What I Listened To This Week 2025-02-21
Macklemore, Ransom & Dave East, Jay Electronica, DJ Premier & Roc Marciano, Saya Gray, Errol Eats Everything, FEM du lit, Black Milk & Fat Ray, Bruiser Wolf, JPEGMAFIA
Every week this year feels heavier than the last. I know you feel me. I feel it, too. I briefly mentioned last Friday that I was in a funk. Then I found out over the weekend one of my biggest heroes passed away. I wrote an elegy and published it on Tuesday.
The authoritarian rugpull continued, fueling the resistance. I turned 45 mid-week. Answered three day-old messages. Got this website operational again. Finally watched The Brutalist.
Before we dive in, I want to thank everyone who’s subscribed to this newsletter, with a big shout to those who upgraded to paid subs. You help keep this thing going—make sure to check the chat for exclusive drops. O.K., I gotta head out to this protest soon, so let’s make this week’s drop quick.
The New-ish Ish
Macklemore - Fucked Up
People think this is a new version of Macklemore, but anyone from Seattle who knew him before he blew up knows that this was there the whole time. There really isn’t more to be said that he doesn’t say himself in this song.
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Ransom & Dave East ft. Jay Electronica - The Final Call
Ah, a Jay Electronica feature. Did you have this on your bingo card? I did. Told anyone who’d listen last year that we’re entering a multiversal renaissance era where all the great spitters from all eras are returning to save the world. Kendrick opened the portal. Hot Unc/Auntie Summer was just the beginning. Jay Elec’s more recent features (noname’s “Balloons” and Tobe Nwigwe’s “Can You Imagine?”) have hinted that he’s back in spiritual warfare mode, where he’s most potent.
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DJ Premier x Roc Marciano - Armani Section
At the top of the comment section is a great suggestion that these two do a whole album together and call it ROC STARR. I’ll sign that petition.
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Saya Gray - HOW LONG CAN YOU KEEP UP A LIE?
Saya Gray is a Japanese-Scottish Canadian singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist that got her chops playing in a Jamaican Pentecostal church band. Her second album, SAYA, is hitting all the familiar indie music spaces, and I lowkey listened to it out of obligation to stay up on the industry, as I do many records that don’t end up standing out. This one did, though, and this song in particular. Like I said, I was in a mood last week, that bled into this week, and this aching song did some healing.
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Errol Eats Everything - Kingdom
I know very little about Errol Eats Everything. Bruh has little-to-no social media presence, and it’s seemingly all by design. His album cover artwork is AI-generated. The few press outlets that have covered his work liken it to MF Doom and Jay Electronica, perhaps the two most “mysterious but ubiquitous” rappers ever. Solid work on this album, but the intro cut “Kingdom’s” hook, spit in half-time, is hard. “You used to call me slave / now you can catch a fade / I am unafraid.”
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FEM du lit, Obsvdian - BANKRUPT
“This business is troubling me / How can I invest in myself / If you’re depleting
all my energy / Uncle Sam I’m running on dry” are the type of bars I don’t usually hear in a contemporary R&B/vintage Soul song. I’m here for it, ready to hear more when FEM du lit’s debut album STIGMATA drops on February 28.
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Black Milk & Fat Ray feat. Bruiser Wolf - Franky Lymon
Black Milk & Fat Ray’s new album Food From the Gods is a Dope Detroit Rap Album in a long line of Dope Detroit Rap Albums stretching back to the last millennium. A consistent vibe runs from front to back, seasoned with three guest features. The first two from Guilty Simpson and Danny Brown are solid and straightforward as you’d expect. But Bruiser Wolf, the most polarizing rapper in the group chat, steals the show on “Franky Lymon.”
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JPEGMAFIA - Valentines Day Freestyle ‘25
Last Friday, Peggy dropped a Valentines Day song, which is just some raps over SWV’s “I’m So Into You” (as in, literally over the song, singing and all, not a flipped sample). I enjoyed it but I died when I saw this top comment:
