BrooklynVegan's Top 50 Albums of 2018

When her campy, provocative videos first went viral in 2015, Cupcakke immediately gained a reputation for over-the-top freakiness—which wasn’t surprising, given song titles like “Vagina” and “Deepthroat.” But there’s way more to the Chicago rapper than sex-positive raps, and on her fourth album, she proves it. It’s not as though she’s completely dialed down the raunch—the bubbly trop-house banger “Garfield” fits a full album’s worth of winking sex puns into one track. But more often, Cupcakke’s straight-up spitting, with enough full-throttle intensity to stand up against any other rapper in Chicago right now. On the sparse but massive “Cereal and Water,” she tackles everything from police brutality to deadbeat parents to abusive men; you can feel her passion viscerally with every bar. And she dedicates the bass-heavy closing track, “A.U.T.I.S.M.,” to her fans on the spectrum, rapping: “Voice shouldn’t be judged if it’s used loudly or quietly.” Joke’s on you if you pegged Cupcakke as pure provocateur—on *Eden*, she’s limitless.