cam'ron ft. jim jones - the dope man -- new york rappers couldn't really tap into a specific gangsta past, call out the names and places. there were plenty of connections, you could write a book on that shit, but you had to know what to listen for if you wanted to get it. 50 wrote the quran and murder inc countered by digging up supreme for video cameos-- but--still. that's why these dudes are doing this imagined westcoast shit, a throwback to a time and place that never existed, squealing synths and blood pageantry. instead of shouting out 1980s nyc crack kings, they're flipping some very simple shorthand. they're reading f.e.d.s. for research and playing san andreas on the flipdown screens in the pink range and shouting out freeway rick and his bricks of crack the size of manhole covers and paying tribute to the williams sister that got shot in compton and romeo from the steve harvey show and bragging about getting robbed in cali, mobbed in cali. and, shit, jim jones outshines cam again.

t.i. ft. bg - what they do -- i was obsessed with that street niggas track off bg's last album. bg and t.i. had hot chemistry and they can both do that s,lowkey unapologetic gangsta storytelling. this is good but on a different tip, squirty horn loop chopped really tight, hard drums. and both coming with a different style than on their last track. t.i. does his usual explanation of his come-up and bg does drug math verse talking about, i know people! i get nice deals
get em five dollars, sell em ten dollars a pill
i know people, get keys for thirteen
if i fuck with ya, you get em for sixteen
i know people, get em three hundred a pound
give em to ya for five hundred if you my round
i'm a hustler, holla at me uptown