L.A. Riots' beat for "National Anthem" is a pretty, string-drenched thing, one that subtly adds or subtracts another element every few measures. And great rapper that he is, Freddie Gibbs sees every one of those changes as a technical challenge. Every time the track switches up, so does his delivery. He'll speed up into a manic double-time, slow to a deliberate crawl, launch into an off-kilter tumbling cadence. And none of these stylistic tics feel forced; they're all executed with the effortless ease of someone who can rap in his sleep. There are tons of innovative internal rhymes here, but they aren't tricky internal rhymes; they feel casual and almost conversational: "Ain't another dude who could do what I do", stuff like that. So even though there's no new lyrical idea here (it's mostly up-from-nothing/trust-no-one truisms), Gibbs makes it all work through the sheer force of his delivery.

[from Str8 Killa EP; out now on Decon]