Attending to Younger World With Child Osama, the New Cool of New York Rap

Pitchfork author Alphonse Pierre’s rap column covers songs, mixtapes, albums, Instagram freestyles, memes, bizarre tweets, trend developments—and the rest that catches his consideration.

Child Osama is New York as fuck. On a curb, within the Decrease East Aspect, she brags about how there’s no one within the metropolis messing together with her Nike ACG boot assortment. In Mattress-Stuy, she turns a routine interview into a brand new Come Up DVD. And, over the Williamsburg Bridge, she’s stress-free at the back of a Suburban with cracks within the entrance window as her 16-year-old little sister holds down the aux wire with a mixture of Max B deep cuts and five-borough favorites. At one level, whereas Methodology Man and Redman’s “How Excessive” blasts out into the bustling Saturday afternoon metropolis streets, Osama, born eight years after Meth & Crimson’s 1995 music dropped, leans over to her sister and says, “We’ve to ask Daddy if he remembers this one.”

The objective for right now is to make it to Osama’s set on the fourth version of Younger World, a multi-generational, free music competition began by New York rap luminary MIKE. Held at Herbert Von King Park, in Mattress-Stuy, the day has quick change into a signature summertime occasion for the native hip-hop neighborhood. Child Osama, out of the South Bronx, is included on the lineup beside names like lyrical large Earl Sweatshirt, sing-songy viral Brit Skaiwater, and beat-making legend Pete Rock. It’ll be the primary time she ever rock outs in entrance of a crowd this large.

Getting there proves to be the toughest half. Our driver for the day is a Jersey Metropolis man named Flip, who’s becoming a member of in on the social gathering just a little bit too laborious. The throwback New York playlist within the automotive has him feeling himself, freestyling any probability he will get. (He’s not unhealthy; he may have not less than held down the JR Author spot in the Diplomats.) When he stops the automotive so Osama can seize some low cost eats at an LES empanada hotspot, Flip, a self-proclaimed Max B superfan who likes to name himself Flippavelli, interrogates Osama for her NYC rap information.

He brings up French Montana. She brings up Chinx. He brings up Stack Bundles. She’s unfamiliar, however immediately curious, suspending a hunt for a lighter to google the late Far Rockaway rapper. In the meantime, Flip is in disbelief: “You’ve by no means heard of Stack? He was the beautiful gangster. The good-looking hustler. The heartthrob of the hood.” As quickly as we’re again within the whip, Flip throws Stack’s “That’s Me” on at max quantity, and Osama and her small group of modern associates nod alongside within the again. When the music ends she requests extra Stacks.