Song You Need: Papo2oo4 and Monday Night’s debonair “Kurt Rambis”
The smoothest track you’ll hear all day.
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Elizabeth, New Jersey’s Papo2oo4 has the kind of grizzled, cold-to-the-ear voice that you’d expect to hear on a mixtape you copped on Canal Street. On the mic, he’s stern and unflinching, but there’s a jigginess to his cadences and flows that keep him from sounding lethargic. With Subjxct 5’s (also from Elizabeth) nostalgic yet future-looking production backing it, Pap on P.E.D’s, Papo’s newest tape, feels like a training montage complete with rumbling trains and frigid temperatures.
“Kurt Rambis” takes a slight departure from the crossed arms and mean mug that energy most of the tape carries, but its buttery horns and subtle bounce are slick enough to get the dourest person you know to bob their head a little. Richmond’s Monday Night got the memo—his verse moves from bare-knuckled tough talk to girl-stealing DM sliding. Papo’s more subdued here too, sinking into the lush instrumental. “Niggas got fat while we were starving, them niggas down bad now," he raps. Papo and Monday Night sound like this is the first moment of peace they’ve gotten in a while, their breezy verses forming an oasis amidst life’s annoyances. The Lakers could use a backcourt duo as smooth as them.