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.Nothing can get me to close a YouTube tab faster than a Giannis Antetokounmpo bar. I have no personal agenda against the Milwaukee Bucks’ star big man; in my book, he’s still in the same MVP tier as the graceful Serbian Nikola Jokić, but, please, rappers, I beg you to use your imagination. In the last few years, Giannis has taken the torch from Steph Curry as the go-to basketball reference for rappers who’ve faced too many blunts to think of anything else. (The only thing lazier might be terrible Ike and Tina punchlines.) From the hip-hop one-percent, like Drake and Kanye, to every other song in the Milwaukee and Michigan rap scenes, there’s no escape.Not to mention that the greatest Giannis lyrics already exist. Freddie Gibbs did it best, in 2019, when he rapped, “Real Gs move in silence like Giannis/My Greek Freak we did a menage in St. Thomas,” stretching a throwaway line into a vivid image. And, of course, I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t bring up BabyTron’s “Jesus Shuttlesworth,” where he raps, “Had a better season than Giannis, got my Bucks up.” (Looks out the window wistfully thinking about when the ShittyBoyz used to rap on ’80s aerobics class music.) On the surface, that seems like the sort of line I’m ranting about, but, as the mic drop to the apex of Detroit scam-rap, it’s perfect.For better or worse, I know I’m under the spell of Hurricane Wisdom’s uplifting singalong “Giannis,” because I’m willing to toss aside all my petty grievances and enjoy the Florida rapper’s soul cleanse. On the hook, one of my favorites of this year, the wounded vocalist heartily sings, “Thirty-four, feel like Giannis/Dirty pole, big as Giannis,” and, even though I’ve probably heard this reworked an infinite number of times, it has never sounded better. Why? Because Wisdom, from Havana (a tiny suburb of Tallahassee), fuses the tropical bounce of Florida street rap with the tenderness in the ballads of Southern and Midwestern truth-tellers. And the instrumental—flickering percussion and scattered, Broward County steel drums, merged with slow-mo, almost G-funk synths—is both melancholic and upbeat at the same time. It’s all rounded out by Wisdom’s raspy melodies, as he seamlessly toggles between no-frills aggression and lilts that hit like a sunshower.
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