Yes, yes, it’s that time once again. Our near-monthly wrap up of the best Thai rap, R&B, pop, and other gems from across the Youtuber-verse. As usual, we try and keep it diverse with a mix of underground vibes and more pop stuff. This seems to be the month of baile funk for the Thai scene, with several of the tracks featured here using the familiar, stuttering shakers born in Brazil. Jersey club seems to have fallen out of favor, at least for this month or so, but there are plenty of diverse dance styles scattered around here. Enough talk tho, go listen!
More reggae vibes in Thai rap, please. Thankfully BALL!NMOLLY comes through this month with some dubwise hip hop produced by Pleng.
Phin-line sample drill? Hell yea. You’ve got AOFZ, MIKESICKFLOW, and SEYMIX to thank for that.
You thought we were lying when we said this is baile month lol. Here is some tropical club rap to shake your butt to by way of TG Tiger, Younggu, Gunner, and Diamond MQT and produced by MAYOJAMES and Ecoonthetrack. Younggu has another stand-out solo track this month worth peeping, where he reminds the youngins he’s been in this game for 15 years now.
Damn, S4EED can’t miss these days. His recent string of releases on YouTube have been consistently solid. We chose to feature this collab with Maximus! because the vibe hits pretty deep and the video by 666KT is full of texture and effects, but you should also check his sleepy house cut with Tarvethz.
This is a bit more experimental than our usual picks—it’s an ambient industrial track, really spacey and droning, but rusty-edged and angry. It’s the type of thing you’d expect to find on SoundCloud, but Professor Of Psychosis is the side-project of rapper B A B I I and he’s more active on this platform. It’s a nice change of pace that we’re happy to sneak it in here.
Sexski back again with some more smooth R&B vibes alongside P6ICK, produced by sogimura.
We stay on the dusky, purple R&B tip, as we’re sure you already know. Junepuaw and MCN Young N keep the vibe going here.
Moon has been doing the moody e-boy thing for a few years now and continues with this reverb-drenched cut for late nights and black lights.
Some straight rap, no chaser for the heads here courtesy of Vemlyie and 19Hunnid for their collabo with streetwear label V-19. The track also features Sunnybone from Udon Thani’s UDT BOY$ and is produced by Hype Train’s Nonstate.
What better way to get back at your ex than by getting fit af so they regret leaving you? That’s the basic theme behind Tsunari’s newest cut and we’re feeling it. She’s half Trinidanian, half Thai, and is based in London. But she spent most of her childhood in Issan and raps with “Thailingual” lyrics.
Chances are pretty good you already heard this one (it just happens to be the biggest song in the country atm), but in case you’re focused on other things, we wanted to put it on your radar. Dreamgals is the new super girl group by YUPP!, bringing together some of the top names in Thai rap, including Milli, Galanchie, and Flower.Far.
This month we’ve got JRBUBBLEGUM repping for the LGBT community via this explicit baile track with Asian flutes produced by Brownzer and featuring influencer Nxmpez. There are even a few bars in Spanish!
If you only watch one T-pop track this month, we’d recommend this one by ATK CAC. It’s a Y2K dance pop track mixed with a spy romcom theme, and the video is pretty funny. ATK is an acronym for the group’s three members, AI, Tam, and Kenny. Some other worthy T-pop mentions are Pretzelle’s “Cry More Baby” (the only Jersey track from this month or so that we’ve noticed, other than by Tanfa, of course), Mindy’s “Shh!,” and “Climax?” by TangBadVoice and Badmixy.
Thai Viet G is a Thai-Vietnamese rapper (as you might guess from his name) who’s frequently referenced as a major inspiration for the first wave of Viet rap. He’s from Seattle but his music was brought overseas on burnt CDs in the late-90s, offering listeners a new type of sound unheard of at the time—gangster rap and political lyrics in the Vietnamese language. This anthemic track with rapper Karik is the perfect opportunity to introduce Thai listeners to his sound, who may be less familiar with him than our Viet neighbors.
OK, OK, so Bad B isn’t Thai at all. But she pulled up on us in Bangkok and left behind a fire live performance for the Orange Smoke series. She’s pretty lowkey, but according to the internets is based in Tokyo and has roots in Hawaii and New York. Here, she spits in a mix of Japanese and English lyrics over a beat by Yentown‘s DJ Jam.
Since we’re on the regional tip for the moment, we’d like to give a shout to some of our neighbors. If you’re interested in what’s happening along our borders, we’ve got a couple quick ones for you to check: First, there’s some Lao baile drill pop by Saluna featuring P-Hot (embedded right above). Then we’ve got a bit of Khmer ancestral trap courtesy of Tep Boprek. And we’ll close the month out with this Karen bedroom drill from Paw Htoo.
Have a good weekend!