Bout to Blow: 10 Dope Songs You Should Be Hearing Everywhere Soon

Featuring Dreezy, Yo Gotti, Amir Obe, and more.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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March goes in like a lamb in 2016: after a strong January, February was a relative lull in great up-and-coming hip-hop singles. That's not to say there weren't a few scattered tracks worth keeping up with. Welcome to the March 1 edition of Bout to Blow.

This column has two goals:

1. To use the many tools available to us today to get some idea of what songs were really bubbling with "the people"—in other words, to insert some science into the process.

2. To contextualize that information, because raw numbers in a vacuum would have you thinking an anonymous rapper dropped onto a stellar track was hip-hop's next big rap star when he was more like an empty, tattooed vehicle for a dope beat and a hook.

The post is obviously intended to be somewhat predictive. There's also an element, though, that is cheerleading. Many of these songs might be flourishing in certain markets but could use wider exposure. They're tracks where the metrics suggest some forward momentum, even if the clubs and radio play don't reflect that.

After a harsh decision-making process, we narrowed March 2016 down to the 10 best records you have to know. It's this month's edition of Bout to Blow: 10 Dope Songs You Should Be Hearing Everywhere Soon.

Boone, "Pop A Perc"

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Philly rapper Boone popped out of nowhere with a tribute to percocet, a song promoting the intoxicant de jour with joi de vivre. He can be forgiven his moral crimes for three reasons: hopping on a one-track-jack of Eazy-E's "Boyz N the Hood," swagging all over it with lazily bent panache, and for filming an oddly perfect video on a phone camera turned the wrong way, vertically. Also for his recognition that sunglasses immediately transform regular rappers into momentary rap stars as long as they hit your eyes when the beat drops.

Dreezy f/ Jeremih, "Body"

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Dreezy broke in Chicago first on "Break A Band," where she stole the show from Mikey Dollaz, then her remix of Nicki Minaj's "Chiraq," which arguably bested the original. Dreezy has an original style, darting easily outside the long shadow of Minaj, and is also perhaps the most technically gifted rapper in Chicago full stop. Unfortunately, as soon as she signed a deal and moved to LA, her music hasn't had quite the resonance of her early show stoppers.

Part of the problem may be the success of Tink—a rapper who's struggled to make it on the national level, but has a strong, sustained fanbase in Chicago who loves her ability to transcend rap and R&B effortlessly. Dreezy's work since has also trended to delicate R&B-rap fusion, but her strongest work—which shone so brightly on those early records—has a little bit more of an edge to it. She's a spitter, and a truly flawless one, but at her best when hungry, aggressive, and honest. "Body" doesn't break the trend of her move to R&B—and one of Tink's breakthrough records with also a Jeremih collaboration—but the use of "Body" as a concept rooted in violence is more in line with Dreezy's unapologetically street persona, and there's no question it's about as tightly written of a song as one could ask for. It's hard to imagine she won't find success with it—here's hoping it gives her the creative freedom she deserves.

XO f/ Sosamann and Rizzoo, "Off the Lot"

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The gentle nursery-rhyme simplicity of XO, Sosamann, and Rizzoo's "Off the Lot" practically guarantees the song's longterm success on its own; XO's production—its plinking piano a blatant facsimile of the low-key bluesiness of Zaytoven—gives it the perfect backdrop. Personally I've never been enamored of the spazz-out rap style best displayed here by Sosamann, but a great chorus papers over any distractions, even making them seem quite purposeful, a contrast with the song's soothing effervescence. Indeed, the hook takes over: the song could be twice as long and by its end anyone would reach for the replay button. This record may take awhile to rise, coming out of Texas instead of Atlanta or New York, but it's ultimately irresistable.

Yo Gotti f/ E-40, "Law"

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With "Down in the DM" proving to be the biggest hit of Yo Gotti's extensive career, follow-up single "The Law" has a lot to live up to. It's hard to complain any time a vet throws E-40 in the mix on a contemporary pop record; it's hard not to see it as a judgment of the current reign of pop rappers, whose relative stylistic banality makes them ill-suited for records intended to hold attention on radio. Like most slices of Yo Gotti music, form follows function: a concept sticks because it works, and this one feels like a flipside of E-40's more creatively buoyant "Choices" from 2014.

T.I., "Money Talk"

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T.I.'s biggest hits aimed for grandiose gestures—big pop choruses with fairly self-evident appeal. "Money Talk" is his best single since "About the Money"; this time it's not dependent on Young Thug for its obvious power. Instead of the big motions of his most well-known songs, it plays with subtlety—a difficult thing to do right on a big stage. The production is low-key but memorable, with different timbres and tones chiming in and out of the sonic field, while his vocals move with a casual intricacy uncommon to radio records; as the song progresses, his energy level rises and falls and rises again, his rapped vocals offering the song its shape and power. It seems like he's learned the right lessons from Thug: not, as some might argue, melody above all, but the power of rap's compositional effects as a space for rhythm and flow.

Fifth Harmony f/ Ty Dolla $ign, "Work From Home"

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With his work on Kanye West's "Real Friends," it seems like Ty Dolla $ign is finally being recognized for his incredible impact on the sound of pop music. Few auteurs seem as so omnipresent and underrated, at least by the general public, if not critics. This collaboration with girl group Fifth Harmony has a titular similarity to Rihanna's "Work," the planets aligning to the benefit of mixshow DJs everywhere. The production, which is sparse and understated lets the melody carry the song. There's not much to say about it: simple in concept and execution, it just... works.

Future, "Wicked"

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One suspects that "Wicked" benefits as much from its location at the front of the Purple Reign tracklist as it does any inherent qualities as a single; in the course of a few weeks, Future released two full-length tapes of originals at a time when his old records are still running on fumes from the previous calendar year. It didn't seem like he pushed any specific records from either project, and "Wicked" doesn't, per se, seem like more of a single than other songs on EVOL or the rest of Purple Reign. Concise, simple, and straightforward, though, it's easy to grasp its appeal; thematically, it plays right into our conception of Future as the conflicted, self-flagellating addict replete with portentous religious overtones.

Timbaland f/ Mila J, "Don't Get No Better"

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Timbaland's had quite a rough patch of late, overplaying his hand with Tink, inadvertently sidelining her career in a hubristic moment of his own. He seems much more capable of focusing his strengths in a low-stakes collaboration with Mila J, big sister to Jhené Aiko. The duo's low-key gem isn't liable to set any records on Billboard, but it is a confident creative success, full of those resplendant layered melodies and stomach butterflies that have been Timbo's stock in trade since the days of "Kiss Me Like That."

Amir Obe, "Before the Vomit"

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Despite being an ostensible rapper, Amir Obe seems much more like a pop songwriter in the post-PARTYNEXTDOOR/Weeknd vein, something he essentially admitted in an interview with Billboard: "Now, I'm just really focused on songs. Like really creating a song that has a lot of replay value, real big hooks and just something I think of me performing as I create it." "Before the Vomit" isn't an across the board smash, but it's a catchy lil alt-R&B jam that uses hip-hop more as marketing swagger. What makes it work is its unlikely and gross concept: how many pop records with such serene melodies focus on puke as their central lyrical conceit? The answer is one.

Lil Uzi Vert, "Money Longer"

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Lil Uzi Vert's sound is kind of all over the place; he started out a Philly-style fast rapper, and his latest tape feels one moment like Chief Keef and the next like Young Thug. As a personality, he's energetic but somewhat anonymous. It's hard to tell if he's quite cohered a unique identity, and his writing isn't exceptional. He's hardly an innovator, yet—with some A&R magic—it's entirely possible he may find commercial and even creative success inside the world Keef and Thug have created. If he does, "Money Longer" seems a likely candidate to launch him to the next level, thanks to its piercing synthesizer beams and an urgency his earlier work has lacked.

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