Every week, a different FADER editor compiles a playlist to highlight a new release and give you a guide to that artist’s web of influences and peers. These Staff Selects live in our Spotify app, alongside GEN Fs from our archives and playlists for each issue. Today, it’s Naomi Zeichner on bewitched, rainy-day rap.
After Pusha-T released his new single "Pain," produced by Kanye West and featuring a particularly bluesy vocal from Future, he tweeted, "Pain= Witchdoctor Gospel Flow." West's beat is seething and (by his own standard) stripped-down, its minimal hand-drums punctuated by gunshots and pounded keys, making space for Pusha's disgust and Future's flatly plaintive hook. Here's a collection of tracks that share the track's production and spiritually agonized tone: West's own Auto-Tune warble over stiff snares on "Amazing," Witchdoctor pray-singing over rumbling bongos on "Mercy," relentlessly bleak rap ballads from Boosie and Z-Ro and, finally, the comforting, steadfast chants of The Congos' on "Happy Song," from Icon Give Thank, their collaborative album with Sun Araw and M. Geddes Gengras. Honorable mention for South Carolina's Alpoko Don, whose spare and raspy "Get My Paypa Dog" isn't on Spotify, but would sound nice here.
Staff Selects Playlist: Witchdoctor Gospel Flow
