50 songs i liked in 2025

ebk jaaybo “fuck everybody” / monaleo “we on dat” / pluto & yk niece “whim whamiee” / jt “girls gone wild” / jermaine dupri ft. bankroll ni, bunna b, j money, & sean p “magic city money” / mello buckzz “uh oh” / mike mike & yonaa “i got something for you” / ezale “hang wit them” / funnymike “bust it like londyn” / ice spice “big guy”

p-lo “no hook” / sunny lou & 414bigfrank & run along forever “there it is” / mighty bay ft. tisakorean, number9ok, & three “lumberwork” / kp skywalka “bussin” / tha hot girls “we on fire” / juvenile “party” / bruiser wolf ft. curren$y “connect four” / babyface ray ft. samuel shabazz “1 on 1 talk with god” / payroll giovanni “get money & mind my business” / paul wall & dj fresh “riding with the top down”

rockout danny, g herbo, & vonoff1700 “how to bip” / baby mel “have my child” / youngboy never broke again “cash shit” / luhh dyl “be foreal” / lelo “forever in a day” / lil tony “never be broke” / nino paid “what if we made it” / mexikodro “hurt” / starlito “lt. dan” / anycia “dive in”

slimesito “ask me bout my fit” / tm88, sosojuicy, & strap da fool “i want that” / zeelooperz & real bad man ft. boldy james “hansel & gretel” / fly anakin ft. quelle chris, silkmoney, & big kahuna og “my n****” / calico ft. khris p & taylar elizza beth “can i get paid” / seiji oda & trunk boiz “no fillins 2” / hook “life before her” / slick rick “spirit to cry” / kurious “cloud nine” / de la soul “the package”

skaiwater “feral” / earl sweatshirt “tourmaline” / zukenee “in the woods” / eem triplin “if i wanted to” / pig the gemini “change your mind” / tems “big daddy” / jenevieve “head over heels” / summer walker “spend it” / zayallcaps “pimp my ride” / 1100 himself “rip brownsville ka”

my vision for this post was to list these songs and write a movie capsule but i stumbled across a truffaut quote that shook me: everyone in the world has two jobs, their own and film critic. movies are inherently populist, and the industry encourages us to see every movie, transforming movie-going from cultural consumption into something like testing tap water for pathogens. i enjoy thinking about movies because even difficult movies are "easy" and i don't mean to say i have a big brain but rather the barrier to entry to film criticism is nonexistent which is why so many people (including myself) do it. i don't have a lot to say about marty supreme (bad) the moment (good) all that heaven allows (perfect) chungking express (worth the wait). i guess i don't want to just report lead levels down to parts per million.

what is special about what i do if writing is everyone's second job? truffaut famously crossed the critic-to-artist bridge. i'm not soft-launching a novel here but thinking about next steps. with ai threatening to make writing even more disposable the pressure to create something meaningful and substantial away from the discourse treadmill hasn't left me.

in the past when writer-on-writer discourse would flare up a part of me was motivated by jealousy. i should be writing that. i want to be writing that. that's gone now. now i very much don't want to be writing that. i don't want to be the main character of discourse. i loathe discourse because it's relentlessly circular, and in a few steps we go from high-level thinking about a topic to name-calling. instead of responding to inspiration, discourse is reactionary. i don't want to be a reactionary. in the sea, i want to be a ship.

i'm struggling with the nba this season. the rockets are frustrating, carried by a player i've never connected to in 15+ years who is seemingly a bad teammate with troubling off the court endeavors. games with digital ads on the court, incessant gambling propaganda, and gimmicky telecasts are disorienting. this isn't even touching the blaring volume of nba media which operates on a spectrum that swings violently from patriarchal "we are the nba cops who can fix this non-broken thing" to outdated "i love this game!" boosterism. the observations about the association i value the most are whatever comes through the group chat and delayed musings from my friend on the west coast, a father of two who holds spiritual patience for jabari smith.

the things i've counted on to inspire me haven't stopped inspiring me but i have less to say about them than before. reporting on these interests feels passe when everything is free, streaming, available, make up your own mind, pay $5 a month to make up your mind, the economy is about to burst trends will be dead next week you will never own a home. we are too overwhelmed by things to consider worlds beyond materialism. i don't want my vocation to be defined by consumer reporting. what am i contributing? who is my ideal thinker?

i'm trying to grow the passion in a time when every consumer experience has degraded to a degree it's easier to turn away than dig in. my ability to write critically about music disintegrated once i figured out "the formula" during my freelance era and i haven't felt a call to return to writing that way, hence years of long-winded blogposts. writing brings me a lot of anxiety but i don't feel anxiety when i listen to music. i have lived in this tension for so long–trying to create something meaningful in response to the thing i find the most meaning in–that i don't know how to cope without tension. what i can only assume to be a semi-apocryphal truffaut quote rocked me. i simply want to tell you about the things that i find meaning in and i hope that means something for you. in this, i am slightly delusional–but ultimately i want you to understand me.