10 Essential Mick Jenkins Tracks

The most one-sided exchange of diss tracks in 2015 wasn't Drake vs. Meek Mill. It was Mick Jenkins vs. Vic Spencer. In September, Spencer unexpectedly released a Jenkins diss called "Dick Jerkins." Jenkins then quickly dispatched an overmatched Spencer with his rebuttal, "HeadAss," waxing bars both exquisite and ferocious. Spencer still sort of won because of the publicity he got by getting lyrically assassinated. But still.

The son of a journalist mother, Jenkins, 25, attended college in Alabama before returning to Chicago in 2013 to begin his rap career. He spent a year sharpening his delivery and released The Water[s] in 2014 to universal acclaim. With his technically sound disquisitions on morality and what Emerson called the "transparent eyeball," he stands a somewhat singular figure on the hip hop landscape. His anticipated debut album is due out later this year. He may be on the verge of accomplishing something great.

Click through the gallery to check out 10 of Jenkins' best songs dating back to 2012.

"Value Village" appeared on 2012's The Mickstape, Jenkins' first mixtape ever. (He considers 2013's Trees & Truths his true debut project.) Even before his career "officially" started, he demonstrated a penchant for wordplay and branded himself as an independent thinker with the track's sing-song refrain, "Don't listen/ save money."

Jenkins' Instagram account looks a lot like a J. Crew fall catalogue. It appears that he's always been pretty fashion-forward... on "Peg Cuff and Pocket Tees," his single off the Trees & Truths mixtape he made upon returning to Chicago in 2013, he explains his sartorial philosophy: "Peg cuff with the denim so the socks show/ the nigga 'bout to flood 'em with the flow."

Released at the tail end of 2013, "Martyrs" is the song that first caught the ear of Cinematic Music Group don Jonny Shipes. The video is heavy with imagery related to the song's sample, Nina Simone's "Blood on the Leaves": a noose around Jenkins neck, Doc Martens swaying in the winter forest. "I'm just with my niggas hanging."

In "Jazz," Jenkins aligns himself with several celebrated jazz musicians in order to proclaim his own virtuosity. Thumping one's chest is a central component of hip hop, Jenkin's methods of chest-thumping have always been a bit center of left.

Water=truth. Water=Jenkins metaphor for maintaining purity in a world contaminated by bullshit. But in the "Jazz" video, water becomes a commodity... 

Jenkins and his team mixed and mastered most of The Water[s] to give it a "submerged" feel, "Comfortable" feels like it takes place on a riverside meadow on a sunny morning, with flutes and harps and birds chipping. The song features a verse fromNoName Gypsy, who, like Jenkins, is one of many artists to emerge from the Chicago youth poetry scene.

"Dehydration" features one of several references to ginger ale on The Water[s], but mostly it is about water (truth/inner clarity/enlightenment). From what he'd you have you think, Jenkins is guzzling multiple gallons a day ("piss ain't never been so clear") in contrast to the bulk of the population.

Jenkins accompanied Joey on his 2015 World Domination tour. "Jerome" is heavily indebted to the '90s, with a screaming organ boom bap beat, a Notorious B.I.G. hook, and a slick reference to Jerome, the overconfident ex-pimp in "Martin."

"P's & Q's" is Jenkins' answer to "Alphabetical Slaughter." It's pure alliteration porn:

"I'm pressed and like pests, I'm in every nook and cranny
Your pantry, with some patience your panties
I got patience, it's prevalent in the previous plannings
I been on my P's and Q's, fuck is this? A quiz?"

As David Drake wrote in Pitchfork, Jenkins, "serious and dignified, wears his voice like a Sunday suit." On "Get Up Get Down," he wears his voice more like a sweatsuit. Or maybe it just seems that way because of the music video?

"Your Love" (prod. Kaytranada)

Jenkins wrote "Your Love" based on a recent relationship -- presumably, about the courtship phase. In the video, he busts out all the dance moves in his arsenal in the general direction of his would-be lover. She is unimpressed, and ultimately he has no choice but to shoot her with Cupid's arrow, drive-by style.