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Hip-Hop embodies many things, and it wouldn’t be right without the presence of a few deserving cocky personalities, songs, and anthems. We have called it many things throughout the evolution of hip-hop, but I imagine for now we have settled on “swagger.”

Like rap battles on the underground circuit, where many lyricists perfect their craft and gain exposure, these glorified moments of achievement and unbridled confidence is what solidifies or breaks it for many rappers. And if there ever was a song that could be an anthem – it is Young Jeezy’s “Put On” feat. Kanye West.

First, the hook – putting on for your city – is dope, because you know from the top of the song that Young Jeezy not only plans to tell you how his life and his successes is all for the glory of Atlanta, but you suspect that he will not make a claim of putting on for the city without a cocky and fresh lyrical delivery. Not necessarily complex word choice or imaginative flow in his two verses, but that isn’t what I am looking forward to in a song like this. I want every line to be hard-hitting and delivered with a side of cockiness, and Jeezy definitely makes his case.

But leave it to the King of Ego and Cockiness to grace the track with his playful and suggestive lyrics and his boastings. That’s right, Kanye West. He made this song. I think back to Kanye’s single “Slow Jams” and I listen to him now, and I must say that he has definitely grown as a rapper. He switches up the flow nicely and of course has plenty of instances to brag.

This track would get a “D”…a D for dope that is! Because hip-hop is so many things, it is great to appreciate the different sub-categories that songs embody sometimes. Young Jeezy is not one of your “conscious rappers” but he doesn’t try to be. He tells a story about his life, and still manages to diversify his material on albums to deliver songs such as “My President” featuring Nas or “Dreamin’” with Keyshia Cole.

If music is the story of our lives, then we sometimes need our anthems as well as our thought-provoking songs or our songs highlighting struggle. Our anthems are our motivation. And if after all of this, you can't see why “Put On” is a hip-hop song of the day, then simply enjoy it for the production, because the producer Drumma Boy broke his foot of in this track. I dare you not to nod your head to this dope track.