Pharoahe Monch may have just released the most exciting new song in the first week of 2019. Last year, the esteemed lyricist partnered with M.O.P’s Lil Fame for the menacing a la carte video single, “24 Hours.” The Queens, New Yorker also made standout appearances on Masta Ace & Marco Polo’s A Breukelen Story, 9th Wonder Presents: Jamla Is The Squad II, Apathy’s The Widow’s Son, and new song mixes from Wu-Tang as well as Saukrates.

Premiering at Ambrosia For Heads, Monch now releases “Yayo.” Even in his statement to AFH about the song, the veteran uses wordplay, “Peace. I hope everyone had a white Christmas and an exciting new year. ‘Yayo’ is my second stand-alone track, not attached to any project. ‘Yayo’ is alarming, but a giant metaphor for cocaine. Now let’s get it cracking in 2019.”

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Twenty-plus-year Pharoahe collaborator Lee Stone produces the energetic song. In his conceptual bag, the MC begins “Melodic embargo / Please, you know what’s in the cargo / I ship keys, my ni**a, never eat escargot / Key a cop’s car, cop keys in Key Largo / Queens get cheese, we don’t bang / Y’all ni**as get caught with the keys and all sing / Singin’-ass ni**as be outta key, you can’t hang / The whole key to why sh*t’s f*cked up in the game / Now you lame,” before claiming that many rappers spit about what they see in Narcos and Fargo. Those works of art, as well as Goodfellas, Pulp Fiction, New Jack City, The Wolf Of Wall Street, Traffic, The Hangover, Training Day, Lean On Me, and Chappelle’s Show, among others, are presented in careful sync (thanks to Milton Walker IV) with the charged-up bars of symbolism.

The lyrics are also rich with references in the delivery to artists like M.O.P., Sugarhill Gang, and Naughty By Nature. Meanwhile, Monch’s rap describes where the dope comes from, why, and who is using it—from celebrities to athletes to types of people. For an MC who is one of the finest conceptual songwriters in the genre, he starts ’19 with a rush. The song’s scratches are from veteran turntablism DJ Boogie Blind.

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Pharoahe Monch, Sean Price, Tek, and Wu-Tang’s “Pearl Harbor (Remix)” is currently on the official AFH playlist.

Photograph provided by Pharoahe Monch.