Your Winter Rap Playlist: Guest Blogger
If we had to come up with a shortlist of our favorite publications, GQ, Men’s Journal, and New York Magazine would be right at the top. Funny how our latest guest blogger, Martin Mulkeen, has written for all of them. This week, this plugged-in dude is sharing his hard-earned style and grooming lessons. Trust us when we say, he knows what he’s talking about.
Cold weather rap songs typically come in two varieties: cheesy golden era rhymes about St. Nick (see this and this), and frigidly nihilistic dope dealer criminology ballads. Both of which are fantastic! I really love both of these things. But if you’re looking for weather-appropriate hip hop to provide some head-bob to your commute once first frost hits, the corny holiday couplets of rap’s godfathers don’t come with the bleak survivalism you need to harden yourself against the cold. Plus, the holidays are in our rearview now.
The winter rap playlist below has been devised to help you “cook up summer in the winter,” as Kanye once famously boasted he was capable of. Most are pretty literal, with rhymes and titles explicitly about the cold, but others convey winter sonically with warbling violins reminiscent of a wintry mix or synths as crisp as your first taste of air on a February air. Sadly for this California kid, I couldn’t any find a way to include hip hop from the West or the South. They are both, at their cores, sort of defined by warm weather.
“Whatever happened to the summertime cookouts?” Biggie asks on “Things Done Changed.” They’re over, man! Get used to it. Grab some fuzzy warm headphones, put your hood up, and steel yourself for the long winter ahead. And please shout out any good tracks I’ve missed in the comments.
Roc Marciano - “Snow”
Raekwon - “Cold Outside” featuring Ghostface Killah
Jedi Mind Tricks - “Black Winter Day”
Koushik - “Cold Beats” Feat. Percee P
Notorious BIG - “Things Done Changed”
Clipse - “Ride Around Shining” (Feat. Ab-Liva)
AZ - “Mo Money Mo Murder” (Homicide) Feat. Nas
Drake - “Come Winter”
