Ho ho ho bitch it aint close to christmas you a ho. That has nothing to do with the Metro Zu video above. It has nothing to do with the Speakz guest appearance either. Which kinda has everything to do with Metro Zu right? Act like you know and say yes, cause if you were from South Florida you would say yes. Lofty, Ruben, and C$PG recently caught some shine from our friends over at Fader too. Ho ho ho bitch. Ho ho ho.

The homie Yarrow Slaps just dropped another track to my inbox. “ACCid Ice Love Lust X” is a pretty relaxed tune that feels like it would be complimented nicely by some smoke billows. And slightly further up the coast another prolific homie is makin serious moves. The much beloved (Bloglin and elsewhere) Keyboard Kid just did a remix for fellow Seattlite Katie Kate. It sounds like classic Keyboard Kid music paired with a subtle but enchanting female vocalist. I am definitely hoping that there is more to come from this collaboration as it’s a great format for Keyboard.

I did We$tern Tink dirty not postin this “SummerDonnasLoft” track sooner. It’s no secret that I’m biased in favor of Tink. But you would be too if you paid attention close enough. And I don’t mean ti aint obvious, but I suppose it’s not expected. You know Tink isn’t out here getting what everyone else is gettin, so why would it sound like he is? When you come expectin Tink to do somethin it’s just the wrong approach. Flip the script yo, move with the weather to the East, not against it to the West.

When you approach Tink and listen to what he has to offer, well you are blessed with the wisdom of a man who knows how to do wrong, but who challenges himself to do right. And that right there is an eternal struggle of all enlightened humans, one that has existed for all time, and one that will never cease in the lives of those who have seen the light. And SummerDonnasLoft is a particularly brightly glowing number. I aint put a hat on my head yet today, but if I had I’d be tippin it.

Yarrow Slaps is a hustler for sure. He’s been blessin me with plenty links lately, and the more I peep the more I like. Dude is just a guy alive in life makin raps. He paints pictures, like with paint. Although I don’t have much qualification to speak on visual art, I’d say much like his raps, his paintings lean towards impressionism. Most rap is impressionist. It gives you a vibe to experience. Of course details and stories are peppered throughout, but I’d say one of the most common types of rap to find is probably impressionist rap. But it’s not like there’s a reason to call it that. It makes more sense to just call it rap.

So call it rap we do. And it feels like right now there is a new rap album coming out every three days, and I find out about at least one new group or artist a week. It’s a great time for music in the United States, and one result of this wild proliferation is an incredible diversification. It’s great to look around and see so many different kinds of artists putting out incredibly developed work, and understanding how to present themselves. Or, understanding how not to present themselves. That certainly seems more accurate. It feels like a new sound emerges at every turn. And it’s not just some halfway facade that unfolds into a trite and predictable album beyond cursory listening. With the proliferation of the tools, and the demystification of the means of distribution, music is revealing itself to be intertwined with the lives we live as young Americans. And not intertwined in the ways we previously understood it to be. In fact intertwined is not so accurate. Interwoven would me more accurate because you cannot create the fabric of our reality without the fibers of music. Be it music that we create, or music that we listen to, our generation’s relationship to music is much deeper than we’ve yet recognized.

We know that Rap is one of the chief dialects, but all of the sudden we have found ways to understand rap dialects at a much smaller and more personal level. All of the sudden rappers don’t have to speak in pre-ordained dialects. They’re free to reveal their own. In the midst of rappers speaking freely, these dudes Dior Sentai from Orlando hit me up. Oddly enough I wasn’t surprised by what I heard on their debut Raw Cartoons, but it was on no account of the music. Their sound is an odd amalgam of anime soundtracks, post-OF (kinda nuts that this is aready happening) malevolence, and tumblr distilled Three 6 Mafia. That wasn’t the expected part, that was the unexpected part. They really own the sound, and while they’ve definitely got some work to do they’re off to a great start. The expected part of Dior Sentai actually came on account of geography, and not the music itself.

Orlando was where I went to college, and where I started rapping. I was fortunate to be in a vibrant scene that actually was not too dissimilar from what’s happening at a national scale on the internet. And as soon as I turned on Dior Sentai I could hear all the same things I used to experience at weeklies, and shows, and cyphers. It reminded me of all the time I spent not just recording, or playing shows, but living amongst a community of amazing artists. I’m grateful that the internet has given a lot of that to me in new ways, but some of it just can’t happen over computers. So on that note, next Monday is going to be the first installment of Slap City, a weekly hip hop party at SOM in SF. There will be more info to come shortly, but for now just know that the Wave is about to hit the Bay, and you should too!

Quelle Chris remains busy! This dude is quietly grindin the year to dust already. The above video is nothing short of genius, and I think it gives you a hint at Quelle’s sense of humor. We kicked it a few weeks ago and dude was all about laguhs and good time. Pretty clear from that video. That being said head over to dude’s Bandcamp and pick up Bones For Girls, or one of his many other releases.

Nem270 be gettin their speakers MAD! MAD AS FUCK B! AND THAT IS BECAUSE NEM AINT EVER CAME WACK! AND THIS TIME HE CAME TO BRING THE MOTHAFUCKKKKKKINNN PAAAAAAAAAAIIIINNNN! Hardcore to the brain, well the motherboard. Nem just dropped Desktop Pain with UUU Tapes. You should probably expect more and more of this type of stuff as the Wave begins to spill over into more and more outlets. And expect more and more Nem, as we’ve got an interview coming with him sooner than later.

Ryan Hemsworth recently dropped his Kitsch Genius EP. If you remember the review for his last release A Way, then you remember that Ryan is nothing short of utterly amazing on the beats. And the cover is lookin oh so very Krautrock. I think Ryan’s take on making beats is really brilliant, and the way he folds together recognizable influences with prodigious technique is enough to make the most highly-regarded beat wizards feel insecure. Gandalf flow.

Last but not least, producer extraordinaire Marlee B just dropped this Off The Hip instrumental tape. And did you know dude raps too? And not just “he raps too,” but he raps really really well. Get familiar yo.

Man, people are fronting on the homie Himself. He is most def one of the most pro rappers ridin’ up on this new wave. His shit is always clean maximum, he’s a dope writer, and he has valuable experiences to share. This video for “Still Drippin’” was done by Whobangin with camera help from X-Man. I don’t know if that’s the name he works under or just his twitter handle though. That’s one of the drawbacks of a rapidly expanding, largely uncharted scene. It’s wild out here and hard to alwayss get all the info straight trying to blog about it right quick.

One of the most challenging things I encounter when talking to people about hip hop is a misconception about the origins. People seem to think that hip hop is an exclusively a black art form, which is simply not true. If you read accounts of the origins of hip hop it may have risen out of a largely black geography, but it was far from solely the province of folks of African descent. I think that for as long as people are going to sit around and think of hip hop as the cultural property of people of African descent those people will fail to see the Wave.

I don’t think everyone who fails to see the greatness Himself is necessarily of the mindstate that rap belongs to black folks, but I think that’s the primary mindstate that contributes to folks overlooking the GOD. He’s Mexican. We weren’t taught to fetishize people of Mexican descent in the United States. And we certainly haven’t been taught to fetishize Mexican artists, especially Mexican rappers. It takes a less rehearsed mindstate to get into Himself because he’s not giving what you’re looking for, but he is definitely giving incredible art.

Peep this video with fellow Nature Boy DC for the Shadowrunners track “Link’s Revenge,” from the bomb ass record 808-Bit Revenge. Honor the way yall, and show this dude some love.

LEHGO! Another actual freestyle from Metro Zu and the Raider Klan. Watch as they make up sounds as they go, and defy bullshit hip hop conventions. SpaceghostPurrp has been pushin’ his retro notions pretty hard lately, and it would seem that the intention here is about getting back to the 90s as much as being in the moment.

Meanwhile Metro Zu is on that Odd Future but without all the self-referential baggage that Los Angeles creates. All these dudes are on some bonafide South Florida irreverence, there’s nothing cool about what they do except for the fact that they don’t give a fuck about what anybody else is sayin.

The utmost homie L.W.H. has his CIA TV project on the way, and it is going to be dope. As far as I know there aren’t any rappers on it, and it’s definitely soundin like the vintage rare pepsi commercial of your dreams. He dropped the first single with Astrronomy late last year, and I didn’t hear much about the project for a while, but it’s nearing completion, and it’s def gonna be some chilled ass vibes and banging drums, and good times.

Twitter has led me to discover yet more incredible artists in the Detroit area. Zelooperz, Chavis Chandler, and T Deezy are threee artists that you need to be knowing more about. I’m still getting familiar with their stuff myself, but I suggest you make haste and start catching up. Zelooperz is a young dude who is hungry, and has obviously put a lot of care into developing his craft, go download his album Coon ‘N the Room for a taste. Chavis Chandler is one of those natural do it all type rappers who can invent a new flow every bar of a song for the rest of his life. And T Deezy is making beats somewhere between Keyboard Kid, AraabMuzik, and Machinedrum.

I’m not sure what is going on in Detroit exactly, but it’s making people into incredible artists, and I think these dudes are moreso a sign of the times than just the next hot thing. I got a feeling Detroit is gonna have a lot of New Yorkers very very jealous this year.

And here goes another Raider Klan video to wrap it up! Key Nyata got that serious chill vibe on lock. Props to these dues for keepin shit so damn phonky down in Dade. I think folks prolly forgot that South Florida made a huge impact on the sound of hip hop at one time, perhaps we’re about to be thoroughly reminded? OH YEAH! AND KEEP AN EYE/EAR OUT FOR #HCM. IT’S COMIN!!!

It looks like Metro Zu and Raider Klan been poppin since Purrp got back to Miami. With hella tunes droppin through both crews it’s been extra impossible to keep up. This freestyle with Ruben Slikk, Denzel Curry, and SGP is sick. I keep comin back to it. It’s like a BET Cypha, but real. But one record that I did get to spend some time listening to was Lowercase‘s Homegrown the Shroomer.

While he isn’t Metro Zu proper, he’s in the same zone as Metro Zu and the Raider Klan. At times Lowercase reminds me of my favorite parts of Deltron 3030. With vividly hazy narratives strung over dusty ravines of the ghosts of lush sounds Lowercase takes us through an obtuse narrative that occasionally becomes incredibly acute, soaring to heights far above the sum of its parts. It’s great art.

Speaking of Miami: AYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY POP THAT PUSSEH! But not quite. Imagine the uninhibited stylistic fuck all that empowers the Ying Yang Twins, then filter it through a dude who is about 10,000 times more chill. That’s Triple Black in the most basic description. When you listen to his music you’ll probably hear a lot more. While he hasn’t put out a ton of songs yet the stuff I have heard, and the conversations we’ve had on twitter make it obvious what he’s up to. Just like every other person out of the Bruiser Brigade, Triple Black is an artist witha vision working to realize that vision. So, listen to Pussy Fartin’, and take a peek inside the hyper-sexualized mind of a dude who’s really just looking to get into yours with his take on art.

And last but certainly not least Joey from Sortahuman has been workin! He just dropped this super-banger with Shady Blaze titled Double Glock. Do you think they were talking about a gun? Did you know Joey also recently dropped an instrumental album? Did you know Joey also recently dropped this track with Dizzy D? Did you know that Sortahuman doesn’t drop wack shit? Ever.

Why clouds come from the sea of course. And what is the sea filled with? Waves. Lots and lots of Waves, which is why I have to keep writing these posts every week. Originally, this post started with that new Freddie Gibbs video that just dropped. And while I’m definitely feeling Gibbs I feel like he’s evaporated out of the ocean.

He’s on some other shit that’s Wavey in essence, but he’s signed with Jeezy, so it’s a whole other hustle. But for someone like Supa from Sortahuman, the hustle is all in his hands. And this collab with Lil Ugly Mane is a product of Supa’s hard work, and it’s some blessed hard work. It’s cool to hear Supa tone it down a little bit. I love how hype he is, but hearing him zone out on some smokin tunes is a welcomed offering.

I am incredibly late on this one, but the homie Lofty dropped his Haunted Clothes album in mid December. I have a few beats on there. But there is more reason than that to check him out. Metro Zu is definitely one of the as-yet-untold hip hop stories of Florida. Folks got introduced to SGP last year, and I think he took a lot of people by surprise. South Florida is known for producing some incredible artists, we’re just not known by the rest of the world for it. But dive into this one and take some time to familiarize yourself with yet another gradation of tropicalized hip hop.

Stash Marina and Left Leberra (Leberra Marina) just dropped a new release. Honestly, I haven’t even listened to this record yet. But, honestly, I don’t have to. The whole Areb crew is really incredible, and they’re moving serious amount of molecules in this Wave. So, waste no time in getting over to the Leberra Blog to peep this one before they hurry up and drop two thousand more records.

Stay Wavy yall.

So, let me just qualify this list. Briefly. As of right now, I’m slightly more than a blip of nobody on the hip hop radar. My opinion, while valuable enough to qualify me to write for the Bloglin, doesn’t carry weight in the public sphere. While they should, the New York Times isn’t calling and asking for my input, Red Bull isn’t asking me to host Music Academy events, and I don’t get invited to Combat Jack or other popular radio shows. And so, I’m not writing this list as someone who observes rap, and orchestrates stuff off the page. I’m writing this list as a very excited artist, and fine tuning it as a uniquely informed critic (are there any other rapper/critics out there?).

Most of these folks are my friends, and I’ve made music with several of them. I’m sure there are tons of totally unknown producers out there making dope tunes, and making moves, but I don’t know that I should be watching them in 2012. Likewise I’m sure there are tons of equally-watchable producers out there who are more widely known, but I don’t know who they are. MP†C asked me to make a list of the folks to watch, and so as a rapper/producer/critic my take on this is informed by my own work as much my own observations.

These are the folks doing stuff that I’m excited about, and who have gotten enough of a buzz in 2011 that they could take off in 2012. But even if they don’t take off in 2012, these are all folks who will be delivering music in 2012 that will likely continue to raise the Wave and change the tide (with the exception of Mike Dean and Ken Lewis cause those dudes are way too big to be Wave).

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• Beautiful Lou (San Antonio, Texas)

What do you get for the man who has everything? New gear. It’s going to be an interesting year for Beautiful Lou. He’s been gaining steam steadily through 2011, as his beats on Live.Love.A$AP seem to have spread his name even further. His work with Tink has been nothing short of amazing and I’m pretty sure 2012 is going to show him a lot of love.

But the real question is what is his music gonna sound like as his rig changes? It’s not one of those “Will he still be dope when he’s not super lo-fi,” type of things because you can hear so much variety in his music that it’s clear his brilliance isn’t embedded strictly in the process. Get on it now, because once dude really hits next year it’s probably gonna be tough to keep up.

Download Beautiful Lou Thinks Ur Beautiful 2 (Click Here)

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• Skywlkr (Detroit, Michigan)

Skywlkr is in a very similar position as Lou, except without the A$AP features, so he’s not quite as fast-tracked. But again, the gear is going to play a role. I know he just got an MPC, and he’s got more new gear coming, so it’ll be interesting to see where it all takes him. Skywlkr is really good at sampling. He has a great ear for engaging samples, and he knows how to do the least that will do the most. And that’s what really good sampling is about: discovering amazing moments in sound, and finessing those moments into new soundscapes.

And with collabs from at least a half dozen Wave People already completed it’s gonna be tough not hearing his name next year.

Download Skywlkr’s Strawberry Cough (Click Here)

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• SpaceGhostPurrp (Miami, Florida)

I think SGP and Lou are in very similar boats. While you can draw some comparisons in their sounds, they are very different, but the both seem to be equally well-positioned for some heavy hitting in 2012. 2011 was definitely Purrp’s year low key. He was brought on to ensure the rise of the A$AP crew, and then promptly returned to Miami, where he has continued to mine the darker and more sinister side of Miami’s musical heritage.

Hip hop is nothing new at the bottom of the USA, but Purrp’s take on it is certainly a break from what the world might expect. And yet, with all the intrigue that has been sparked, it would seem that we haven’t even gotten the slightest clue of what he’s capable of. Yet. Expect that to change in 2012.

Download SpaceGhostPurrp’s Blvcklvnd Rvdix 66.6 (Click Here)

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• Nem270 (Ottawa, Canada)

I still don’t know much about Nem, aside from the the fact that he is grindin’ it the fuck out, and slowly building a rep as one of the hardest working dudes on the Wave. His sound is super-polished, and perhaps a bit more accessible than some of the other dudes on this list, but it’s still every bit as unique.

Nem takes very familiar sounds and rolls them out in unpredictable ways. It’s like he moved into the house of hip hop and totally renovated. Actually, no. It’s more like they tore down the house of hip hop and Nem got ahold of the best pieces of the house. And then he took them somewhere totally foreign, and used them to build something new.

Download Nem70′s Dank Worries EP (Click Here)

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• Friendzone (San Francisco, California)

This odd duo manages to crank out a steady stream of music that is anything but odd. But perhaps it’s odd that their beats have the majority of the hip hop blogs using word like “dreamy” and “peaceful”. But it’s accurate. Friendzone makes music for people who don’t like stress. Unlike a lot of other folks on this list these dudes went to school for music, and they clearly have roots in electronic musics that are not hip hop. But, that don’t mean shit because hip hop doesn’t care where you’ve been as long as you can drop bass. And drop bass they do.

But they have created a uniquely tempered sound that has played a noticeable role in the Green Ova sound. And, if everything is everything, they’ve got collabs coming with _________ and _________. The suspense could kill you, I know, so stay with these cloud seeding dudes and see what kind of weather the year brings.

Download Freindzone’s Kuchibiru Network 2 (Click Here)

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• L.W.H. (Dallas, Texas)

Imagine if you could give your video game LSD. Now hold that thought, sample it, and put some bangin drums under it. Now you’re ridin’ with L.W.H., AKA Aerobiz, aka the dude behind the camera for Unforgivable. While unexpected is a word I’d use to describe a lot of producers on this list, unpredictable seems to be more suited for Aerobiz.

His knowledge of music runs very deep, his sample library is filled with obscurities, and he can go from beats that were barely finessed into existence, right over to intensely composed works. If you like music that sounds good, you should be checking up on dude. It. Is. Just. That. Simple.

Download L.W.H.’s The Tape Hiss Hooligan (Click Here)

(more…)

That would actually be pretty sick, huh? I used to do a lot of field recordings, but I never got the chance to record a burning wave. I’m sure it would sound nothing like DJ Burn One though. You know, the sound of Yelawolf, ASAP Rocky, Pill, Starlito, and countless other notable hip hop releases of recent memory. Earlier this year Burn One dropped the much-slept on The Ashtray, which is just one amongst a slew of releases, but it also served as the singular marker for a very clear transition point. The Ashtray is Burn One’s first instrumental release, and after talking with him it’s clear that it’s a very calculated release that has involved much more than the music on it might suggest.

Burn One isn’t just a guy making beats. He’s a tireless hustler who’s first instrumental album is just one small piece of a very involved puzzle that has grown out of the space where his life and hip hop meet. Like many of us who grew up in the South, hip hop connected with him as much as he connected with it. And Burn One’s story highlights the difficulty in finding a distinction between how hip hop sounds as music, and what hip hop does as music:

“I think I had a unique experience growing up. I was raised in a city just south of downtown atlanta called Hapeville until I was 10. my family was one of a handful of white families in the area. after that we moved to the suburbs where there were just a handful of black families. it was pretty crazy because you would have these die hard rednecks with rebel flags hanging off their jacked up trucks banging pac to the fullest extent. it made no sense to me at the time but I realize now that music is one of the few things that translates to everybody, regardless of race or beliefs.”

And it would seem that the eponymous characteristics of hip hop not only informed, but also defined Burn One’s experience with this music, this culture, this vernacular of our nation. He got his start—you ready for this?—burning mix CDs in high school. He was THAT dude. The one who knew how to use a computer before everyone was rocking iTunes. But apparently he was one of the #Rarest versions of that dude type, because he also had great taste in music. And of course that led to working at a mom and pop, which lead to releasing his own proper mixtapes, which then led to making all kinds of connections, which then lead to projects of his own with various folks, which then lead to doin his own tunes and starting BLVD ST, which eventually blossomed into his label Five Points:

“I started my label Five Points Music Group about a year ago after I got together with my current team. Walt Live, Ricky Fontaine & The Professor play most of the live music you hear on my beats now. With them I can pretty much get out any sounds that I hear in my head. We work a lot of placement records and side projects with artists I believe have a chance to make it like Scotty & P. Watts. Ricky & Walt are also the first act I’m putting out on the label. they produce, write, sing, rap, record and mix all their own stuff. We just dropped a record with them and LE$ as the first single off the Cowbell Gang tape I’m doing with Taylor Gang producer Cardo. That’s going to be a double disc and hopefully it’ll be out by February. I’m also working on the soundtrack to an independent film that was shot here in ATL called Snow On Tha Bluff. We created the theme music for the trailer and have a few other songs in the actual movie as well.”

And running his label is exactly what he’s doing. From the top to the bottom Five Points is a brand under the care of a man with impeccable taste, a meticulous ear, and a connection to hip hop that is so intertwined with his life that you cannot separate the two. Burn One is in that unique transition point that comes between being part of the Wave, and being a self-sustaining enterprise. He exhibits everything that the Wave cultivates (honesty, humility, dedication to the craft, wisdom, tough tunes…), but he has outgrown the Wave. He has started his own sequel to the Wave, he’s a cloud, and he’s about to rain down an excellent example:

“at this point I’m the only one handling the administrative side of things on the daily. I have a very distinct vision with what I want to accomplish and until I find the right people to bring in that see my vision I’d rather just handle it all myself.”

And so, through Five Points DJ Burn One is not onyl able to release music, but also realize his relationship with hip hop on an even grander scheme. At this point he is undoubtedly a regional force, and unarguably an internet staple, but he has never released music as we commonly think of it. Burn One’s role in contemporary hip hop has led to the release of a lot of music, but all he’s ever done is live and breathe everything that this art stands for. He’s an artist in the purest form to quote Squadda B, and you can believe he is not only a name that we’ll be watching next year, but also a potent mind that we’ll be paying close attention to, and most likely looking to for inspiration.

Northern Lights (of Areb Crew), Himself the Majestic, and Mob No Sob (Western Tink and Beautiful Lou) recently dropped videos that took very different approaches. One of the things that defines Wave Rap is the self-produced element. You have very small teams producing music that is on par with the material produced by full-scale music machines. Industry standards most often lead to videos that are (surprise!) standardized, budgeted, and planned to the point of being completely devoid of any connection to regular life. They’re soundtracks to artifice, more than engaging visual accompaniments to relevant music. Did you ever notice how many rappers now shoot their videos in an empty sterile studio in front of a green screen? It’s the perfect analogy for their music: isolated, manufactured, all fabrication and no connection. With Wave Rap things are more immediate, and while Wave people may not have access to the kinds of means that big budgets make, they’ve got access to an ample range of possibilities. And as you can see from this selection it yields very different results, but no matter what comes out, it’s real as fuck.

To me, the most compelling part of Wave Rap is the accessibility, and the immediacy. Folks on the Wave aren’t part of some separate, and inaccesible society. They’re average citizens, with above average talents. Unlike the dominant myth—which tells us that famous musicians are somehow not like regular blue collar humans—the Wave offers another interpretation. On the Wave the musicians are just regular people who work really really hard to be able to put their music out. It doesn’t make sense for them to create videos that are big productions when folks gotta wash dishes, buy groceries, and do all this real life shit. When you’re on the Wave you just shoot the video on a regular day. These three videos all take very different approaches, but they share something in common: nothing happens. But, it’s one of those tricky post-modern, situationist type of “nothing happens” because in nothing happening, really everything happens. It’s like the John Cage quote “I have nothing to say and I’m saying it. And that’s poetry.”

In this hyperbolic age of rap music videos are usually exaggerations of what might happen, or what did happen. One of the exceptions to this, and perhaps the forerunner to the Wave aesthetic, is the proliferation of trap videos where nothing happens. Instead you have dudes posted on their block, chillin’ with the crew, waving guns, smoking substances, touchin’ on some lady parts, and imbibing drinks. The videos are usually set in someone’s front yard, or in the street in front of several front yards. And it is what they lack that makes them so potent. They lack artifice, and that’s what I mean when I say nothing happens. Because as it’s plain to see, lots of stuff happens in the video, it’s just not out of the ordinary. There’s no big splash, no shocking reveal, no resolution. Which makes sense in this era. It’s a flying fuck you to hundreds of years of stratified cultural pronouncements that told us art should be measured by it’s adherence to a stuffy framework. We live in a time when The Spectacle is not just in Hollywood studios, and Broadway theatres. As the last 5 years have shown us, the spectacle is all around us. From Reality TV, to YouTube sensations, Tumblr stars, the most routine elements of life in the United States have become just as potent as the biggest productions of yesteryear.

Basically, big productions as the standard for art are outdated. They have their place, but the idea that all art we consume should be grandiose GDP-overshadowing operations is just not realistic. We don’t live in times where gross opulence is held in high regard, because most people don’t have access to. What most people do have access to is a camera—maybe two—an editing program, and whatever happens to go down that day. The Shadowrunners videos is pretty much one shot one location. The AAA video is a few shots, in a few locations. And the Mob no Sob video (which is clearly the most produced, but also involved Billy Jetson)

is a few shots in one location. And while they each represent a different point on a spectrum (Shadowrunners on one end, and Mobbin No Sobbin on the other) of production complexity they all have pretty much the same result: they let us a little further into the lives of these Wave people. And there you go, I suppose that’s the distinction. Where most rap music this day closes the door in your face, but gives you a very seductive view through the peephole, Wave Rap opens up the doors and invites you in. It’s warm in here, right?