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Pitchfork writer Alphonse Pierre’s rap column covers songs, mixtapes, albums, Instagram freestyles, memes, weird tweets, fashion trends—and anything else that catches his attention.

On February 29, at the Gramercy Theatre in Manhattan, the marquee for one of Ot7Quanny’s first headline shows read “SOLD OUT,” and the line wrapped around the block. Content creators were out in full force, and, as happens with most hyped-up rap shows these days, it was mostly teenagers in Denim Tears sweatsuits and Nike Shiestys. The venue worker handing out 21+ wristbands could have kicked up his feet and had a beer.

To get a sense of his hype, Ot7Quanny is the kind of rapper who sells out a venue in NYC off the juice of a mixtape that doesn’t even exist yet. You can count the solo tracks he released last year on one hand. He constantly teases a project and new songs on Instagram and then disappears without actually uploading anything. Blow enough hours on YouTube and SoundCloud, and you might find some unreleased songs and muffled snippets. Fans moan and swear and beg in his comment sections. And he still might be the hottest street rapper on the East Coast.

It’s not exactly novel for a musician to use scarcity to build enthusiasm and build a mythology—the Weeknd went from free downloads to the Super Bowl halftime show—but it’s unique to have so much buzz around a punchline rapper from Philadelphia, one of those cities where being called a punchline rapper is actually an honor. Quanny has a battle-rap flow that recalls other fly-yet-roughneck rappers from his hometown like Schoolly D, Beanie Sigel, and Meek Mill, but his sound is no throwback. The way he stitches together groans, mumbles, and faded-out bars reminds me of the more oddball, meandering sides of Chief Keef and Veeze. And he keeps up with the new wave of hardened Philly rap, full of hustling and hoops references and ghoulish, gothic beats. The combination makes for a style that is engrossingly big and cinematic, while also feeling like you’ve been dropped into his neighborhood, an effect that reminds me of listening to old Dipset mixtapes.

At the show, I met one bracefaced, shaggy-haired blonde boy—couldn’t have been older than 14—who drove up from Baltimore with his dad. They were both shivering in the cold, but pumped up. “All of his teammates are so jealous,” the dad, who is also his son’s basketball coach, said. “Quanny is all the team plays; we got a squad of goons.” The kid piggybacked off his father. “Yeah, I even made my ball mixtape to ‘Dog Talk,’” he revealed, before going into a spiel about his favorite leaks.

By 7:30, the venue was stuffy and stale. Without much else to do, a friend and I approached one of many NYPD detectives lining the wall at the back of the room. I’d assumed the officers were there for Ot7Quanny’s rumored guest DThang, a rising Bronx drill rapper who was released from prison on parole in January, and the detective confirmed he was with a branch of the department’s Intelligence Division known as the Enterprise Operations Unit—but really called the Rap Unit. In bright spirits, he gave us the rose-tinted lowdown on life as a hip-hop cop: “Yeah, we’re just looking out, you know, people think we shut down all these shows, but we don’t even have that power,” he said. “We know all the rappers and even have meetings with labels all the time.” My friend and I gave each other a glance to signal what we were both thinking: This guy is full of shit.

As 7:30 turned to 8:30 and 8:30 turned to 9:30, the excitement waned. I could feel everyone coming to terms with the fact that the show might be a pump fake. Hope came briefly in the form of a set from fellow Philly rapper NR Boor, but that lasted only 10 minutes.

Soon after, Quanny’s official DJ was up on stage killing time. He spun a set of Hot 97 favorites that made the zooted-out teenagers only more pissed off. After a while, the venue cut his music, and he stomped and shouted at someone behind the curtains. It seemed as if the night was getting cut short. The silence at least gave the crowd space to bellyache and boo. Hordes of teens headed for the doors, probably to catch the train back to Jersey. Screams of “This shit is not happening, nigga”; “What a waste of fuckin’ money”; “Bro, what’s so hard he only got like six songs, damn.” It was basically Quanny’s IG comments brought to life.

Then, suddenly, without warning, Quanny hit the stage with a toddler in his arms, rolling about 35 deep. DThang was the hype man. The venue lit up with phone lights. Energy in the building was instantly high even if it probably would have been even higher two hours earlier. He jumped straight into rapping “Write a Book” and “OK OK.” One line that was rapped particularly hard by the crowd was “Pull up for the three, I won’t miss it, I am not Ben Simmons.” Not too many Nets fans in the room, I guess.

Since it was one of his first performances, he was mostly able to coast on mystique, but he still kept up with his backing tracks just fine. Sometimes he would shut his eyes when he rapped a punchline, and a lyric that I have heard him say before sounded new and so much more vivid when it echoed throughout the room. I wish he matched the sinister, ghostly sound of the beats with moodier lighting or a more solitary stage presence. But the bar is low! All that mattered was that it felt as if he were the coolest guy in the room.

For over an hour, Quanny bounced between unreleased and official tracks doing most of them several times because what the hell else was he going to do? Leaks like “Bryce Maximus” and “Chicken Little” got the rap-a-long treatment; a group of teenagers in front of me held onto each other like they were in a haunted house as they recited every word. In between songs, Quanny either mumbled or went up to the DJ to try to figure out what to do next. “Just go on YouTube,” I could hear him say at one point. It was all unplanned and messy, but nobody was too pressed about it. Ot7Quanny was actually here and rapping. That was good enough.

**Snoop Dogg’s new bargain-bin sports movie, The Underdoggs, is so bad that it’s bleak**

A better title for The Underdoggs, the latest Amazon Prime Video movie clearly made for you to glance at while you scroll your Instagram feed, would have been Bad News Doggs. At least that would have been a little funny! The Underdoggs, as you might guess, unashamedly rips off all the American movies that came before it about washed-up outcasts who find their lives reborn by coaching a down-on-their-luck youth sports team (Bad News Bears, The Mighty Ducks, etc.), which is fair game since those aren’t exactly unique and untouchable masterpieces.

Here, Snoop Dogg stars as Jaycen “Two Js” Jennings, a disgraced NFL legend (he smacked a little white kid) who hosts an unpopular podcast that he dreams will lead to a gig on sports talk television. Next, they’re going to get the guy who did King Richard to do the same thing about Stephen A. Smith’s dad. He gets in trouble with the law for some reason that I wasn’t really paying attention to and is sentenced to community service in his hometown of Long Beach, which he has neglected for over two decades.

Back in Long Beach he meets an old flame (Tika Sumpter) and attempts to rebuild his image by coaching a losing football team full of potty-mouthed rascals. But, guess what? These kids aren’t the losers… he is. We don’t get to know the kids all that well, but he gives them nicknames like “Titties” and “Pretty Boy.” He builds a bond with the brats that softens him, all while preparing the team to face off against his rival, Chip Collins, a parody of real-life sports talk television star Skip Bayless played by the miserably unfunny comedian Andrew Schulz.

Taking all this for what it is, The Underdoggs isn’t doggshit because it’s cliche, just that it’s cheap. For a movie that hardly requires any special effects, so much of it feels like it might as well have been filmed in front of a green screen. Even the mansion where Two Js lives feels like an ugly Airbnb the studio rented out for a weekend. (I watch rap videos shot on smartphones daily that are more visually striking—in setting and cinematography.) Disappointing considering that it is directed by Charles Stone III, who is forever stamped in Black culture for releasing Paid in Full and Drumline in the same year. No, I wasn’t expecting Snoop Dogg’s rated-R Amazon MGM Studios comedy to be a prestige or passion project, but, damn, at least try to fool me into believing I’m not watching an #ad. (The Raising Cane’s CEO, Todd Graves, shows up in a cameo.) I know this is just a bargain bin streaming sports flick, but it’s hard not to come away thinking about anything else other than all of these studios, CEOs, and celebs are laughing at us while they count their money. Snoop scored another hit.

Balenci02: “Trending”

Balenci02’s majestic, blown-out beats are what I imagine it’s like to stand in the eye of a hurricane: chaotic and supernatural and strangely alluring all at once. It’s a mystery that anyone can rap over them, but some like Fucksnowrr, Sai, and Balenci02 himself understand how to catch the bumpy grooves. On “Trending,” Balenci’s voice is a cloud of smoke floating through clashing drums and synths like shimmering cartoon crystals. Similar to Massachusetts rapper-producer Devstacks, Balenci’s grand style owes a lot to old Chief Keef tapes like Back From the Dead 2, but it’s no ripoff. He uses the influence as a jumping-off point, landing on a sound that’s as otherworldly as it is swagged the hell out.

Anysia Kym: “#71 (Again and again)”

Last year on Pressure Sensitive, singer and producer Anysia Kym’s collab tape with UK underground cornerstone Jadasea, the duo landed on a frantic sound that felt like stumbling around faded at the rave (check out my favorite, “Hard2sey”). In comparison, Anysia’s new single “#71 (Again and again)” is laid-back, with featherweight melodies like voices in the wind and a grainy beat perfect for longing. She doesn’t say a whole lot—the song is brief and the lyrics repetitive, like a memory she just can’t shake. The part I can’t get enough of is Kym’s recurring tease of a drum’n’bass breakdown—as the former drummer of NYC band Blair, percussion is her bag—that seems like it could shoot into the next gear at any second but never does.

Cash Cobain and Bay Swag: “Fisherrr”

Back in the mid-2010s, there were particular rappers who built their mythos around leaks and low-quality snippets—Young Thug and Playboi Carti, specifically—but now pretty much everyone plays that game. If a rapper has a fanbase, then it’s almost a guarantee that there is also a frenzied black market for unreleased songs and ripped Instagram previews. It’s so overwhelming that these days I don’t consume music as much this way.

Cash Cobain and Bay Swag’s “Fisherrr” has been the exception. I knew pretty much every word weeks before it was released, shuffling around several 15-to-20 second snippets until they fit like a tangram. It was because of Cash Cobain’s beat, dreamy yet jerky, the kind of slow-building rhythm that makes you want to fantasize about the last person you flirted with. Then there’s Cash and Bay Swag’s killer back-and-forth. The two Queens boys sweetly—and very provocatively—blur the lines between thirst and romance, from the backhanded compliment on the opening line to Cash calling a girl thick in a way only someone who grew up in the Caribbean enclaves of New York would: “And yo’ ass fat I know you eat your rice and your cabbage too.” This all happens before the beat even drops, which takes nearly two minutes and sends the song into another gear of debauchery. The leaks and snippets and blurry TikTok clips didn’t do it justice.

Tonn2Lit: “Trappa of the Year”

From the first listen, the digital bounce of D.C. rapper Tonn2Lit’s “Trappa of the Year” had me nostalgic for spacey ATL trap gems like Mike Will’s joints on Future’s Pluto and Hoodrich Pablo Juan and Spiffy Global’s Master Sensei. Trap music has long been a major influence on the street anthems of the DMV, and that feels even more true lately. (Listen to MoneySet’s Free Tall Set Got You or Baby Jamo’s Backdoor Con Artist and tell me otherwise.) As for Tonn2Lit, he had a moment a couple of years ago with a run of no-frills DMV crank that hit like a battering ram. The bleeps and bloops on “Trappa of the Year” add some new sauce to his hot-blooded yet routine dope-dealing rhymes. “Servin’ white girl to a cracker” is a fine enough bar that I’ve heard rapped a zillion different ways, but it sounds so much better on a beat that is the pummeling DMV sound gone virtual.