What up, Hip-Hop Wired Nation? We’re back with another edition of CRT FRSH AKA Certified Fresh! Part of our duty as a publication and crew is to school the masses on who is doing what musically and there’s no better way to do that beyond our CRT FRSH (Certified Fresh) bi-weekly playlist.
Disclaimer:
The CRT FRSH playlist is a labor of love. We don’t take payments nor do we do favors. We only add joints to our playlist that fit the theme and vision we’re going for and don’t seek to waste the time of the listener. Further, we don’t stick to one lane of Hip-Hop. We believe that all aspects of the music should get some light, whether it’s young lions in the trenches or those hoping for that one shot to blow up to grizzled veterans puffing out their chests with lots more to say.
This week’s update is broken up into two halves, much like we did last time. The first 25 songs are folks that should already be on most folks’ radars or very close to it. In the second half, we dug deep into the virtual crates to shine a light on the future big names of tomorrow. As always, we didn’t list everything we liked and we’ll add the joints we missed in some following updates.
We open up this week’s update with SZA’s remix of “Kill Bill” from her 2022 album SOS which features Doja Cat displaying her formidable rapping ability. We follow that up with another remix, this time Ice Spice’s “Princess Diana” featuring Nicki Minaj in a scene-stealing turn.
The Alchemist has been on quite a run in the last few years and his collaborative album with Larry June, The Great Escape, is packed with strong joints, most notably “Palisades, CA” featuring Big Sean for the first time over an Alchemist beat. Other tracks in the playlist’s first half include “Search and Rescue” from Drake, “DOGTOOTH” from Tyler, The Creator, and “Fallin’” from Joey BadA$$.
On the playlist’s second half, we include “Half Steppin’” from Grafh and one of our favorite rappers in Smoke DZA. Patty Honcho, a name you all should look out for, torches his track “Clocking In” with BlaQ Chidori on the help out. In that same crew, producer klwn cat and his collaborative album Don’t Go Outside with unruly has a number of joints we looked over and went with “Tell Me How You Feel” featuring Mourning Run and the talented Matt Draugos.
We also have joints on the CRT FRSH list from Hus Kingpin, IDK, BIA, Curren$y, Nappy Nina, B. Cool-Aid, Chris Crack, YUNGMORPHEUS, defprez, Black Thought, and more. Enjoy the playlist and we’ll be updating it in a couple of weeks with 50 brand-new joints.
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