PGF Nuk.
Photo by Jamaal Devore
The FADER’s “Songs You Need” are the tracks we can’t stop playing. Check back every day for new music and follow along on our Spotify playlist.
Thanks to a Polo G-assisted remix, PGF Nuk’s “Waddup” went from being just a buzzing record to one of the biggest rap songs of the year. It’s a deceptively simple track — the original clocks in and out in a little over two minutes with a verse bookended by a pair of hooks — but the Chicago rapper makes it feel like an hour in the most intense pick-up game on Earth. The instrumental pings back and forth in your headphones, like a sonar trying to locate sunken materials, while Nuk and Polo let loose with a barrage of threats.
“Reel Em In,” his latest, is a steamroller in song form. Nuk’s all aggression here. The combination of his cutthroat delivery and the video’s jumpy cuts to clips of speeding Slingshots only add to the track’s frenzied feeling. But no part of the video is as energizing as when all his guys come in for a moment to chant the chorus with him — it’s like a bolt of lightning hitting your bloodstream. “State to state, I can’t stay in one place / Fly to New York, just for Capital Grille, so I can eat steak,” he raps with a tense stop-start flow, each word more forceful than the last. It must feel good to be a Midwest rap fan right now.
