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I’m terrible at this sport betting thing huh? Lol

Ippei Mizuhara

"A few years ago, Dejan Milojević, who coached Jokić when he played for Mega Basket, a team in Belgrade, told Sports Illustrated about a drill he used to run with his players. A big man would catch the ball, then either pass or try to score, depending on the number of fingers—odd or even—that an assistant coach, standing on the sidelines, was holding up. The drill was meant to speed up the players’ decision-making. Jokić was so good at it that Milojević enlisted two assistants to stand on opposite sides of the court; Jokić was required to look at each of them, calculate the total number of fingers the pair were holding up, and then, based on whether the number was odd or even, make his move. Jokić could do this, too, Milojević said."

The New Yorker, How Nikola Jokic Became the World's Best Basketball Player

"'A perfect man,' Jokić called [Dejan Milojević], in 2022. 'When I grow up,' he added, 'I would like to be like Deki.'"

The New Yorker, How Nikola Jokic Became the World’s Best Basketball Player

"I wanted to call Bill Walton, who I knew would be watching the game at home, in California. In his prime, Walton was the N.B.A.’s best-passing big man. He’s had a second act as a basketball romantic who offers commentary on the game in the manner of Walt Whitman rhapsodizing about a commute to Manhattan. After I got him on the phone, we watched Jokić hit a shot over a Bulls defender, off one foot, falling away from the basket. Walton yelled, 'He blooms like a rose, or cascades like a waterfall!' Later, a particularly nice pass to a teammate ahead of the action got him shouting about Jokić again: 'He’s like the Arkansas River coming down off Independence Pass!'"

The New Yorker, How Nikola Jokic Became the World's Best Basketball Player

RICE is dead; long live RICE [2020 list P.2]

This song convinced me that I needed a Rylo album in my life; after listening to Rylo album, I think I was just too turnt on Lil Baby. While we’re on the topic of Rylo, I’d like to give the man his props for coming close to the crown for “Most Horrifying Goat-Related Album Art of 2020.” Here’s the [TRIGGER WARNING] winner.

The first time I heard this song, I sent a group iMessage that said: “this shit got me dancing like i’m drunk, but i’m supposed to be working.” It was mid-day on a Friday.

Bring back the chopped-and-screwed outros on hip hop songs. Also, this beat sounds like it belongs in a horror movie soundtrack, so much so that I convinced myself that Metro Boomin made it. (I’m an idiot; he didn’t.)

This is what I’m talking about when I say “horror movie soundtrack.” Have Metro produce every song.

The producer who made this beat is also a genius. The part where there’s a weird little war cry in the beat and the bass drops out is inspired af.

RICE is dead; long live RICE [2020 list P.1]

The favorite album cuts of the year list is coming early this year, because we’ve got more in store. 12/29

I’m now “producers sample songs I grew up to”-years old. I wasn’t going to include this song until I was updating my workout playlist and deciding whether or not to take it off, and only then realized I knew every word. Well played, Mr. Boogie with the Hoodie.

2020 turned me into a huge Sheff G fan. So much so that I was going to break my own rules and include single MOODY here instead of this song. But I like to imagine that instead of naming this song because he probably wrote the bars in Notes, he called it this because he writes himself reminders that say things like BITCH I TALK TO DEMONS.

I listen to D Block Europe for one type of song, and one type of song only. I imagine lots of people do, and DBE knows this, which is why one of their later singles for their album was this. But then they filled the other 27 songs on a *28* song album with songs that did NOT sound like this.

Here’s where we get to the “Songs that are so deeply South” section of the list and risk alienating a lot of people. A quick taste before we get too esoteric—this track is so goddamn Memphis, I’m guessing Young Dolph had a strong influence here given that Trapboy Freddy is actually from Dallas.

And, as promised, a brief interlude. If we’re name-calling, is Blxst a rapper? Is he an R&B singer? Will I ever be able to read the words “It was a midnight gang slide” without using Blxst’s exact tone ever again? He does need to work on his dancing/rap hands though.

It's been a long time. I shouldn't have left you. [2019 list P.3]

Fact loosely related to this absolute banger. Do you know how bad you have to fuck up a music video with copious amounts of slow motion and bikers 12’o’clocking for it to not be an instant classic? TJ Porter knows.

Young M.A. will probably never make a song that I love to death more than OOOUUU. But extending the “rappers talking like they’re another person” conceit to song-length and making it funny as shit is certainly a start.

Notable and intentional omissions: All songs off the universally acclaimed and beloved OASIS; All songs off the late arrival PLEASE EXCUSE ME FOR BEING ANTISOCIAL; All songs off the universally acclaimed and beloved SO MUCH FUN (regular + deluxe); All 03 Greedo songs, however lovable and uniquely catchy.

One last thing…

Because it’s RICE. One time for Stoccton.

It's been a long time. I shouldn't have left you. [2019 list P.2]

Back to Rich The Kid. He absolutely floats on this ethereal floathouse of a beat.

Rich The Kid songs are the opposite of Post Malone songs for me. Rather than gradually coming to the realization that they’re Post Malone songs and never listening to them again, Rich the Kid songs just slowly become part of my existence and never leave. The peak version of this is Tory Lanez featuring Rich The Kid, which I will probably mandate be played at my funeral.

In my head, this RJmrLA feature came out before the RJmrLA album (it didn’t really). In my head, this RJmrLA feature was the reason I listened to the entire RJmrLA album (fiction again) searching for one magic moment like this hook and not finding it (fact). Uhhh, ahhh.

When I remake STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON set in 2020, Future Dre won’t tell Future Eazy how to hit the beat. Future Dre will just play this song.

This song came out very late in the year… but I’m including it here also so that I can posit my theory that Aitch is the UK’s version of G-Eazy. Also I’ve just started watching the new season of TOP BOY and none of the actors in the show should be allowed near basketballs.

It's been a long time. I shouldn't have left you. [2019 list P.1]

Unfortunately this is not the return of RICE, although that is still something that I plan to do at some point in the future.

I’ve got no better place to park my thoughts about my favorite deep album cuts of the year before they fade into complete obscurity, because we all lived several lifetimes this year, and none of us have time to really worry about things like music on that level. In a perfect world, this would be a SoundCloud post that I mix myself, but that requires talent.

I hope you enjoy these and find a few? most? all? new songs that you hopefully can't find on any other EOY list.

AND REMEMBER: I know absolutely nothing about music. So why are you listening to me?

And now, in alphabetical order…

I listened to a shocking amount of Rich The Kid this year. 1. I blame SoundCloud mixes for putting me onto his songs and features. 2. Grateful that Spotify didn’t dry snitch during Year in Review so that I could snitch on myself first.

Hey bro I heard you love Megan and DaBaby’s CASH SHIT. So I sped it up 1.5x and somehow created a more enjoyable song despite lacking their raw star power.

I listened to a lot of Tory Lanez this year… but that’s for another time. I also listened to everything Casanova released this year trying to recapture the magic of this song. I only realized while thinking of this list that the reason I like it is because it’s basically Casanova guesting on his own song.

Future’s pretty irredeemable without doing anything that’s actually, permanently irredeemable (such as R.Kelly-ing). He’s also the artist I’ve listened the most to since, probably, HNDRXX dropped. On one hand, you have world-conquering Future.

On the other hand, you have sloppy slick-talking Future. Runner-ups for this spot include PLEASE TELL ME and XANAX DAMAGE.

Gold subscribes to the rating system whereby 'A' stands for American Chinese, 'B' is Better Chinese, and 'C' is Chinese food for Chinese, but admits that, for years before the grading system was in place, he walked around with constant low-level food poisoning.

Dana Goodyear on Jonathan Gold

My wife's father's family is from Japan, so we went and did a month in Japan a few years back. We were at the last soba shop in Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan, a place you walk over wood planks over a pond to get to. It just felt like the edge of the earth. My kid, who must've been like 7 at the time or something, he taps me on the shoulder, and he's like, 'Dad, it's your friend.' I'm like, 'What are you talking about?' I turn around and, of course, because it's this planet we all share, there's a picture of fucking Tony [Bourdain] shaking hands with the soba master in that noodle shop. You cannot go find something he hadn't done or where he hasn't gripped and grinned. The end of the earth. 'Daddy... there's your friend.'

Nathan Thornburgh

You know, they lock celebrities in their cell 23 hours of the day [allegedly for their protection], and I always felt like that shit was crazy. What about the protection of your mental [health]? We talked about how that shit was crazy. I think Wayne liked being in the room by himself, but for everybody else, that’s a crazy situation.

Meek Mill

When European troops reached the garden, the desecration of the palace becomes a mad frenzy. Soldiers stripped it of everything they could carry. The zodiac heads were wrenched from their bases and hauled away as trophies. When the soldiers had removed all they could, they torched what remained--retribution, they said, for the torture and murder of British envoys who'd attempted to negotiate with the Chinese. The grounds of the palace were so large and so intricate that the 4,500 troops needed three days to burn everything.

Alex W. Palmer, The Great Chinese Art Heist

Most of the plunder was taken back to Europe and either tucked away in private collections or presented as gifts to royal families. Queen Victoria of Britain was given a pet Pekingese dog, the first of its kind ever seen in Europe. Unabashed by its provenance, she named it Looty.

Alex W. Palmer, The Great Chinese Art Heist

Their moving together to the same publication was typical: As Pete Wells wrote in his superb tribute in The New York Times, Gold and Ochoa contrived to work together wherever they lived. They were each others’ greatest supporters and readers. They were crazy about about each other.

Corby Kummer, Remembering the Inimitable Jonathan Gold

Part of me thinks that your very vulnerability brings you closer to the meaning of life, just as for others, the quest to believe oneself white divides them from it. The fact is that despite their dreams, their lives are also not inviolable. When their own vulnerability becomes real--when the police decide that tactics intended for the ghetto should enjoy wider usage, when their armed society shoots down their children, when nature sends hurricanes against their cities--they are shocked in a way that those of us who were born and bred to understand cause and effect can never be. And I would not have you live like them. You have been cast into a race in which the wind is always at your face and the hounds are always at your heels.

Ta-nehisi Coates

Once, the Dream's parameters were caged by technology and by the limits of horsepower and wind. But the Dreamers have improved themselves, and the damning of seas for voltage, the extraction of coal, the transmuting of oil into food, have enabled an expansion in plunder with no known precedent. And this revolution has freed the Dreamers to plunder not just the bodies of humans but the body of the Earth itself.

Ta-nehisi Coates

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