This past week was a great one for new recordings — unless your name was Mitt Romney. For everyone but the Republican nominee, though, the past seven days were full of fantastic new music, only a portion of which we could feature here. Below, Chino XL pines for a fair and balanced press, Ghostface tells us how things really go down in his home borough, CyHi takes us for a fluid-filled ride in his car, Pusha reveals some interesting info about his career's early days, and two-time LOTW winner Nino Bless makes a run at a third crown. Ladies and gentlemen (and Mitt), we give you the Lines of the Week.
5. “This how we do it on Staten/We hardly get caught with our hoodies off, let alone a ratchet” — Ghostface, 'Stick Em' lyrics
Ghost brings his patented high-energy style to this collab with Sheek Louch and Jadakiss of D-Block. Here, he reps the readiness for war of his S.I. compatriots and leaves us with an image of a whole island full of hoodies — something we find unaccountably funny.
4. “When you on the grind, be careful who you talk to/I've been grinding so long that I think my balls blue/Got a broad in my 'lac, playing with her cat/I get her super wet — I call that a carpool” — CyHi the Prynce, 'Funkmaster Flex Freestyle' lyrics
We at RG have been known to have a third-grader's taste for dirty jokes. Thus, the punchline about blue balls really made our day, as did the obvious-but-still-amusing “carpool” pun.
3. “Got a love for hip-hop that could never be lost/Even if it ignores me like the media ignored slavery and Armenian holocaust” — Chino XL, 'Eye (The Stomp)' lyrics
Chino XL, as ever, proves to be an absolute beast of a rapper. It was extremely tough to choose just one rhyme from this song, which is filled with amazing imagery and rhymes dense enough to stop any fan of wordplay in their tracks. We especially appreciated the note of the early twentieth century Armenian genocide, a terrible and not-officially-acknowledged incident that the U.S. power structure only ever sees fit to bring up when it's trying to score political points against Turkey.
2. “Bought mama's Jag in oh-one/The only hits I had then was a nose run/Dropped 'Grindin'', let you hear just how the dope's slung/Shot the video where I was buying my dope from” — Pusha T, 'Favorite Rapper' lyrics
Pusha here gives us a behind-the-scenes look at his early career. He lets us know that his hit “Grindin'” had a video that was shot in a real-life dope spot. We would be likely to think of this as just typical rapper bragging, if not for the whole his-former-manager-got-busted-for-running-a-coke-ring thing.
1. “I'm rushing to fame so I can palm Rihanna's ass, ASAP/Rap Genius, there's ya best line, take that” — Nino Bless, 'Not Featuring 2 Chainz' lyrics
The '91-'93 Bulls, The '00-'02 Lakers. Nino Bless. We have a new three-peater here at RG, as Nino takes the LOTW crown for an unprecedented third time with this joke about A$AP Rocky's VMA stunt. Let it never be said that we're immune to flattery!
