkast. Their follow up to

Speakerboxxx/The Love Below

was released last month and consists mainly of tracks from their prohibition-era movie musical set in the deep south,

Idlewild

. To be honest, the album is nowhere near as good as I was expecting, but the standout is undoubtedly “Morris Brown” which sounds like a marching band doing hip-hop. Anyone who’s ever witnessed one of the college brass bands in the dirty south covering “Headbussa” will know just how amazing this sounds. There have been a lot of rumours that Outkast have split, but I’ve been reliably told this isn’t the case, and Big Boi and Andre 3000 have just been busy working on numerous side projects. Big Boi is running his Purple Ribbon record label, and Andre 3000 is working on numerous film and TV projects, including a new series on Cartoon Network called

Class of 3000

, which he is voicing.

Keeping the A-Town connection, you should also check out Ali & Gipp’s “Go’Head” video. Ali is formerly of St. Louis rap group, The St. Lunatics, and Gipp is formerly of Atlanta’s Goodie Mob. Together they are like the Batman and Robin of rap, who go around the projects of America taking out bad guys and bringing hope through their catchy rhymes. OK, not really, but they’ve signed to Nelly’s new label, Derrty Ent, and this single is great, so keep an eye out for their

Kinfolk

album.

Moving across to the west coast sound, one of my favourite hyphy videos at the moment is Too $hort’s “Blow The Whistle.” What I love about hyphy is just how crazy the kids go considering how chilled out the rappers are. You look at a Lil’ Jon video, and he’s jumping around and pouring crunk juice all over the place, but these rappers from the Bay area just shimmy from side to side while teenagers all around them fling themselves about like they’ve been doused in petrol and set alight. Too $hort is definitely seeing a big career resurgence at the moment with the increasing buzz around hyphy, even though the California-born rapper has been residing in Atlanta for the past few years. He’s been around for longer than most other west coast rappers, but his 16th, and latest, album is set to be his biggest so far with guest appearances from the likes of Rick Ross and Pimp C, and production by Lil’ Jon and Jazze Pha. You can also catch Too $hort on Kelis’s new single “Bossy”—the video to which is certainly in keeping with $hort’s previous almost soft-porn-themed videos, so track it down if you like that kind of thing.

While we’re on the topic of steamy videos, I have to mention Cassie’s “Me & U.” I recently interviewed Cassie and literally every word that came out of her mouth was somehow plugging her single or mentioning being signed to Bad Boy Records. When I tried to change the topic, I didn’t get the most positive of responses. I mean, her new video is as raunchy as you can get before the watershed, and her press girl’s getting freaked out because I asked her a couple of questions about pyjama parties with her girlfriends and whether I could sleep over some time. Luckily, I don’t hold grudges, so I’m happy to go on record and say that her self-titled album, which I’ve managed to get hold of, certainly lives up to the hype.

Also receiving excessive amounts of hype right now is the four-eyed Pharrell, Lupe Fiasco. Coming out of Chicago’s west side, the Muslim nerd boy has been heralded as the new Kanye, or should that be Mohammed of rap, with his anti drink, anti drugs, anti gangster rap stance. His “Kick, Push” single, with its diamante-encrusted strings, is undeniably catchy and unlike white girl pin-up Pharrell, Lupe can actually skate (a little bit). Four eyes has been taking his precious time finishing his

Food & Liquor

album, although I’m told all you little guys out there can finally get hold of it on September 25th in the UK, unless you already downloaded an unfinished version a few months back when it was leaked on the internet, like everyone else did. Executive produced by Jay-Z, guests on the album include Kanye West, Jill Scott and that Lacrosse-playing meat head rapper from Linkin Park (why the fuck would you want anyone from Linkin Park on your album?). If you don’t think you can wait that long for some new Lupe, check out his “Daydreamin’” single, which, even though I’ve heard the “Daydream In Blue” sample a million times before, still sounds fresh.

Instead of scouring the vast expanses of the internet to find all of the great stuff I recommend, all you need to do is visit the Vice Recommends page on Yahoo! Music at

yahoo.co.uk/vice

or

viceland.com/vicerecommends

, where you can watch all of the videos mentioned here.

JOHN McDONNELL