As we’ve written many times before, the bench in Milwaukee’s hip-hop scene now runs so deep that a good deal of talent is getting overlooked, including rappers who just a few years ago would have been the center of attention. One rapper who didn’t get the press he deserved in 2015 was AR Wesley, whose inventively jazzy mixtape 92 Drug Flow fell under the radar of most local publications (including this one) when it was released last spring. Talent has a way of naturally rising to the top over time, though, and Wesley seems primed for more recognition in 2016. It certainly helps that he’s starting the year with his best project yet: Time is MillMatic, a three-song EP that satisfies like a full-length album. Wesley’s subtly poetic prose is matched by some cerebral production by Mike Regal and Hakeem Paragon, which draws heavily from the moodier sounds of Kendrick Lamar and Schoolboy Q’s Top Dawg Ent. circle while touching on the Illmatic-style boom-bap the title promises.
Kendrick Lamar is also a touchstone for Milwaukee upstart P. Khalid, who gravitates toward some of the weirder, more experimental sounds that Top Dawg used to dabble in. The beats on his latest EP Money to the People are twitchy, blown-out and all over the place, while his flow is unwaveringly direct—he raps with the rigid enunciation of an old-school, ’80s emcee, but over beats that could have only come from today. He’s still young, and the EP is rough around the edges, but he’s worth keeping an eye on. There’s a lot he could do with this sound going forward.
The year is young—super, super young—but so far my most played rap song of 2016 is “[Patterns],” a thick, unruly mind fuck of a track from Milwaukee rapper/producer J.J. Jabber’s new EP, [Insert Title Here]. Save for a couple of unexpectedly blithe, soulful tracks that demonstrate Jabber’s range, most of the EP is as tense, terse and loud as that track. There’s something alien about both Jabber’s his production and his flow; he raps in a sticky made-up accent, as if between bites of a peanut butter sandwich. And while there are whiffs of Yeezus’s brutal minimalism in the EP, which was co-produced with Milwaukee mainstay Mammyth, mostly it sounds like its own island, as if J.J. Jabber is making up his own rules as he goes along. He’s on to something original here.
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The rapper formerly known as MCNewKid, KiDDD closed out his 2015 with a succinct but striking video: one minute of a cappella rapping, accompanied by a few simple effects and flourishes. In the age of overblown DIY epic music videos, it’s refreshing to see something this simple and assured.
Here’s another new name: Shaun Flow, a Milwaukee rapper who offsets his youthful voice with his fierce, Bobby Shmurda-style delivery. His T-Streetz-produced debut single “Turnt Up” has the vice-grip intensity of a Meek Mill/Jahlil Beats pairing.
One of the great chameleons of Milwaukee’s rap scene, Pizzle has collaborated with more producers than even he could probably count at this point, but there are few he displays more chemistry with than Derelle Rideout, whose lush beats have a way of complimenting Pizzle’s fired-up delivery. Their latest together is a pillowy track called “Tokyo Love,” and like the ones that came before, it’s an absolute pleasure.
Klassik was prolific as ever in 2015, releasing a quartet of EPs (eventually collected on a full-length called Seasons) on top of his usual pile of freelance work. He capped the off the year with one last song released on Dec. 31, “Amateurs,” a typically suave little number that could have slotted right onto the Seasons LP. “This is a first draft of a song that will be on a future project,” he wrote on Soundcloud.
And finally, another week, another strip-club anthem. This one comes from Job Jetson, whose calculated cool is offset by a very enthusiastic, dollar-throwing guest turn from Jae Ace.
