Underrated Audio: January 24 - January 30

Underrated Audio aims to provide you with some dope looks from the last seven days that flew under most peoples' radars. While they may have received front-page placement on HNHH, they didn't get as many views as they deserve, so we shine a little more light on them right here.

Big Sean eclipsed basically everyone this week, with his new single "Blessings" featuring Drake and Kanye West. The only rapper who he did not eclipse, maybe, was Meek Mill, who had his own triumphant comeback with "B-Boy" (but hey, that featured Big Sean too, and A$AP Ferg). Nonetheless, give some love to the smaller guys, from the return of Charles Hamilton to producer Shlohmo.

This past week we introduced to soft-spoken rapper Jimi Tents. He may be soft-spoken but he’s still got something to say, which is obvious from the socially-conscious topics he touches on on “Elmer Fudd.” Jimi’s casual flow is matched with a mellow beat from Sedroc and a vocal assist from Moxie Raia. This song, along with the fact that Jimi has been working with Chance The Rapper affiliate Nate Fox, is enough to have us check out his debut project, whenever it should drop.

So far, a lot of Zach Farlow’s music has been a hit or miss for me. He dropped off two tracks this past week which fall in line exactly: one was a definite miss, but this one was a definite hit. The Atlanta-based rapper gets his melodic mumble on over dope production from Metro Boomin’. The Trae feature is just an afterthought here, as Zach truly shines on the cut. It’ll be interesting to watch the trajectory of Zach’s career

Charles Hamilton?! Yeah, the “Brooklyn Girls” rapper is finally back. The rapper probably experineced his height of fame around 2008-2009 when “Brooklyn Girls” initially dropped, but after falling off the map for a bevy of weird reasons, the rapper’s career came to a full stop. Charles has tried to regain his footing once or twice, but nothing has really stuck. Will “Correct” see him return to music fully? It’s definitely a good starting place, as he spits some introspective (and outrospective) raps over smooth production.

Let’s take a break from the rappers to highlight the inimitable Shlohmo. The producer announced a new album, Dark Red, this past week, and with it we got the complex single “Buried.” Much like the title, the instrumental becomes buried in layers throughout the course of the song.  Shlohmo really knows how to let the beat build, starting off with slow-moving synths and then dragging us deeper and deeper into his world.

Kaytranada and Vic Mensa have collaborated in the past to much success (“Wimme Nah”), and they imitate that success again with “Drive Me Crazy.” While Vic handles all the vocals (he does a bit of singing and a bit of rapping) for producer Kaytranada, the funky and sporadic beat is still the highlight. Just when you think it’s over, we get a guitar solo outro. These two should team up for a full collaborative project.