The Ones: EST Gee’s “Get Money”
With artists releasing songs at a fast and furious pace, it’s difficult for the average hip-hop head to keep track of it all—no matter how tapped in they are. That’s why we created The Ones, a daily post to highlight the song you need to hear.
EST Gee - “Get Money”
Most people couldn’t even imagine the prospect of rappers in Louisville until Jack Harlow. Yet as he continues to build momentum with the viral hit “WHATS POPPIN,” there is a smaller local movement growing behind another rapper, EST Gee. While the former conquers the charts with a boyhood charm, the latter cultivates trap music to the city. Their paths have crossed a few times, but Gee trades on a no-nonsense brand of hood hustlenomics. His street-savvy, shit-talking rise continues on “Get Money,” a ride-along through the neck of the woods he hopes to flood with product.
So much rap now is about aspiring to take over the whole world, but Gee’s verses find him confined to the streets of his neighborhood, which he mentions by name. In the music video, he and his men are locked and loaded, posted up next to street signs. Through a gruff, insistent voice, his fleet rhymes convey his determination to bring the static back, send stacks via the postal service, and position himself as the premier local trafficker, hoping to eventually make a million on his block. “Action-packed, I think the whole city know that we on it/Hard for him to sleep, his pillow got a hundred Gs on it,” he raps. The menacing, minimalistic key-mashing beat is reminiscent of early Tay Keith productions, and Gee presses into its kick to create a kind of friction. As EST Gee establishes the sound of his Louisville on “Get Money,” he feels like a small-town star.
Check out previous Ones, and listen to new rap from EST Gee and more on our Spotify playlist, Apple Music playlist, and SoundCloud playlist.
Originally Appeared on Pitchfork
