Frank Kogan

I finished this list mid February, then was beset by various blocks and distractions and by thinking I had to write something good, also that I'd waited and dithered just as long on the 2016 list. "At least I won't be as late as I was last year." And now I'm later.

And it feels like a different world: Over the past ten months American hip-hop became central for me again, so I'm wrestling again with and against a lot of tough talk, some of it atrociously retrogressive and seemingly stupid* but obviously I'm not ready to dismiss it or I wouldn't be wrestling. Anyway, if I were doing this list now Playboi Carti's "Magnolia" would be top ten. But I'm not doing it now.

Haley Georgia's "Becky" sounds as natural as exhaling — I can imagine someone coming across it unschooled and unaware and thinking it's in a genre that could do anything and go anywhere, make a song out of any old thing. And I don't know that this isn't true — I haven't been listening much to country this decade — but my sense of country is that it's the opposite: it's like trying to walk through grass-flavored cement. —Haley's subsequent EP, First Rodeo, from this year, 2018, may not totally shut the door on her promise, but doesn't renew the promise either, nothing like "Becky"'s skipping along from slide to single-note celebrations to conjuring David Essex out of thin air. I wonder where she can go for camaraderie and support. Too bad there's no Bali Baby for her in country to splash around with her and shoot stars every which way.

Lil Debbie did a duet with Bali Baby this year and it was Debbie sounding stuck in cement. Pondering Lil Debbie's "F That" as my 2017 number one, it seems kind of cute, the toughness so bogus — except when I listen it's still locked-in power, no matter how stiff Debbie is and unnatural in the idiom — I know that's a cliché, to call the white woman in hip-hop "stiff," but in this instance it's true and on this track doesn't hurt the music (white Bhad Bhabie's not at all stiff, but I'd still rate Bhabie's "Hi Bich" 5th to Debbie's "F That" at 1).

Here's the YouTube playlist, top singles 2017, and the list below, and more commentary at the end of that. I think the music's worth several hours, if you've got 'em. Beauty and surprise:



1. Lil Debbie "F That"
2. Jovi "Ou Même"
3. MC G15 "Deu Onda"
4. Haley Georgia "Becky" [UPDATE:"Becky" has been wiped off the public Internet with the exception of this 18-second clip Haley posted on Twitter, August 2017]
5. Bhad Bhabie "Hi Bich / Whachu Know"
6. LOOΠΔ/Yves "new"



7. Ninety One "Su Asty"
8. Miso "KKPP"
9. Scooter "Bora Bora Bora"
10. Omar Souleyman "Ya Bnayya"
11. Bhad Bhabie "Cash Me Outside (DJ Suede Remix)"



12. Omar Souleyman "Chobi"
13. Pocket Girls "Oppa Is Trash"
14. BTS "Go Go (고민보다 Go)"
15. NCT 127 "Limitless"
16. CLC "Hobgoblin"
17. Juan LaFonta ft. Big Freedia "Bounce TV"
18. Koppo "Gromologie"
19. Pristin "Wee Woo"
20. Hyolyn x Kisum "Fruity"
( 21 through 100: Cherry Coke to Mink's )

( Commentary: LOOΠΔ/Yves, Zhonti, Tenor, Kenji Minogue, Leningrad, Hyolyn, NCT, Mozee Montana, Playboi Carti )

[UPDATE: I'd embedded Haley Georgia's "Becky" here, but since then not only did the embed go dark, but a quick search suggests that the track has disappeared from the Internet, not streamed, not available for download, can't be ordered physically; all I can find is this snippet:

OFFICIAL BECKY LYRIC VIDEO OUT NOW: https://t.co/86xjRoolKW #becky #omgbecky #haleygeorgia #haleygeorgiacrew pic.twitter.com/AG4zdyLdBW

— Haley Georgia (@haleygeorgia) August 5, 2017

Web searches do turn up mocking commentary from some dried-up fartbags, but other than that, nada.]

( Notes )

"It's a real nigga party, you cannot get in," which not only leaves me out, it leaves out most people who describe themselves with the n-word as well, and leaves you out, the way FBG Duck defines it: "Niggas really shoot, no accident / I can't make this shit up, I cannot pretend, damn." The thing is — I'd call it a strange thing except it's actually quite natural — his disinvite has attracted hordes: not people trying to get into the aforementioned party, but people using the track — FBG Duck's "Slide" — as a model for creating their own parties. He captured it, the way people speak, the long slow drawl, dragging out and down the last word of the phrase, "I can't make this shit up, I cannot pre-te-end." Primal sentences, "I can't shake your hand, no I'm not your friend / I don't fuck with rappers, no I'm not a fan, damn." Dave and I were grievously underrating his voice over on my comment thread, but people find themselves in it, take his words and mold them into their words: Bangg 3: "Issa bad bitch party, you cannot get in / I can take your man, pass 'im to my friends." There are eight versions so far on my top singles list, and scores more out there on YouTube, new ones every day. There's one in Romanian, another in Greek. There's a kids one by Mac Sauce: "It's a little kids party you cannot get in / We know that you're too old, we know that you're not ten." And the best version, by gay rapper Kidd Kenn, stone courage: "It's the faggot party baby you cannot get in / Takin' all the men, his homies and his friends, damn / If you think the boy is straight, well think again."

FBG Duck "Slide"


Bangg 3 ft. Goldie "Slide Remix"


Kidd Kenn "Slide Remix" [Flashing lights]


FBG Duck is daring you to come out and shoot, so he can shoot you ("Let me see some fuckin' shots fired then / Make me shoot that crib up you hidin' in"). Most of the male versions copy him in this (Yung Cat manages to be even more obvious: "It's the real killa party you cannot get in"); most of the female versions copy Bangg 3 in that having sex with someone is to prove something to someone else, to take something from someone else, to get even with someone else. (Sexyy Red: "[You] ain't got a lotta friends, I'm tryna fuck your man.") This is where Kidd Kenn goes, too. There are basic combinations, disses. Pretty Savage: "All your bitches' pussy don't get wet / Pull up, pop yo asses, how you pop them Percocets." Queen Key: "Heard some bitches dissed me but nobody liked it / I think yo music like yo pussy, bitch, nobody buys it, tried it (ha)."

Wit and phrasing aside, this is self-defeating behavior that — minus the bullets and sex acts — kids are learning to sidestep or shrug off or get beyond when they're still in kindergarten. At least trying to get beyond. (The only "Slide" remix devoid of nastiness is the one by little Mac Sauce.) Nonetheless this stuff still feels real, and that's because it feels risky, and we let the feeling stand in place of the truth. (It's role playing, of course, some people living the roles and some people not, either way still a role, a stereotype.)

Hazing and baiting and jealousy, but the guys are acting tough with it, while the girls are having a lot of fun. Sashaying around, wiggling, having a pillow fight. Men have the power advantage; women have the cultural advantage. The guys get to wave guns, that's it* — though maybe that's their entryway to having fun too, jumping around with and into each other, a secret dance in plain sight, the guns as the prop that masks it as something different.** The young women meanwhile can dance without excuses.

Ongoing Singles Playlist 2018


Top Singles, First Half 2018
1. Cassie "Don't Play It Safe"
2. Bhad Bhabie ft. YBN Nahmir, Rich The Kid, Asian Doll "Hi Bich (Remix)"
3. Ninety One "Ah!Yah!Ma!"
4. Kidd Kenn "Slide Remix"
5. Fairies "HEY HEY ~Light Me Up~"
6. Bhad Bhabie "Both Of Em"
7. Tay-K "After You"
8. KeshYou & Baller "Swala La La"



9. 6ix9ine "Billy"
10. Boy Tag ft. Tala A. Marie "Talla"
11. Tenor "Alain Parfait (Á L'Imparfait)"
12. The EastLight. "Don't Stop"
13. Cardi B "Be Careful"



14. Yella Beezy ft. Lil Baby "Up One"
15. Bhad Bhabie ft. Lil Yachty "Gucci Flip Flops"
16. Niniola "Saro"
17. Lil Pump "i Shyne"
18. MHD "Moula Gang" (AFRO TRAP Part.10)
19. Crowd Kontroller ft. Niniola "Bambam"



20. Mylène Farmer "Rolling Stone"
( Chi Pu through Boonk Gang, 21 through 57 )

( Short shots, Niniola, Lil Pump, etc. )

*[EDIT: Well, obviously Kidd Kenn's not playing those rules.]

**Rob and I were talking about this back in 2000, regarding DMX.