Quey B - "No Limit Tank" / "Wise Up"

Nighttime on a Huntington side street, a parked car is illuminated by white overhead lights and the bluish glow of a phone recording the vehicle's occupant pouring his heart and brain into raps. I'm setting the scene for a trickle of tracks that landed on YouTube about six months ago, two of which appear below, all of which are dope in their own right, but really you'd do well enough to check out anything by Quey P aka Darkside Q aka Blueflame Ballers via DistroKid or ReverbNation or wherever you stream your music.

OSP - "One Last Pickle"

You can't spell gherkin without genki: a happy linguistic accident apropos of the song art below, or the kind of thought that only a truly deranged mind can conjure? While you consider that, I'll be once again winding back this King Pickle remix of Ariana Grande's "One Last Time." The appropriately titled "One Last Pickle" features Nicki Minaj elevating Wayne to KRS stature. What a pickle!

Murgolo De ArchiMago - "Psych Eval"

Typically submissions to this website include a song or a longer project possibly accompanied by a brief bio of the artist. Murgolo De ArchiMago submitted what can only be described as a screed attesting his undying love for hip-hop. No music. He asked me to hook him up with a producer. Asked for samples of his work, he followed up with a string of freestyled voice recordings made right there on spot. I put him in touch with a producer. I don't know what came of that. But here's a song he sent out of the blue the other day.

Theravada Hot 97 Freestyle

Speaking of Rosenberg, shout out to that man for allowing this to happen. Theravada recently appeared on the Real Late show on Hot 97, where he spoke about how he got into hip-hop; his recent Earl placement, "Tabula Rasa" ft. the best rap group in the world, Armand Hammer; losing his laptop; and some of his influences (Madlib, Timbaland, Nas, Tribe, Dilla). Then, as captured beginning at the 12:17 mark below, Theravada rapped live on Hot 97. 

Right now, as always, there are awful things happening in the world, but there are also some really great things happening, and, for me at least, this was one of them. "It's not 'Third.' It's not 'The Ravada.' Thank you."

Johnny Storm - Lunafreya

Around the 1-minute mark of "Pneuma," the penultimate song on Lunafreya, when the saxophone comes in, that's the sound of the fucking sky opening up, of the sun's heavenly rays parting clouds like Moses did the Red Sea, of all New York going quiet for a quick second as if to ask, "Oh damn, who's that?" That, my friends, is Johnny Storm, and he's about to channel some shit so slick it could've only come direct from that ethereal plane: "My weakness is kept secret, they might use it against me / So I sent it to a realm where the timing is endless / I tell the waiter add some extra truffle on that spaghetti / Yo fuck juice, all we sip is warm water with lemon let's get it." Lunafreya is Johnny Storm's third album since last October and all three have been among his best to date, but this one is truly special. Rosenburg knows.  

Centa of da Web - Beyond Human Comprehension EP

Execute command. Materialize avatar. Download itinerary. Charge phaser. Open portal. Enter portal. Traverse wormhole. Exit portal. Seal portal. Access itinerary. Pinpoint target. Port pin. Identify target. Execute target. Assess timeline. Identify contamination. Update itinerary.

Want to know what sci-fi-inspired underground hip-hop was like back in the mid-'90s? You don't have to hack autonomous computers sending shooters back in time at the behest of defunct message boards. Atoms Family's Cryptic One dug up a grip of his group Centa of da Web's Beyond Human Comprehension cassettes and CDs, and posted them on his site. You can also name your price below.

Recorded, I believe, in Da Cryptic One's parents' house, this EP sounds like decades of hip-hop's past and future folding in on themselves in a Westbury basement. Peace to Cryp, Molecule and Whichcraft for opening the portal.