Certified Fresh

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What up, Hip-Hop Wired Nation? We’re back on our biweekly schedule with 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.

One thing about doing a playlist is that it’s really tough to keep up with the glut of new music that comes out weekly and it doesn’t help that a lot of artists exist in their own ecosystems and social spaces online that discovering all the gold out there is difficult. That said, we believe in the art of (digital) crate digging because there is so much good music out there that we want to make sure we’re always highlighting.
We updated the playlist last Friday (Jan. 27) and tried our best to include other joints we missed in the last part of 2022 and early 2023. We’re pretty sure there are joints that should be here and we hope that someone reading this takes notice and puts us on to the new. Now, on with the show.
We open up this week’s playlist by honoring the life of Lola “Gangsta Boo” Mitchell, who passed away at the top of the year. The path Gangsta Boo laid for other women rappers from the south cannot be denied and her time in Three 6 Mafia solidified her place in the annals of Hip-Hop. We added GloRilla’s “FTCU” to round out the brief tribute, which features Gangsta Boo and further proves how vital Memphis is to the culture.
Keeping it in Memphis, Finesse2Tymes joins forces with Tay Keith for the track “Still With It” and Metro Boomin’s solid compilation HEROES & VILLIANS is packed with several songs we could’ve chosen for the list but we went with “Feel The Fiyaaaah” featuring A$AP Rocky and the late Takeoff.
DJ Drama is back on his Gangsta Grillz grizzly, and his tape with Icewear Vezzo, Paint The City, is another strong entry in the catalog. Joining Vezzo on “Trippin” is 2 Chainz in a scene-stealing turn. Again, we head back down to Memphis with the late Young Dolph and Key Glock joint “Thats How” from the rapper’s posthumous album, Paper Route Frank.

Back to Gangsta Grillz, French Montana’s Coke Boys 6 gets the mixtape treatment, and the track “RZA” features Black Soprano Family honcho Benny The Butcher in top form per usual.
It’s always dope to hear DJ Premier’s production and the legend lends his talents to the vocals of Seattle’s Macklemore on his track HEROES from his forthcoming album, Ben. And for those listeners of a certain age, the news that De La Soul’s catalog is coming to streaming services was huge. The veteran trio’s “The Magic Number” is the first of many tracks to come and we can’t wait.
Salute to the likes of Privaledge, Armani White, Denzel Curry, Cordae, Anderson .Paak, Russ, Styles P, Rasheed Chappell, 38 Spesh, Ty Farris, Mickey Diamond, YUDU featuring Godsilla, Eto, Oddisee, Poe Mack, Van Gunz, Mourning Run, Radio B, Ray Vaughn and more.
Check out the playlist below.

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Photo: Getty