The Real Rap Songs of the Summer – Warungku Terkini

The conversation around rap’s song of the summer is too boring and outdated; I’ll leave that for the mainstream podcasts. For me, it’s much more interesting to think about it on a smaller and more personal scale, finding the songs from Michigan or Florida or the Dominican Republic that I can’t get enough of, and wondering how they reflect or upend the sound or mood of the rap coming from that area. Here are the 11 rap songs of the summer that I can’t get out of my headphones.

Here’s the scene in “Shopping Spree”: Lil2Posh and his girlfriend head out to the mall so he can shower her with gifts to show his affection. Sweet! Except that, once they get there, he scraps that idea and instead just buys himself a bunch of new outfits and accessories. You know, a little Balenciaga, a dash of Marni, and a Gucci belt, as well as a new diamond necklace and dermal piercing. Bringing back the fluorescently bright synths and melodies of Chicago bop—the light, dancey, and Auto-Tuned swag music of the early and mid-2010s—Lil2Posh sounds like he’s laying on his stomach in his bedroom styling his Sim on the computer. Pulling off a more nasally version of Chief Keef’s sing-raps around the time of “Save That Shit” and “Macaroni Time,” 2Posh lands on a mood that is really dreamy and fun, even though he refuses to apologize for cheaping out on his girl: “She want me to please say sorry/I’m not so sorry.”

Tha Hot Girls: “We on Fire”

There’s a bunch of poppin’ bounce girls in New Orleans right now, including Tha Hot Girls. As far as I know, they’re a bounce clique whose schtick seems to be remaking old Hot Boys songs. Evidence: A few months ago, they turned “I Need a Hot Girl” into “I Need a Hot Boy,” naturally. And, more recently, they gave the same treatment to “We on Fire,” dressing it up with a jerky flip courtesy of bounce staple BlaqNmilD and gender-flipping the “What kind of boy?” lyrical structure into “What kind of girl?” in a way that would make the Sporty Thievz proud. OK, now hit me with your concerns:

Alphonse, aren’t Tha Hot Girls just a glorified cover band?

Maybe. But the world would be a better place if there were more Hot Boys cover bands.

Isn’t this song extremely unoriginal?

Actually, I don’t think so. Bounce music is a genre built on repurposing the same sounds a thousand different ways and finding ways to distinguish the songs in the nuances. Here, it’s how elaborate their ways of hyping themselves become as the song goes on: “What kind of girls do you know got groupies?/Oooh, she really savage and she throw two Gs.”