In 2024, Plaqueboymax became hip-hop’s must-watch streamer

We'll remember 2024 as the year of clipfarming, 12 months when everyone clamored a little too desperately to go viral on livestreams. This is especially, or even disproportionately, true for rappers. Historically forward-thinking when it comes to digital platforms, hip-hop artists have often seemed quicker to adapt to new avenues of engagement than their peers, from DatPiff to Triller and beyond. Previously silly side quests like clowning women during a 20v1 or debuting an On the Radar Radio "freestyle" have since evolved into rites of passage for up-and-coming rappers, fueling memeable moments for everyone from JP to Jorjiana. At their worst, these mini-platforms can feel like glorified marketing agencies, but the deluge of content still offers a semi-representative sample of trending rap music. This inch-deep, mile-wide approach often leaves criticism at the door, but that seems to be what viewers want from these platforms: influencers aren't just peddling exposure, but fan service.

21-year-old Twitch creator Plaqueboymax isn't above this kind of glazing, but his particularly tapped-in taste has made his underground rap livestreams appointment viewing. A recent edition of his Song Wars series (think American Idol for the SoundCloud set) included rappers Bay Swag, 1900Rugrat, and Summrs; previous iterations pulled in everyone from maajins and Molly Santana to YhapoJJ and Rroxket. Beyond the overlap with my personal preferences, these streams feel like raw snapshots of emerging artists, less filtered if not unvarnished.

While some Song Wars are opportunities for artists to debut the best of their unreleased material, others are conducted bracket style, with pairs of rappers given an hour to complete a song to a randomly selected type beat. The former is particularly good for early career artists like prettifun, who left a panel of judges hype but confused with "old heads play this" a couple of weeks ago, while the latter can yield surprisingly compatible results, like Wildkarduno on a Don Toliver type beat. Then there's Plaqueboymax's In The Booth series, where artists record a new song entirely on stream. Earlier editions are more frustrating — Max's skills as a studio engineer have seriously progressed compared to nine months ago — but the insight into how different rappers approach the process is illuminating, even if they're careful to hide their plug-ins.

In no particular order, here are the four best songs that debuted on Plaqueboymax’s stream this year.

For Nino Paid’s second In The Booth appearance, the Maryland rapper serendipitously linked up with teen phenom BabyChiefDoIt. It's not an odd pairing exactly, but much of BabyChief's drill-inspired music seems slightly at odds with Nino's more reflective sensibilities. That contrast is clear when you watch the pair in the booth. Nino punches in slowly, silently mouthing a line over and over until he delivers the take just so, while BabyChiefDoIt prefers to write out his bars as he works through a verse.

It's cool to hear good rappers go back and forth, and the duo hype each other up with abandon. Nino: "BabyChief dropped out of school but youngin still jump out of cars." BabyChief: "Lil Nino get off drugs and stop talking he just dozed off." Nino Paid might be MVP during the first half, but when the beat switches, "COOLN" turns into a BabyChief showcase as he admonishes kids to stay in school and screams "free the opps" so he can catch them lacking outside (no comment).

I admit the Caucasian ambient plugg rapper-turned-Gucci Mane soundalike ian does have a couple of bangers, and even the most adamant ian haters among us have to give it up for his go-to producer sxprano, the PG County-based producer behind a vast swath of the rapper's 2024 discography. The pair's joint In the Booth appearance from early October offers a comprehensive view of how those instrumentals and vocals come together.

Built around warped 808s and an accelerated loop of "ETA" by New Jeans, sxprano's beat seems to kick ian into high gear as he sprints through paychecks and falling out of luxury automobiles with aplomb. While ian's music only occasionally veers self-serious, "ETA" feels refreshingly low-stakes, presumably thanks to its expensive sample, and so a line like "fuck the chains, I threw my advance in some real estate," comes across bougie rather than bourgeois. I'm still unsure if ian has a good album in him, but rest assured he can make a fire song.

While his early summer opus Valentino expanded on the sexy drill stylings of Cash Cobain and Chow Lee, wolfacejoeyy's singles since have leaned more heavily toward R&B. That includes the glacial snap of "nympho," an unreleased song he previewed on Song Wars in August, that seems to channel the hazy atmosphere of PARTYNEXTDOOR or early period Tinashe to hair-raising effect. I find the livestream slightly superior to the official release if only because the chopped-and-screwed sample of "Get Ur Freak On" enhances the mood, akin to how modern movie trailers deploy slowed-and-stripped-down versions of pop songs to build drama. Yet despite Plaqueboymax's giddy exclamation that Joey is "freaky as hell," "nympho" feels less bricked than bereft — I'm reminded of Drake on "The Ride" sighing, "I'm bout to fuck and I'm just praying that it feel good."

Joey doesn't have quite enough gravitas to carve out every emotional detail in his music, but he remains more than capable of launching a song through the strength of his voice alone, brushing over loose storylines with broad emotional palettes.

The definitive Song Wars song. Lazer Dim 700's In The Booth appearance in May yielded my most-played song of the year ("Laced Max"), but it was his second Song Wars appearance in Feburary that seemed to define Lazer’s entire year.

Assigned to make a song in under an hour using an "Asian rock type beat" — as in a subcategory of pluggnb — Lazer came back with this uncharacteristically breezy cut. His typical sound involves detonating bass and chaotic blends (shoutout goxan), but "Asian Rock" is ridiculously smooth, even if Lazer's raps remain as jagged and lo-fi as ever. Separating Lazer from his signature apocalyptic instrumentals makes it easier to focus on his surprisingly varied wordplay, which teases out syncopated rhythms via staccato alliteration and assonance. While he's unlikely to turn around an Ab-Soul-type metaphor, Lazer Dim is a sneakily capable rapper coining novel insults ("Boy you a bitch, you still drink titty milk") and creative warnings ("Try to come spin on this block get your whip dented) on the fly.

And although Lazer would ultimately lose this volume of Song Wars to Jace, "Asian Rock" would subsequently rack up millions of plays on release. (No word if Bloom7k actually got paid for the instrumental.) “Asian rock, what the fuck is that?” Lazer inquires near the end of the track before collapsing into giggles. “Shouts out to the fucking chat.”