Rome Streetz
Sock It 2 My Pocket
MASS APPEAL

It’s impossible to talk about East Coast hip-hop in the 2020s without bringing up Griselda. The Buffalo rap outfit spearheaded by the underground triumvirate of Westside Gunn, Benny the Butcher, and Conway the Machine boasts some of the most influential records to come out of New York in the last 15 years and have a roster as deep as it is deadly on the mic. If those three are the team’s stars, then Rome Streetz would be its sixth man. Raised in Queens, Streetz is a steady presence with a knack for cadence and Illmatic-era hip-hop braggadocio that keeps the pressure on the competition. Sock It 2 My Pocket, Streetz’s latest record out via the Nas-founded Mass Appeal imprint, is a testament to that top-shelf rapping.

A word to the world that Streetz’s time is money and that he needs to get paid, Pocket thrives in the space between Griselda-era boom-bap and the grimey hue of ’90s East Coast drum loops. Having cut his teeth in ciphers and battle rapping circuits around NYC, the emcee moves through his cadences like a shadowboxer, each bar a whistling punch. An eerie organ chop crafted by Bronx legend Pete Rock grounds “Son of a Gun” while Streetz likens himself to a Rottweiler “with a Cuban-link collar” amid a flurry of boasts. Two tracks later, he flexes his storytelling on “Belt 2 Ass,” narrating a karma-struck life while Griselda associate and frequent collaborator Conductor Williams etches a bass-driven beat fit for a Bond theme. Across the whole project, Streetz collects producers like his idol Nas to fill out the soundscapes for his pen. The result is a rich tapestry of East Coast production styles, from legends of the craft like 9th Wonder and The Alchemist to the ascending talents Sovren and Karbine.

While Streetz is automatic when it comes to boom-bap, one of the biggest surprises on Sock It 2 My Pocket is his venture into Afrobeat territory with the IDK-assisted “Time & Place.” The track catches you off-guard with its tempo as Streetz flutters through stream-of-consciousness verses about how his money gets him women. It’s a tried-and-true theme, though I still can’t decide whether or not the line “Girl, your body so tea, can’t decline the face” is just plain ridiculous. Whatever doubts you might have about Streetz’s affinity for writing love songs, though, will be sufficiently stomped once “I Don’t Know” hits. Streetz is much more at home over the dust-coated drum loop and faint sax—and good luck not singing along as he croons that chorus.

The idea that hip-hop is dead has seen renewed vigor over the past year or so, given the genre’s lack of presence on the Billboard charts, the influx of AI-generated work, and other reasons of varying legitimacy. But this sentiment has been around in some form or another for damn near the whole history of the culture (no thanks to Nas); I’m not going to weigh in on that debate beyond claiming that as long as Rome Streetz is dropping albums with the aesthetic composition, elder respect, and producer posse of Sock It 2 My Pocket, rap is alive and well.

FLOOD

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MUSIC, ART + CULTURE,DELIVERED STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX

MUSIC, ART + CULTURE,
DELIVERED STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX