Trill Teezy
There’s no lone comprehensive source for all the music coming out of the Milwaukee street rap scene right now. For those looking to stay in the loop, though, you can’t do much better than the YouTube channel for TeeGlazedIt, where the Milwaukee director/rapper/curator posts a flood of new videos every week. It’s frankly more than even we can keep up with, but since it’s still very early in the year—and since it might still be a while before Gwapo Chapo drops that track with YFN Lucci that he’s been teasing—we thought we’d sift through and weigh in on all the videos posted there so far in 2019, before the list becomes utterly unmanageable.
A note for the true Milwaukee rap completists: We could probably do this same exercise for Christian Roby and DineroGangRay's YouTube channels, two similarly active, essential pipelines for new Milwaukee rap music. Collectively these three channels host a head-spinning amount of music, and while the quality obviously varies considerably from video to video and artist to artist, it's astounding how much of it is, at the very least, worth hearing.
Below are all the videos posted on TeeGlazedIt's channel so far this year, listed in order of preference. If none of these do it for you, rest assured there are plenty more on the way.
1. Young Pimpin – “Freestyle”
Along with Detroit, the Bay Area casts a surprisingly long shadow over Milwaukee rap right now, but few rappers nod to it as directly as Young Pimpin. You'll hear a little bit of the Bay in his beat selection, which packs the expected slap, but also in his flow, which channels a little bit of Too Short's snarky quippiness. Pimpin even brags about “feeling like Too Short’s evil twin” on this new track, which isn’t a freestyle in the most literal sense, but doesn’t skimp on bars and punchlines. I'm a sucker for a memorable opening line, and “I ain’t looking for no love and affection/I’m out here looking for plugs and connections” is a purposeful one.
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2. SuperThrowed Rio – “Road To Riches”
This slaps sufficiently.
3. WeUpNexxt Fresh – “Watchu Doin”
Huge bass meets one of the city’s funnier rappers. What more could you ask for? He doesn't oversell it, but there’s a droll undercurrent to Fresh’s delivery that reminds me a bit of Vince Staples.
4. Trill Teezy – “Bojack”
Lots of rappers sing these days, but usually in a halfhearted cadence that lays clear their indifference. They don't even really try. So I have a lot of respect for rappers like Trill Teezy who just totally go for it. Fifty seconds into this track he reaches for some notes just outside of his range, going for that light, airy The-Dream/Jeremih transcendent vibe. It doesn’t matter that it doesn’t totally work. He’s putting himself out there, and that’s inspiring.
5. R.A.N. Dookie Gang – “Who You Gone Listen To”
I mean, they'd almost have to be, but Dookie Gang are better than their name promises.
6. BHG Action – “Go Hard”
It’s called “Go Hard,” and it does.
7. [Bosses Havin Goals] 54 Babyz – “GBaby”
No video for this one, but it also goes hard enough.
8. Munch Lauren & Jane Doe – “Pink Lemonade
Munch Lauren is one of Milwaukee rap’s bigger stars, and it’s easy enough to see why. He locks into radio’s wavelength in a way few of his peers do. But his presence can also be a little removed for my tastes, and here he borrows way too much from the Tyga playbook.
9. Roscoe - "Bums [Mackn Mal Diss]"
A diss track with some very personal jabs. That Bizness Boi beat is chic as hell, and Roscoe has an effective, no-nonsense flow, but I'm ranking this one a little lower because I'm a pacifist and local diss tracks stress me out.
10. Goowap – “Good Grits”
We deducted points from this one for ripping off the “Plug Walk” melody.
11. Bosses Havin Goal [BHG] – “Plot On You”
This one’s a feel-good track, except here “feel good” is polite speak for “kind of annoying.”
And that's the last one, for now. An unrelated final observation: There’s a comment at the bottom of a couple of these videos that reads “If Any Artist Needs To Get Their Mixtape Or Single On Spinrilla It's $10 For Single $20 For Mixtape! DM yo_brother_plug On IG For More Info.” I’m not in artist management, so take this with a grain of salt, but my unofficial advice is that artists should not do this.