Schoolboy Q hails from a West Coast weed-rap crew called Black Hippy, but you won't see him on the corner rocking a Dashiki. The ex-Crip's pusherman realism is emotionally hard and murky, and his tracks are dense and dark-tinted, more Wu-steeped trip-hop than Cali-funk. On "My Homie" an old friend's snitching makes for hurt feelings; on "How We Feeling" tea-kettle keyboard whir and a bruising slow-mo beat render a playa anthem at once majestic and haunted; and "There He Go" is an image of a Stringer Bell-like dude who transcends the need to floss: "Ain't got on no jewelry on, still I'm shinin' hard / Ain't got no bodyguard walkin' solo through the mall." The 'Boy is his own man.

Listen to "There He Go":

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• Photos: Random Notes

“I'm Yours”

Jason Mraz re-emerged after his disappointing second album with this lead single, a Jack Johnson-esque ditty about giving yourself fully to someone else. The success of the reggae-tinged song (it earned two Grammy nods and a spot on the Billboard singles chart for well over a year) was something the folk-pop singer never predicted when he wrote it in 15 minutes at home. "I played a happy-hippie chord progression that would probably work without 50 different Bob Marley songs," he told Rolling Stone. "I thought, 'It's too novelty. This is a nursery rhyme,'" concluding that "you can never guess what's gonna be a hit."