Latest / Hip-Hop Now Podcast / Best EPs of 2024 (Audio Exclusive)

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Best EPs of 2024 (Audio Exclusive) · Hip-Hop Now Podcast

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  Speaker 1: Coming up on this week's bonus episode of Hip Hop
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  Speaker 1: Now podcast, It's my top five EPs of twenty twenty four.
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  Speaker 1: In this exclusive audio version of the podcast, Yep, Let's
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  Speaker 1: do what.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome to your pop now podcast from the future. You
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  Speaker 2: know what, you do your ass out, so.
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  Speaker 1: Disrespect the leg back like lage hip hop is said
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  Speaker 1: to stay.
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  Speaker 2: Let's get right into the business. What up, y'all?
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  Speaker 1: I am your host Vegas and this is Hip Hop
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  Speaker 1: Now Podcast a bonus episode, a bonus holiday edition that
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  Speaker 1: will not be featured on YouTube because sometimes you gotta
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  Speaker 1: go back to where you started, right, started from the bottom.
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  Speaker 2: Now we're here.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, something like that, but I thought it would be something,
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  Speaker 1: you know, special for the audio listeners who have supported
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  Speaker 1: I want to thank you for your continued support as
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  Speaker 1: this podcast is quickly approaching ten years. I'm not gonna
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  Speaker 1: hold y'all. I think I'm on year nine in twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty five. So you know, it started as an audio thing.
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  Speaker 1: It was always a side project and a lot of
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  Speaker 1: ways continues to be a side project. But over the years,
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  Speaker 1: through your support, your listenership ratings on Apple Podcasts, Patreon
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  Speaker 1: supporters that came through throughout the years and those that
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  Speaker 1: pushed for a video version of the podcast, just want
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  Speaker 1: to thank you all. Happy holidays and as always, as always,
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  Speaker 1: more to come in the new year.
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  Speaker 2: I'm just saying.
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  Speaker 1: I'm working on a few things and I think you
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  Speaker 1: will enjoy. And one of the great things about this
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  Speaker 1: podcast is when it comes to hip hop, there's so
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  Speaker 1: many debates and discussions you can have about intricate parts
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  Speaker 1: of the hip hop game, and especially when you're doing
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  Speaker 1: a best of the year list like I did recently,
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  Speaker 1: there's so much more out there than you know, a
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  Speaker 1: top ten or a top five. Twenty twenty four was
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  Speaker 1: a really good year for hip hop in general, from
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  Speaker 1: the Battle with Kendrick and Drake and you know, all
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  Speaker 1: of the old school artists dropping new projects like LL
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  Speaker 1: working with Q Tip, Common and Pete Rock, Doctor Dreans
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  Speaker 1: Snoop and putting out quality music amongst everything else that
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  Speaker 1: was new. So for me, I just want to highlight
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  Speaker 1: five EPs that didn't necessarily appear on my Best of
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  Speaker 1: the Year, but they are hands down some of the
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  Speaker 1: best beats, bars, concepts and.
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  Speaker 2: All of that.
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  Speaker 1: And if you know me, I like a little quick listen.
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  Speaker 1: If you could put together a five to six song
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  Speaker 1: EP that's solid and has a theme. Man, I could
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  Speaker 1: just the replay value is limitless. So with that being said,
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  Speaker 1: let's just start, not in any order, at the top,
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  Speaker 1: with Ransom and Harry Fraud Lavish Misery. This dropped closer
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  Speaker 1: to the beginning of the year. And I'm not even
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  Speaker 1: gonna lie. I'm not the biggest fan of Harry Freud's beats.
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  Speaker 1: I don't think they're whack, but sometimes they just don't
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  Speaker 1: really do much for me. That's not the case on
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  Speaker 1: this LP. Ransom is good money. When it comes to
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  Speaker 1: the bars, you want to hear some intricate bars. You
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  Speaker 1: want to hear some clever bars, some breakdowns of a
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  Speaker 1: few things, not only his feelings, but you know, you know,
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  Speaker 1: things you can relate to that he might say. With
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  Speaker 1: this in particular, I really like it because it's like
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  Speaker 1: him trying to supplant himself on a throne when it
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  Speaker 1: comes to hip hop. You know, specifically in New York,
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  Speaker 1: there's a lot of jay Z references, there's a lot
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  Speaker 1: of NAS references, and he's trying to I guess he's
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  Speaker 1: trying to battle them, not in a bad way, but
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  Speaker 1: like measure his skills against their legacies and saying he
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  Speaker 1: has to leave that. And if there's one thing about
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  Speaker 1: Ransom Man, his mixtapes are potent. I mean that his mixtapes,
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  Speaker 1: he's EP's of potent. He dropped another one this year,
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  Speaker 1: and I think he dropped like two albums, one with
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  Speaker 1: Conway the Machine. But Lavish Misery was pretty dope. So
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  Speaker 1: if you went to technical bars and stuff like that,
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  Speaker 1: I think you would enjoy this. Next up, Shane Noir
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  Speaker 1: The Color Chocolate Volume one. This is another project that
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  Speaker 1: dropped early on in the year and replay value was
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  Speaker 1: just crazy. What I like about Shane Noar is sure
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  Speaker 1: she can make some beasts that are dope. Sure she
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  Speaker 1: got bars when she want to bar work, but she
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  Speaker 1: also tells stories about her personal life, about her her
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  Speaker 1: younger years, like she got this junior high school joint
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  Speaker 1: that tells a story. And to be honest, when people
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  Speaker 1: are talking about themselves artists, you know the story that
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  Speaker 1: they're telling is about them, or at least a story
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  Speaker 1: that's relatable enough, but maybe it's someone else's story they
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  Speaker 1: wrote about. That's when you really connect with your audience.
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  Speaker 1: And I feel like Shane Nowar is excellent at that
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  Speaker 1: This was a dope primer for a dope album, the
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  Speaker 1: Lotus Child that winds up dropping later on in the year.
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  Speaker 1: But the EP, which also features Ransom, is dope. Like
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  Speaker 1: if you listen to Ransom's Lavish Misery and the sche
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  Speaker 1: Noir EP Color Chocolate Volume one back to back, it's
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  Speaker 1: a nice potent, like, Yo, you haven't heard any new
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  Speaker 1: hip hop or who's nice out there? This is a
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  Speaker 1: nice way to just jump in and check out two
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  Speaker 1: people who care a lot about their craft and you
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  Speaker 1: could hear it. Next up Rome Streets and Wavy to
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  Speaker 1: god Buck fifty. This is my favorite project from Rome
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  Speaker 1: Streets this year. I know he released like an album
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  Speaker 1: a little bit later and I thought that was cool,
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  Speaker 1: But this one he was in his bag. The beats,
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  Speaker 1: the flows, the cadence, the confidence in what he was saying.
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  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying in that same lane of
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  Speaker 1: bar work. I believe he's on Griselda still, so the
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  Speaker 1: production is there to kind of back up what he does.
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  Speaker 2: It's just really dope.
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  Speaker 1: When this came out, I kind of like, especially in
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  Speaker 1: the gym, I kind of spent a lot of time
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  Speaker 1: just running it back. When you know, I was looking
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  Speaker 1: for something because I don't necessarily work out to music,
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  Speaker 1: like I don't need to put on DMX to get
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  Speaker 1: hype to lift weights or run or anything like that.
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  Speaker 1: But sometimes you know, you want to joint where you could,
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  Speaker 1: you know, spit the bars that they wrap it, and
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  Speaker 1: this room streets joint Buck fifty was just that. And
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  Speaker 1: again these are EPs, so the runtime isn't long at all,
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  Speaker 1: but they have great replay value. Next up out of
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  Speaker 1: See and yet still now I'm I'm a big fan
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  Speaker 1: of Odyssey, but I'm off like a I was late
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  Speaker 1: to the party in some ways. I think he might
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  Speaker 1: have had two or three albums out before I really
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  Speaker 1: got into his music like that, because you know, I
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  Speaker 1: didn't really know. I saw his name all the time,
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  Speaker 1: but I never press play. He is one of those
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  Speaker 1: rappers where if you feel like, yeah, you know, back
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  Speaker 1: in my younger days, I used to be all into it,
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  Speaker 1: but now you know, I listen to Shata and you know,
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  Speaker 1: stuff like that out of the type of rapper that
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  Speaker 1: won't disturb your peace, you know what I'm saying. All
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  Speaker 1: his music is thought provoking, cool, mature, like really dope
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  Speaker 1: when it wants to be as far as you know, like, yo,
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  Speaker 1: I'm a rapper first, so let me give you some bars.
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  Speaker 1: But also he just talks about things that just happen
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  Speaker 1: in the real world, right. It's not redundant raps about
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  Speaker 1: guns and drugs and stuff like that. And don't get
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  Speaker 1: me wrong, when it's time for that, I am all
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  Speaker 1: in to hear it. But sometimes, and I know people
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  Speaker 1: of a certain age YOURU love hip hop, sometimes you
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  Speaker 1: just want to cool out and listen to something, or
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  Speaker 1: as the kids would say, you vibe right. So I
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  Speaker 1: think Odyssey did his thing with this. And even though
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  Speaker 1: the theme is more about where he's from, which I
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  Speaker 1: believe he's from DC or at least the Maryland area.
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  Speaker 2: I think it's DC. I'm not sure, but it's.
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  Speaker 1: About that and I think compared to his other projects,
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  Speaker 1: it's pretty dope for him to shine a light on
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  Speaker 1: where he's from beyond a line or two on a record.
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  Speaker 1: And lastly, this EP would have been in my top
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  Speaker 1: five of the year if it was still available for
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  Speaker 1: you to purchase. It's Stove God Cooks. Stop calling me,
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  Speaker 1: I'm cooking side A. I had been waiting for a
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  Speaker 1: Stove God official project at any point EP album whatever
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  Speaker 1: it was. Us and Stove God dropped this EP and
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  Speaker 1: it was only available on the site called even where.
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  Speaker 1: You know, most artists benefit from it because they received
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  Speaker 1: more money when you purchase their albums from stuff like
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  Speaker 1: that rather than streaming and stuff. So when I got this, man,
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  Speaker 1: I was so pleasantly surprised because it was finally, like
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  Speaker 1: we've been we had reasonable drought. What was that twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty his debut album, so we hadn't really had anything
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  Speaker 1: besides singles and guest appearances from Stove God Cooks. And
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  Speaker 1: this is exactly well except for that one joint that
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  Speaker 1: was leaked, but this was exactly what I wanted and
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  Speaker 1: as an EP, it's perfect. Like you now, this is
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  Speaker 1: the total opposite. If you like waiting on push your
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  Speaker 1: teeth for your coke reps, you need to listen to
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  Speaker 1: Stove God Cooks. That's all he rhymes about, you know
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  Speaker 1: what I'm saying, and really from cooking cocaine, right, so
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  Speaker 1: he really obsesses over like a stove. Now I'm sure
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  Speaker 1: he doesn't do this anymore because why would you do that,
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  Speaker 1: But just the way he talks about, you know himself,
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  Speaker 1: his rhyme skills. This dude is metaphor and simile and
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  Speaker 1: doubled on, triple on tanjra, all of it. He has
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  Speaker 1: so much of that, and it's arsenal that you listen
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  Speaker 1: to him, not necessarily just for subject matter, but more
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  Speaker 1: so for the creativity, Like how creative he can be
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  Speaker 1: talking about essentially talking about the same thing verse after verse,
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  Speaker 1: project after project. And he has a gift in the
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  Speaker 1: same way that push you t does. It just never
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  Speaker 1: gets old. So there you have it. Those are five EPs,
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  Speaker 1: my top five EPs from twenty twenty four. If you
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  Speaker 1: have some that you came across, hey, let me know,
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  Speaker 1: you know, hit me up and follow me on social media,
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  Speaker 1: doesn't matter what the platform is.
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  Speaker 2: At Vegas World, I n C.
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  Speaker 1: I am the same tag on all of them, and
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  Speaker 1: be on the lookout for more content in the new year,
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  Speaker 1: specially my twenty twenty five preview show that will happen
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  Speaker 1: in January. I'm going to take a little bit of
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  Speaker 1: a break, maybe two weeks, and then I'll be right
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  Speaker 1: back at your So subscribe to the podcast. Definitely go
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  Speaker 1: to Apple Podcasts if that's how you listen and review,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: or wherever you can review this podcast and check out
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  Speaker 1: other episodes.
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  Speaker 2: Man, there may be different things that you like.
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  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying that I've already covered, I've
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  Speaker 1: done interviews, I've done a couple of.
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  Speaker 2: Things this year. But if you're interested been learning.
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  Speaker 1: About more hip hop albums that would go this year,
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  Speaker 1: check out my best of twenty twenty four, which would
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  Speaker 1: be available on your feed until next time, y'all.
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  Speaker 2: I am not a critic. I'm a fan base