YONAS - MIDNIGHT CITY

With his version of Foster the People’s Pumped Up Kicks, Yonas put his mark on the biggest sleeper hit of 2011—and earned the Booth staff’s Best Remix of 2011 nod for his troubles. Not quite as ubiquitous as the aforementioned record but equally ripe for recontextualization in a hip-hop record, M83’sMidnight City gets a similar treatment on the Booth fave’s latest promo cut (making its exclusive world premiere!). As on Kicks, Sean Ross handles production duties, fortifying the French synth-pop sensation’s intricately layered electronic soundscape and iconic, studio-tweaked yowls (Yawps? Hoots?) with a punchier rhythm section. Yonas digs deep on the lyrical tip, exploring themes of mortality, spirituality, and the hustle in verses as rich in meaning as they are simple and direct in delivery. On the bridge, he sums it all up: “They say the perfect life exists right in them churches / I say the perfect life doesn’t exist where this earth is…  I got a future full of soul and a past full of hearses / I resurrect ‘em in my verses.” Feeling it? Download this cut from thefreestyle alum‘s Facebook page, and keep it locked you-know-where for all the latest dispatches from his journey to the top.