Ralfy the Plug and The Musalini both owned 2022.

I couldn’t decide whether to put Ralfy or Mus’ name first, but I put Ralfy just because I’m a Drakeo stan. They are two totally different artists, as Ralfy has the same LA/bay sound his brother developed (with his own flavor too), and Mus has an east-coast pimpin’ type of rapping that evokes Roc Marciano, but also sounds very much his own. Both are extremely skilled in their carefully crafted styles. 

Mus started off 2022 releasing an album that should have been on everyone’s top 10 list by end of year, The Don & The Eye with 9th Wonder, who is a top 10 all-time producer for me and many hip-hop nerds. As I mentioned in other posts, I love a good vocal sample, and I believe 9th Wonder is the absolute best producer when it comes to making beats with soul-melting vocal samples. I will also be the first and probably last to say that I thought 9th’s been pretty washed up for like the last decade, as his collab albums had been sounding much worse than his past stuff, so I went into this with low hopes (though 9th did Duckworth for Kendrick and a few other good things over the decade). 9th came with consistent heat on this album and The Musalini sounded perfect over his beats. Then Mus released a full length with Khrysis, who is from 9th Wonder’s camp of producers called The Soul Council, and Khrysis is a legend in his own right. Him and Mus also put out a great album, so Mus was 2/2, then he released a third album in 2022 with his boy Izzy Hott that is also nice, so that’s one top tier album and two great ones in just one year. Godly year.

Ralfy had just lost his brother to start 2022, which had tons of Drakeo fans, myself included, searching for anyone and everyone connected to Drakeo, as all Drakeo fans seem to be obsessed with Drakeo just as I am. So Ralfy noticed that he was picking up IG followers, and decided to honor his brother’s legacy and continue dropping heat, and he even said part of it was to distract himself from his brother’s death. The fans appreciated Ralfy carrying the torch, as he dropped 9 albums in 2022, and I think what he said is 150 music videos or something. Thats like a video every other day almost. Absurd. All of his projects were quality too, though his pop album didn’t really do it for me lol. 

If you enjoy East Coast stylings, you will love Mus. If you lean towards the West Coast, you can’t not like Ralfy. They both are students of the game and masters of their craft. You can tell that they paid attention to the greats before them, but also put in the hours to developer their own flavour. I expect Ralfy to slow down a tad in 2023 because he just went balls to the wall all year long, and I heard Mus has another album coming with 9th Wonder this year. On Mus’ last album he dropped in 2022, the track that stood out most to me was of course a 9th Wonder beat, “Big Monsoon”, which is a MONSTER of a beat. Will be forever tapped into both of these talented fellas. 2022 was actually a great year for rap if you paid attention.

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

About

The Author

I wrote this blog for a few reasons. One is because nobody in my circle of friends ever puts me on to music or things that are dope that I haven't heard about (step your game up friends!) as few people nerd out as hard as me on the dumb things I focus on. The other and main reason is because I am so tired of The NeedleDrop and Pitchfork, from the way Fantano talks about music, to the way that Pitchfork writes about it. Both cause me physical pain to read or watch, yet I for some reason occasionally check their review scores, because they are the only sites I know that do stay on top of music (to a degree), and they focus on genres that I'm not tapped into, so occasionally I find something good. Is it worth the pain? No. So let me save you the pain, by only sharing with you my favorites, and maybe you'll find a new favorite. Oh and I also love talking shit, so I'll do that too, but this blog is about showing love to great art.