SEARCH FOR: VIDEOS

Hailing from one of the modern-era hip-hop breeding grounds in Toronto, Ontario, Persistence has continued to display his growth independently as his exposure gains numbers and consistency with every release. His latest track “Trench Thoughts” is no exception, and on December 29 he released an accompanying visual shot by Frame Giants, which has already racked up 143K views. The track paints pictures of his views on reality, emphasizing ideas of what it’s like to come from where he’s from and what’s been necessary to make it to where he’s at now. Themes of pain and sacrifice reign prevalent, as his dreary, ominous voice perfectly slides over a key-heavy instrumental. “I went to Paris couldn’t play the Euro league, they couldn’t pay what I was making in the streets.” The visual shot by Frame Giants is a meticulous project, with several professional, cinematic features that make it stand out among competition. It captures Persistence flashing jewelry and posted in front of beautiful whips, with incorporated cutaways of creative framing and transitions that add even more splash. His work is already doing numbers, with all of his videos reaching over 100k views and his most popular “Launch Pad” with over a million. …

Just over a month ago, Detroit’s own Tommy Global released another hit in his new single “Friend Zone,” pairing it with an in-studio visual by Cinimaniacs. I was introduced to Tommy a couple years back when I first started writing for the site, and was instantly impressed with his track “Legacy,” and couldn’t picture anything but a career trending upward for the Detroit phenom. Since then, his numbers have skyrocketed, with “Friend Zone” already reaching 105K views on YouTube in just over a month. The track, roughly two minutes long, has big-time potential. Tommy dipped deep into his bag, with multiple different flows, vocal tones, and a chorus that make this track an immediate addition to hip-hop libraries everywhere. It’s a track that has star-potential, and it’s hard to think Tommy’s audience and viewership will go anywhere but up. His style has a mix of tendencies from some of the industries brightest stars, with hints of Durk coming immediately to mind. Slow-growth and consistency describe his discography thus far with videos and singles getting into the 10s of thousands of streams until recently. Seemingly, the only way now is up, as this video has already doubled his prior-high view count …

In late 2020, I interviewed Hatesonny for the first time and it was a really good conversation, so I just recently brought him back by the LL office for a second interview on The Lemonade Stand. I spoke to Hatesonny about plenty of topics such as his song “Kill Bill”, blowing up on Tik-Tok, his Golden Child project, when he started making music in 2016, meeting nombreKARI, his collective HL, when he was Tumblr famous, the time he ate 12 Popeyes biscuits, what he’s currently working on, and we even dove into some rare footage of him. This interview was even better this time around now that sonny & I know each other better, check it out for yourself below!

It seems like more often than not, I find out about an artist thanks to a feature on a song I had heard long before I realized that an artist blew up and wasn’t just a one-off addition to a record. I feel like this is because artists truly are the best A&Rs, so when they find out about a musician who might not be the most well-known name at the time, they understand their potential and know that they’re going to blow up at some point or another. This is how I first found out about Cochise, because he was included on the song “Right Now” alongside TyFontaine on Internet Money’s super successful debut album B4 The Storm that came out back in 2020, and it was from that very moment that I became obsessed with the Florida-native’s sound and unique style. His words might have been swift and hard to fully understand in the moment at times, but his personality and enthusiasm were two things that latched on to my brain and never let go. Since then, Cochise has blown up more than I expected in the period of time that proceeded that feature, securing a few viral …

In one of the more rambunctious videos to hit our pages recently, Meka Jackson brings his animated persona and musical style to Lyrical Lemonade today with his unique visual for his track “White Li(n)es Monologue.” The Texas rapper unloads his heady and heavy bars over a slow-burning, sample-driven instrumental that is catchy but open enough for him to do whatever he wishes over the rousing beat, produced by J Brav. He looks to highlight the trials and tribulations of drug addiction through this visual, giving a new look on an epidemic that has been eating away at America across numerous generations. Jeff Adair can be credited with bringing this visual to life and I look forward to seeing what else Meka Jackson can create as 2022 rolls on.

Detroit has a surplus of intelligent artists who are paving the way and laying the blueprint for other artists in their city to succeed independently and the duo of Los & Nutty are perhaps the very most hard-working and consistent of the bunch. WB Nutty is back again in our pages with two new visuals over the past couple of weeks around the release of his new project Fuck What Ya Heard that released on Christmas. ShotByBolo brought the striking video to life capturing Nutty’s neighborhood in Detroit through a series of cinematic shots recording Nutty on the move in what is definitely one of my favorite Nutty videos yet, not to mention one of my favorite beats he has gotten on as 4ThousandWatts created an incredibly unique instrumental perfect for Nutty to skate over.  He also released a visual to “Topside Pictures” that I really enjoyed and he certainly always has a surplus of unique, striking characters to accompany him in his simplistic but memorable visuals. The production came from StopFlexingJrdn who has been a consistent force in the Michigan rap scene bringing the best out of many different artists. WB Nutty is an incredibly captivating individual and I cannot wait …

Bay City, Texas rapper That Mexican OT is back in our pages again today and is one of my favorite picks to have a huge breakthrough in 2022 and over the past year has given more than enough evidence of his undeniable swagger and distinct ‘r’-rolling flow and sense of humor. There is something incredibly exciting happening in Bay City and the energy in his videos is undeniable and “Hardest Use Ever” is even more proof. I am continuously impressed by his deep bag of flows and lyrical creativity as well as his consistent musical output and look forward to him hopefully releasing his debut project sometime soon. You will definitely be hearing about That Mexican OT a lot over the next year or two and I look forward to watching the ascension.

PG County, Maryland rapper Tae Dawg has been one of the most exciting voices in an underground scene that has been going cold to a certain degree lately, standing alongside artists like Joony and Lil Gray who continue to keep the equally unique and influential scene moving forwards. With the help of Sparkheem who is both a groundbreaking force in pioneering the distinctive DMV-sound but also uniquely gifted in terms of artist development as he diligently works with each artist he is engaged with, playing a big hand in every aspect of these releases from song structure to rollout. Tae Dawg is making his long overdue today in Lyrical Lemonade with his new project OozinDawg 2 and he much like his collaborator Lil Gray has a seemingly endless bag of flows that range from aggressive staccato bars over harsh hard thumping instrumentals to catchy melodic crooning that to me are equally enjoyable and his versatility is truly what has set him apart on his last two projects that both stuck out as underground gems in their own right. He includes two features coming from DMV rapper Big Flock who has been cultivating a massive cult following of his own over the …

At this point in my career, there aren’t many things I hear that truly make me take a moment to sit back and ingest a song without allowing any sort of impedances or distractions to break up my attention. When I first got into hip-hop music, Odd Future was a group that I legitimately couldn’t get enough of, and whether it was the music, their connection as a collective, their antics, or anything else, I found myself not even going a day without listening to their music or watching their videos. I was fully obsessed, to say the least, and while Tyler, Frank, Hodgy, Mike G, and everyone else in the group were constantly blowing my mind, Earl Sweatshirt was someone who I just couldn’t get enough of. Early on, he was showing exactly how complex and unique his creative process was, but I think the thing that had me addicted was the fact that he did some of the most inventive things in the entire history of music without the bells and whistles, humbly spitting bars that were so intricate that it could take dozens of listens before you fully understood and appreciated a single lyric. As time has …

It’s never easy for even a second losing a loved one, and when one of your favorite artists in the entire world passes away so suddenly, it can truly affect you for years and years. While I know people have differing opinions about posthumous releases considering the talent themself isn’t here to give their final stamp of approval, I for one am okay with it because when they put their all into their music as Juice WRLD did, you know that it’s always something that should be available for fans to witness and learn from. Juice was the definition of an absolute superstar, and if that wasn’t obvious during his time here on Earth, it should be now after seeing the massive success his projects have seen, an entire HBO documentary, and simply the unforgettable legacy he built as well as the mark he left on every single one of his fans. Juice was one of a kind, obviously, and when his team released his album Fighting Demons which boasted 18 songs lasting almost 55 minutes long and features from other talents like Justin Bieber, Polo G, Trippie Redd, and more. It’s sad knowing that we won’t get too much …