Top Tracks Of The Week: July 21-27

This feature highlights a hand-picked selection of some of the bigger tracks of the week. We have chosen a few of the tracks that landed within our top 10 most played, focusing on those that stood out, and left room for discussion.

Once again, this particular feature is cataloguing the most POPULAR songs on the site, for some of the more overlooked tracks, check out Underrated Audio.

This edition of Top Tracks features Wiz Khalifa, August Alsina, Ca$h Out and more. Take a look at the list in the gallery above, and feel free to let us know your own favorite tracks in the comments.

Big K.R.I.T. has plenty of cred, but he's yet to have a true pop moment, which has kept him firmly outside of the top tier of rappers. The rapper could easily continue to make great records as an underground king for the remainder of his career, but it seems he'd like to make that jump to the big leagues, but completely on his own terms. Thus, his stabs at crossover appeal have always been tasteful, but haven't been granted the radio play they deserve ("Just Last Week", which boasted a pretty big Future hook, comes to mind).

"Pay Attention", a new collaboration with Rico Love operates in a similar zone. A mid-tempo, R&B-lead jam, the song incorporates a catchy hook, without sacrificing any of K.R.I.T.'s emotional delivery, and keeping some distinctly southern elements intact as well.

"Cashin' Out" set itself up as a one hit wonder by its lack of differentiation between title and artist, which is too bad, because it should have been the jumpstart to Cash Out's career. It actually arrived about a year too early, when Atlanta only had room for one warbling melody-maker, Future. Since then, we've seen Rich Homie Quan, Young Thug, and the like embraced, while Cash Out has been under-the-radar. Thus, it's great to see the rapper re-emerge with a hit, which he's done with "She Twerkin", which now gets the full all-star treatment. As he has with most crew tracks this year, Boosie really shines on this one.

Nicki Minaj works really well as an R&B feature. Not only can she break out the melodies ("Right By My Side"), but her energy can really accentuate the dynamics in a song (see: her scene-stealing verse on Trey Songz' "Bottoms Up"). On August Alsina's "No Love" (which she describes as her "favorite song right now" in the intro), Minaj instead plays the foil to August, reflecting his melodies interspersed with some rapped bars. Like many Nicki remixes, memory of the original version fades pretty fast.

DJ Mustard is a powerful ally to have these days. It meant YG getting a release date, and subsequently releasing one of the year's best albums, and Ty Dolla $ign becoming the go-to hook singer. Ty also has another powerful ally in Wiz, who he teamed up with last year. The three of them (plus a reinvigorated Snoop) get together on "You & Your Friends", which meets halfway betweem the clubby R&B of "Show Me", and the shout-along anthem quality of "My Nigga". It makes for another strong installment in what is looking to be a comeback of sorts for Wiz.

It's been a while since a video from a completely unknown artist went viral, and Bobby Shmurda's "Hot Nigga" may be the biggest example of such since Trinidad James' "All Gold Everything". Much like Trinidad, Shmurda was signed very shortly after the video dropped, the fact that he was a New York artist, speeding up the process considerably. 

"Hot Nigga" continues to grow in popularity, and Shmurda's label has finally brought the single to iTunes, and will hopefully keep releasing the music, seeing the mishandling of act like Trinidad. This new version of the track fixes up the mastering, but loses none of the intensity we heard (and saw) in the original product. This will definitely sound better on your speakers, but the video may still be the definitive way to consume this.