A little over a week ago (a week ago!), Atlanta's Money Makin' Nique and Johnny Cinco released the Extra EP, a fun, striaghtforward collection of songs that perfectly captures the sound of Atlanta's current artistic fringe. Bridging the aesthetics of rattling, traditionalist trap, experimental half-sung abstraction, and conventional lyricism, it's inventive yet familiar. Nique and Cinco are perfect foils for each other: The latter, part of Migos' Quality Control roster, delivers his lyrics in a mumbled, almost indifferent cadence that feels like it's swimming around in the beat instead of flowing over it, while the former continues to be one of Atlanta's funniest, most technically adept rappers and uses his tight flow to keep things from drifting into incoherence. The result is a project that's weird enough for the kids paying attention to Atlanta's constant bouts of sonic innovation and accessible enough for the traditionalists who still don't believe trap beats and lyricism can go hand in hand."Run It Up" is the EP's lead song and a great representation of the project's sound, with Cinco's minimal, hypnotizing, sing-song trap flow resolving into a sharp verse from Nique where he offers a poetic take on queefing—"sound like the lotion in the bottle when you squeeze it"—and drops gems like "still brag about shit I did at ten / and still shit on anything you did since then" and "she go on my nutsack and hold the scale / and nigga we intelligent we don't go to jail." Today Noisey is premiering the Rich Espy-directed video. "The song speaks to the hustle mentality of two kids from Atlanta's West Side," Nique says. "Stay down to come up! From the streets to the studio, this record signifies a transition from being down and out to standing firmly on our own two and holding it down." Nique is performing this weekend in Miami at the Basel BBQ, and he'll be announcing a new project early next year. Check out the video below:Follow Kyle Kramer on Twitter.
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