Family Affair

Family Affair's mixtape Daily Situations features the locally flavored lyrics of real-life identical twin brothers Jarrett ("Mr. R.E.P.") and Jason ("QB") Jones, who promise in an early track "At Attention" to be "standing on top of the arches" of the St. Louis hip-hop scene. The string orchestra and choral riffs in the background of "If Da Family Invited" and "Get Get Money," combined with the visceral melodrama of their lyrics, nicely contrast gritty scenes with pop sensibilities. The siblings don't shy away from accessible hip-pop elsewhere on Situations, either; songs feature raps over riffs from 50 Cent's "I Get Money," Timberlake's "My Love" and Nelly Furtado's "Promiscuous." But it's the groovy gold nuggets of laid-back street talk Family Affair unleashes mid-album on "We Don't Love 'Em" and "Round My Way" (and most notably, an aptly named track featuring Gotta Be Karim called "We Do Our Own Thang") that stand out. All feature confident, effortless-sounding hip-hop evocative of a late summer night's drive through neighborhoods in the Lou.