18.
Quarter Water Raised Me, Vol. 2
Bas
J. Cole‘s rise to rap and pop prominence this year opened the public’s eyes to his direct understudy, Queens, NY native Bas. Bas has been releasing music for years but the second installment in his Quarter Water Raised Me series is an intimate, extended journal entry, very reminiscent, thematically, of what J. Cole was able to accomplish with his breakout mixtape The Warm Up. The best thing Bas has going for him is his delivery: it’s refined, and it makes a large majority of this mixtape sound radio ready. “Lit” and “Love Souvenir” utilize R&B samples but the verses are void of melody. He’s able to dance around a plethora of sounds without changing his style too much to suit them, and that’s a veteran thing.
