New Hip Hop music please!

July 3, 2010 8:22 PM

I'm a bit out of touch with hip hop and RnB these days, can you help me make up a couple playlists of recent/current awesome tracks of this ilk?

I love the loud aggressive catchiness of L'il Jon's Outta Your Mind and want to make up a playlist of new music like it, for driving mixtape purposes. Preferences for not overly misogynistic lyrics - hard, no? but I just don't want to be bopping along to songs about bitches.

Also, I love Janelle Monae's Tightrope, newish songs of that oeuvre will balance out the testosterone for me.

Thanks all!

posted by mooza to Media & Arts (9 answers total)

if you have a smartphone, the easiest thing to do is just create a new station on pandora for outta your mind. Pandora is great for stuff like this.
posted by jourman2 at 9:12 PM on July 3, 2010

Response by poster: Ooh! Pandora! Only I am in Australia and they won't let me use it...
posted by mooza at 9:14 PM on July 3, 2010

Songza is now pretty much the same thing as Pandora. Can you access that?
posted by halogen at 9:37 PM on July 3, 2010

For R&B try Estelle's American Boy. I just downloaded Usher's OMG. BOB - I'll Be in the Sky and Grip Your Body (featuring Amy Winehouse). Keri Hilson - Turnin Me On

Hip Hop - How about DJ Khaled - We Taking Over and I'm So Hood
posted by mokeydraws at 9:43 PM on July 3, 2010

Female Hip-hop? She's not quite like Janelle with the genre-mixing, but I *love* Dessa from Doomtree.

Try out:
Dessa - Dutch
Dessa - Children's Work

As a combo of Janelle's use of horns and semi-singing as well as aggressive male rap, check out:
Lloyd (feat. Mystikal) - Set Me Free

On a personal note, "Set Me Free" never fails to make me groove and feel like a badass while driving. ;)
posted by elleyebeebeewhy at 10:44 PM on July 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

Can you access Groove Shark? It's better than Pandora. You can pick what music you want to listen to. Last.Fm and Slacker Radio are also good alternatives to Pandora. Finetune is another one, but I've never used it.

Some suggestions: All I Do Is Win (bunch of people), OMG (Usher), Ridin Solo (Jason ReDulo), Drop the World (Lil Wayne), I Made It (Kevin Rudolf), Imma Be (Black Eyed Peas), Replay (Iyaz), Paper Planes (MIA), Live Your Life (TI), Whatever You Like (TI), Ice Cream Paint Job (Dorrough)

A little less testosterone: Young Forever (Jay-Z), Nothing on You (BOB), Empire State of Mind (Jay-Z and Alicia Keys), Halo (Beyonce)
posted by CharlieK9 at 11:32 PM on July 3, 2010

I second or third Janelle Monae, I also recommend Drake and The Dream.
posted by ryaninoakland at 2:14 AM on July 4, 2010

What I sometimes do when I'm feeling out of touch is go to the Billboard charts, which are now more useful than they used to be, with embedded playability. Neato.
posted by knile at 3:30 AM on July 4, 2010

The new album by The-Dream is a lot delicious. Also, Drake's Thank Me Later. Kelis has a new album called Fleshtone that's dance R&B and fairly solid. And if you're into her (I'm not) Nikki Minaj is having a moment.
posted by heartquake at 9:02 AM on July 4, 2010