Pitchfork author Alphonse Pierre’s rap column covers songs, mixtapes, albums, Instagram freestyles, memes, bizarre tweets, vogue traits—and anything that catches his consideration.
Nothing can get me to shut a YouTube tab quicker than a Giannis Antetokounmpo bar. I’ve no private agenda in opposition to the Milwaukee Bucks’ star large man; in my ebook, he’s nonetheless in the identical MVP tier because the sleek Serbian Nikola Jokić, however, please, rappers, I urge you to make use of your creativeness. In the previous few years, Giannis has taken the torch from Steph Curry because the go-to basketball reference for rappers who’ve confronted too many blunts to consider anything. (The one factor lazier may be horrible Ike and Tina punchlines.) From the hip-hop one-percent, like Drake and Kanye, to each different tune within the Milwaukee and Michigan rap scenes, there’s no escape.
To not point out that the best Giannis lyrics exist already. Freddie Gibbs did it finest, in 2019, when he rapped, “Actual Gs transfer in silence like Giannis/My Greek Freak we did a menage in St. Thomas,” stretching a throwaway line right into a vivid picture. And, in fact, I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t carry up BabyTron’s “Jesus Shuttlesworth,” the place he raps, “Had a greater season than Giannis, received my Bucks up.” (Appears out the window wistfully eager about when the ShittyBoyz used to rap on ’80s aerobics class music.) On the floor, that looks as if the form of line I’m ranting about, however, because the mic drop to the apex of Detroit scam-rap, it’s excellent.
For higher or worse, I do know I’m beneath the spell of Hurricane Knowledge’s uplifting singalong “Giannis,” as a result of I’m keen to toss apart all my petty grievances and benefit from the Florida rapper’s soul cleanse. On the hook, one in every of my favorites of this 12 months, the wounded vocalist heartily sings, “Thirty-four, really feel like Giannis/Soiled pole, large as Giannis,” and, despite the fact that I’ve in all probability heard this reworked an infinite variety of occasions, it has by no means sounded higher. Why? As a result of Knowledge, from Havana (a tiny suburb of Tallahassee), fuses the tropical bounce of Florida road rap with the tenderness within the ballads of Southern and Midwestern truth-tellers. And the instrumental—flickering percussion and scattered, Broward County metal drums, merged with slow-mo, virtually G-funk synths—is each melancholic and upbeat on the similar time. It’s all rounded out by Knowledge’s raspy melodies, as he seamlessly toggles between no-frills aggression and lilts that hit like a sunshower.