Am I officially into grime right now? That depends, who makes it official? Are there visa concerns? Do I have to know anything about it? Is it more like, an idea or something? All these questions and more answered next time I post a grime track.

Holler at this sh*t right here. You're going to need a favorite uk emcee, might as well start looking around.

Oh man, this is my type of sh*t right here. When given the option I usually end up throwing something like this on and reveling in the orgasmic feeling of staying on the line between smiling and weeping. You should try it, it's fun AND depressing. I couldn't decide if I liked this live version better, but I might. If you watch it, pay attention to that mic combination they got going on. I don't know the mics or anything but you can tell by the shapes that whoever set it up knows what's up. This song was also in that nigerian movie I saw, which was both kind of surprising and also a reminder that I didn't know sh*t about the state of nigerian film.

*edit from 2025 - that live version is fucking amazing. i definitely prefer it.

I'm going to officially start checking for stizz regularly, this motherf**ker is nice. I'm also looking forward to getting a new perspective on boston. If you're from around here (montreal) you know what the average boston dude interaction is like. If you're not from around here, allow me to explain that sh*t. Out here the drinking age is eighteen, so every weekend certain parts our city are swarmed with obnoxiously wasted bostonian white guys with polo shirts and military-style haircuts failing to pick up women and deciding that fighting in the streets is almost as good. It's not homie, it's not! In fact, now that I think about it, and also for the sake of narrative closure, I've seen quite a few of them get their bells rung.

Sacramento living legend right here. The dude on the right in that thumbnail looks hella f**ked up. His eyelids are looking real heavy.

Let me tell you what my favorite sh*t is. I love when a hook sounds kind of funny the first time it runs. You're just not entirely sure about it you know. It's sort of on the verge of being dope but there's something a little bit strange about it. And then then it rolls around a second time and boom that motherf**ker bangs and somehow you know all the words already. I love that sh*t.

This is some vintage lana del rey right here. California! Now with 808's! Remember when lana del rey dropped during that "indie" boom? She had those video's that she purportedly made herself on her macbook with found footage and photobooth or whatever, but then it came out she was on a major label and all the nerds felt so betrayed? hahahaha. I read a year or so ago about the person who actually made those video's, I forget who though. I'm not a video dude. Then again I've always been a sucker for some slow over exposed stuff so I do dig this one. Supposedly that's father john misty as the main fella there. Whoever father john misty may be.

I've been having lots of conversations about timbaland recently, which believe me, is as unusual for me as it is for you. There's been conversations about his merits as a rapper (divided opinions), conversations about his contribution to pop music (more than anyone has the right to ask for), to one particularly uproarious laughing fit with my lady centered around the difference in his attitude from jermaine dupri (jermaine's all about getting respect for what he's done, timbo's more like "fuck everything I've done, I'm dope now!"). While all that was going on timbaland actually went reinvented himself. This sh*t is dope. I don't know where these dudes are from but they're seriously old school atl flowing like a motherf**ker on here; And I wasn't really watching the video but judging from the thumbnail, yeah timbo is still making those faces.

Twenty sixteen baby! I'm utterly flabbergasted by this and frankly I love them for it. Notice weezy in the ovo sweatsuit. You have to respect the way weezy supported drake, assuming he hasn't "baby'd" him of course.

All girl RnB groups were my jam in the nineties. After reading a bunch of favorable reviews for King's debut record it occurred to me that there really hasn't been an RnB girl group* that's not a bunch of cornballs post Destiny's Child. That's a long f**king time. Quest loves em, Erykah loves em, Prince loves em. I haven't gone too deep* but this video/song is dope though. I could see myself dancing to this at an afterhours party, slightly on the comedown, drifting in and out of hating and loving somebody. A+ for the Nintendo inspired visuals, reminds me of the hours I put into making Excitebike courses. Ramp after ramp after motherf**kin’ ramp.

Editor's Note: Did you hear this one? This sh*t is amazing.

I have no idea where I came across this right here but this sh*t is a heat rock as your mother allegedly used to say. All I know is that he's from arkansas and he's got a f**king hilarious moniker. These guys have to be on tour in this video, that's pretty much what our first canadian tour looked like. Except we had a bunch of south americans with us and everybody looked dead from consumption and sleep deprivation.

It's no secret that we here at hella.diamonds would all list Peedi Crakk in our Top 5 DOA. This opinion is supported by his inspired performances on some of the illest mixtape and radio freestyles ever recorded. It's been a minute since he's released anything new, stating in a recent-ish interview that he needed to step away from the game for awhile to take care of his family and grow up a little. Until that sorts itself out, whenever I need some grimy percocet rap, I'm in the archives. That's how I found...

THIS.

If rap had an all-star league with starting fives comprised of the top 5 rappers from each city, Peedi, Beanie, Black Thought, Meek Mill and Freeway would probably take Philly to the conference finals. Maybe win a ring or two with Big Willie Style behind the bench. Imagine if that was the lineup for State Property 2016? Someone get Dame on the phone. Until then this is the closest it'll get.

I was in Jamaica recently and I kept seeing these anti-payola commercials on the local TV channels at the hotel. It makes you wonder when you look at the reggae charts and see that most of the joints take a long time to hit their peak and tend to stick around once they do. This song has been out for 7 months and is currently RISING on the Dancehall singles charts. Even if Donald Sangster had anything to do with it, shit's fire. Props to my man at 0:53 splitting up the takeout container. You got the right attitude kid. On another note, I once met a white guy* named Jahmiel in Alberta. He smoked hash oil and said that all of his days "started with a J and ended with a meal".

*Editor's note: Lebanese?

This is my favorite song from vince's last album. It's the first joint on the LP which kind of sucks. I mean the first joint being the best joint is a downer, where are we going from here and all that, know what I mean? I got to tell you though, I like a young dude making the remarks about white people and the word nigga. These young people really stay trying to convince us something's different and we don't get it, like no lil' nigga, you don't get it!