Complex's Best Albums of 2019 (So Far)

From the outset of his fame—or, in his earliest years as an artist, infamy—Tyler, The Creator made no secret of his idolization of Pharrell, citing the work the singer-rapper-producer did as a member of N.E.R.D as one of his biggest musical influences. The impression Skateboard P left on Tyler was palpable from the very beginning, but nowhere is it more prevalent than on his fifth official solo album, *IGOR*. Within it, Tyler is almost completely untethered from the rabble-rousing (and preternaturally gifted) MC he broke out as, instead pushing his singing voice further than ever to sound off on love as a life-altering experience over some synth-heavy backdrops. The revelations here are mostly literal. “I think I’m falling in love/This time I think it\'s for real,” goes the chorus of the pop-funk ditty “I THINK,” while Tyler can be found trying to \"make you love me” on the R&B-tinged “RUNNING OUT OF TIME.” The sludgy “NEW MAGIC WAND” has him begging, “Please don’t leave me now,” and the album’s final song asks, “ARE WE STILL FRIENDS?” but it’s hardly a completely mopey affair. “IGOR\'S THEME,” the aforementioned “I THINK,” and “WHAT\'S GOOD” are some of Tyler’s most danceable songs to date, featuring elements of jazz, funk, and even gospel. *IGOR*\'s guests include Playboi Carti, Charlie Wilson, and Kanye West, whose voices are all distorted ever so slightly to help them fit into Tyler\'s ever-experimental, N.E.R.D-honoring vision of love.

What do you do when things fall apart? If you’re Ariana Grande, you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and head for the studio. Her hopeful fourth album, *Sweetener*—written after the deadly attack at her concert in Manchester, England—encouraged fans to stay strong and open to love (at the time, the singer was newly engaged to Pete Davidson). Shortly after the album’s release in August 2018, things fell apart again: Grande’s ex-boyfriend, rapper Mac Miller, died from an overdose in September, and she broke off her engagement a few weeks later. Again, Grande took solace from the intense, and intensely public, melodrama in songwriting, but this time things were different. *thank u, next*, mostly recorded over those tumultuous months, sees her turning inward in an effort to cope, grieve, heal, and let go. “Though I wish he were here instead/Don’t want that living in your head,” she confesses on “ghostin,” a gutting synth-and-strings ballad that hovers in your throat. “He just comes to visit me/When I’m dreaming every now and then.” Like many of the songs here, it was produced by Max Martin, who has a supernatural way of making pain and suffering sound like beams of light. The album doesn\'t arrive a minute too soon. As Grande wrestles with what she wants—distance (“NASA”) and affection (“needy”), anonymity (“fake smile\") and star power (“7 rings”), and sex without strings attached (“bloodline,” “make up”)—we learn more and more about the woman she’s becoming: complex, independent, tenacious, flawed. Surely embracing all of that is its own form of self-empowerment. But Grande also isn\'t in a rush to grow up. A week before the album’s release, she swapped out a particularly sentimental song called “Remember” with the provocative, NSYNC-sampling “break up with your girlfriend, i\'m bored.” As expected, it sent her fans into a frenzy. “I know it ain’t right/But I don’t care,” she sings. Maybe the ride is just starting.

In the three years since her seminal album *A Seat at the Table*, Solange has broadened her artistic reach, expanding her work to museum installations, unconventional live performances, and striking videos. With her fourth album, *When I Get Home*, the singer continues to push her vision forward with an exploration of roots and their lifelong influence. In Solange\'s case, that’s the culturally rich Houston of her childhood. Some will know these references — candy paint, the late legend DJ Screw — via the city’s mid-aughts hip-hop explosion, but through Solange’s lens, these same touchstones are elevated to high art. A diverse group of musicians was tapped to contribute to *When I Get Home*, including Tyler, the Creator, Chassol, Playboi Carti, Standing on the Corner, Panda Bear, Devin the Dude, The-Dream, and more. There are samples from the works of under-heralded H-town legends: choreographer Debbie Allen, actress Phylicia Rashad, poet Pat Parker, even the rapper Scarface. The result is a picture of a particular Houston experience as only Solange could have painted it — the familiar reframed as fantastic.

Beginning with the haunting alt-pop smash “Ocean Eyes” in 2016, Billie Eilish made it clear she was a new kind of pop star—an overtly awkward introvert who favors chilling melodies, moody beats, creepy videos, and a teasing crudeness à la Tyler, The Creator. Now 17, the Los Angeles native—who was homeschooled along with her brother and co-writer, Finneas O’Connell—presents her much-anticipated debut album, a melancholy investigation of all the dark and mysterious spaces that linger in the back of our minds. Sinister dance beats unfold into chattering dialogue from *The Office* on “my strange addiction,” and whispering vocals are laid over deliberately blown-out bass on “xanny.” “There are a lot of firsts,” says FINNEAS. “Not firsts like ‘Here’s the first song we made with this kind of beat,’ but firsts like Billie saying, ‘I feel in love for the first time.’ You have a million chances to make an album you\'re proud of, but to write the song about falling in love for the first time? You only get one shot at that.” Billie, who is both beleaguered and fascinated by night terrors and sleep paralysis, has a complicated relationship with her subconscious. “I’m the monster under the bed, I’m my own worst enemy,” she told Beats 1 host Zane Lowe during an interview in Paris. “It’s not that the whole album is a bad dream, it’s just… surreal.” With an endearingly off-kilter mix of teen angst and experimentalism, Billie Eilish is really the perfect star for 2019—and here is where her and FINNEAS\' heads are at as they prepare for the next phase of her plan for pop domination. “This is my child,” she says, “and you get to hold it while it throws up on you.” **Figuring out her dreams:** **Billie:** “Every song on the album is something that happens when you’re asleep—sleep paralysis, night terrors, nightmares, lucid dreams. All things that don\'t have an explanation. Absolutely nobody knows. I\'ve always had really bad night terrors and sleep paralysis, and all my dreams are lucid, so I can control them—I know that I\'m dreaming when I\'m dreaming. Sometimes the thing from my dream happens the next day and it\'s so weird. The album isn’t me saying, \'I dreamed that\'—it’s the feeling.” **Getting out of her own head:** **Billie:** “There\'s a lot of lying on purpose. And it\'s not like how rappers lie in their music because they think it sounds dope. It\'s more like making a character out of yourself. I wrote the song \'8\' from the perspective of somebody who I hurt. When people hear that song, they\'re like, \'Oh, poor baby Billie, she\'s so hurt.\' But really I was just a dickhead for a minute and the only way I could deal with it was to stop and put myself in that person\'s place.” **Being a teen nihilist role model:** **Billie:** “I love meeting these kids, they just don\'t give a fuck. And they say they don\'t give a fuck *because of me*, which is a feeling I can\'t even describe. But it\'s not like they don\'t give a fuck about people or love or taking care of yourself. It\'s that you don\'t have to fit into anything, because we all die, eventually. No one\'s going to remember you one day—it could be hundreds of years or it could be one year, it doesn\'t matter—but anything you do, and anything anyone does to you, won\'t matter one day. So it\'s like, why the fuck try to be something you\'re not?” **Embracing sadness:** **Billie:** “Depression has sort of controlled everything in my life. My whole life I’ve always been a melancholy person. That’s my default.” FINNEAS: “There are moments of profound joy, and Billie and I share a lot of them, but when our motor’s off, it’s like we’re rolling downhill. But I’m so proud that we haven’t shied away from songs about self-loathing, insecurity, and frustration. Because we feel that way, for sure. When you’ve supplied empathy for people, I think you’ve achieved something in music.” **Staying present:** **Billie:** “I have to just sit back and actually look at what\'s going on. Our show in Stockholm was one of the most peak life experiences we\'ve had. I stood onstage and just looked at the crowd—they were just screaming and they didn’t stop—and told them, \'I used to sit in my living room and cry because I wanted to do this.\' I never thought in a thousand years this shit would happen. We’ve really been choking up at every show.” FINNEAS: “Every show feels like the final show. They feel like a farewell tour. And in a weird way it kind of is, because, although it\'s the birth of the album, it’s the end of the episode.”

Late into the evening of February 1, 2019, 2 Chainz and LeBron James were talking music. James was serving as A&R to 2 Chainz’s fifth studio album, *Rap or Go to the League*, and footage from that evening’s studio session features the Lakers star playing the role to a T—taking notes as the music plays, offering suggestions about where to include features, and scrunching up his face in reaction to some of the harder-hitting production. It’s hard to distinguish where exactly his fingerprints lie within the finished product, but as collaborator on a hip-hop album referencing two of the most visible (if unlikely) paths for young Black men in America to conquer generational poverty, LeBron is, in fact, the perfect teammate. But the story is 2 Chainz’s to tell. *Rap or Go to the League* is autobiographical in a way that has little to do with career aspirations. “I done some things I ain’t proud of/Like sold my mom drugs,” he confesses on “Threat 2 Society.” On “Forgiven” he recounts the pain of hearing that friend and collaborator Lil Fate\'s son had been murdered, and then he delivers a detailed list of crimes he may or may not have once committed on “Statute of Limitations.” “NCAA” carries the album’s overt parallel of street life and sport with its chorus: “N-C-double-A/We the young and dangerous/We be balling hard/I just want some paper.” Just like on the court, however, there is plenty of fun to be had. 2 Chainz, who has his own signature model Versace shoe, raps about it alongside a particularly animated Young Thug on “High Top Versace.” “Rule the World” and “Girl’s Best Friend,” featuring Ariana Grande and Ty Dolla $ign respectively, are love songs, throwbacks to the rapper’s 2017 *Pretty Girls Like Trap Music* brand of game-spitting. Full-fledged rap-offs appear in the form of “Momma I Hit a Lick” with Kendrick Lamar and “2 Dollar Bill” with E-40 and Lil Wayne. Rounded out with features from Chance the Rapper and Kodak Black on “I’m Not Crazy, Life Is,” *Rap or Go to the League* makes it clear that at this point in his career, 2 Chainz is only interested in running with the best in the game. His pairing up with LeBron—though not without unique benefit to the superstar athlete in the process of growing his media empire—is further testament to this. And like *Rap or Go to the League*’s A&R, 2 Chainz is a veteran forcing his peers to understand that he’s still very much at the top of his game.

SuperFuture. Fire Marshal Future. Astronaut Kid. Pluto. Hndrxx. These are just a few alter egos of the MC born Nayvadius Wilburn, taken up across a decade-long career as one of Atlanta’s most prolific and inventive voices. As a presentation of yet another identity, *Future Hndrxx Presents: The WIZRD*—the rapper’s seventh solo album—is less a wholly separate Future than one highlighting elements of them all. Future reaches back into his own catalog from the outset: “Tryna run a billion up until my ankle pop” line from opening track “Never Stop” recalls 2011’s “Championship Music,” where he raps, “Money coming in from every angle/Paper chasing, running to it tryna break my ankle.” Over the woozy, Tay Keith-produced “Temptation,” he alternates between a conversational flow and the R&B vocal runs he leaned into on 2012’s *Astronaut Status* mixtape. “Call the Coroner” and “Stick to the Models” are as dark as they are celebratory, chock-full of the unabashed nihilism that made 2014’s *Monster* so powerful. On the Wheezy-produced “Krazy but True,” Future alludes to the rationale behind continuously refining his style: “I’m God to you n\*\*\*\*s/I work too hard just to spoil you n\*\*\*\*s/You need to pay me my respect/Your socks, rings, and your lean/The way you drop your mixtapes, ad-libs, and everything.” It’s a very gentle ear-flick to the many MCs who’ve borrowed styles and ideas from a man who identifies as The WIZRD. Fortunately, his *Future Hndrxx Presents: The WIZRD* project includes only original, homegrown ingredients.

“Walker Texas Ranger,” the standout single from DaBaby’s 2018 *Blank Blank* album, is also present on *Baby on Baby*. It\'s a stellar example of the Charlotte native’s appeal—the rapper’s husky delivery weaves in and out of paced bell chimes while rapping about his affinity for guns, his disdain for women with little to offer him besides their bodies, and a newfound potential for stardom. “It ain’t like Atlanta, I came out of Charlotte, that s\*\*t took me some time,” he raps. DaBaby once went by Baby Jesus, and the fact that he doesn’t take himself all that seriously is evident. Throughout a healthy stream of threats and braggadocio on “Suge,” you can hear the smirk on his face when he raps, “You disrespect me and I’ll beat your ass up all in front of your partners and children.” His choice of guests and their varying levels of fame (Offset, Rich Homie Quan, Stunna 4 Vegas) likewise says a great deal about what he values in a collaborator: MCs with energy that matches his own, and who can rap well, of course, but who also make it a point to laugh at their haters.

Thanks to his multitude of hits for Playboi Carti, Pi’erre Bourne sports one of the most instantly recognizable producer tags in the rap game. Fans of Young Nudy boast even more familiarity with that *Jamie Foxx Show*-referencing snippet, seeing as their fruitful partnership touches all of the Atlanta rapper’s *SlimeBall* mixtapes and the creepily compelling *Nudy Land*. The joint effort *Sli’merre* displays everything right about their pairing—the warbly trap beats and slightly askew flows of cuts like “Dispatch” and “Gas Station” cooking up with narcotic ease. 21 Savage and Lil Uzi Vert come through with memorable features on “Mister” and “Extendo,” adding their juice to an already overflowing spiked punchbowl.

Houston\'s status as a fertile and influential rap mecca is still thriving as the rest of the world continues to catch up with the city\'s historically insular greatness. So consider Megan Thee Stallion an ambassador of what’s happening there now. From the blaxploitation vibes of its cover art to its loaded contents, her proper debut album builds upon the filthy flows that made her preceding *Tina Snow* project and its breakout single “Big Ole Freak” such an essential listen. Over live-wire beats informed less by purple drank and slab cars than by Cash Money and Hypnotize Minds, she doles out sex positivity and hustles wisdom about female empowerment in anthems like \"Dance\" and \"Money Good.\" Boasting a rare and deadly approach both lyrical and diabolical, she clowns hopeless imitators on “Realer” and provides ample ratchet motivation on the bassbin ruiner “Shake That.” Academy Award winner Juicy J, who produced three of *Fever*\'s cuts, doles out his legendary cosign with Southern pride, dropping a few raw bars himself on “Simon Says” alongside Megan’s characteristically raw ones.

After releasing 2016’s *The Colour in Anything*, James Blake moved from London to Los Angeles, where he found himself busier than ever. “I’ve been doing a lot of production work, a lot of writing for other people and projects,” he tells Apple Music. “I think the constant process of having a mirror held up to your music in the form of other people’s music, and other people, helped me cross something. A shiny new thing.” That thing—his fourth album, *Assume Form*—is his least abstract and most grounded, revealing and romantic album to date. Here, Blake pulls back the curtain and explains the themes, stories and collaborations behind each track. **“Assume Form”** “I\'m saying, ‘The plan is to become reachable, to assume material form, to leave my head and join the world.’ It seems like quite a modern, Western idea that you just get lost. These slight feelings of repression lead to this feeling of *I’m not in my body, I’m not really experiencing life through first-person. It’s like I’m looking at it from above*. Which is a phenomenon a lot of people describe when they talk about depression.” **“Mile High” (feat. Metro Boomin & Travis Scott)** “Travis is just exceptionally talented at melodies; the ones he wrote on that track are brilliant. And it was made possible by Metro—the beat is a huge part of why that track feels the way it does.” **“Tell Them” (feat. Metro Boomin & Moses Sumney)** “Moses came on tour with me a couple years ago. I watched him get a standing ovation every night, and that was when he was a support act. For me, it’s a monologue on a one-night stand: There’s fear, there’s not wanting to be too close to anybody. Just sort of a self-analysis, really.” **“Into the Red”** “‘Into the Red’ is about a woman in my life who was very giving—someone who put me before themselves, and spent the last of their money on something for me. It was just a really beautiful sentiment—especially the antithesis of the idea that the man pays. I just liked that idea of equal footing.” **“Barefoot in the Park” (feat. ROSALÍA)** “My manager played me \[ROSALÍA’s 2017 debut\] *Los Ángeles*, and I honestly hadn’t heard anything so vulnerable and raw and devastating in quite a while. She came to the studio, and within a day we’d made two or three things. I loved the sound of our voices together.” **“Can’t Believe the Way We Flow”** “It’s a pure love song, really. It’s just about the ease of coexisting that I feel with my girlfriend. It’s fairly simple in its message and in its delivery, hopefully. Romance is a very commercialized subject, but sometimes it can just be a peaceful moment of ease and something even mundane—just the flow between days and somebody making it feel like the days are just going by, and that’s a great thing.” **“Are You in Love?”** “I like the idea of that moment where neither of you know whether you’re in love yet, but there’s this need for someone to just say they are: ‘Give me assurance that this is good and that we’re good, and that you’re in love with me. I’m in love with you.’ The words might mean more in that moment, but that’s not necessarily gonna make it okay.” **“Where’s the Catch?” (feat. André 3000)** “I was, and remain, inspired by Outkast. Catching him now is maybe even *more* special to me, because the way he writes is just so good! I love the way he balances slight abstraction with this feeling of paranoia. The line ‘Like I know I’m eight, and I know I ain’t’—anxiety bringing you back to being a child, but knowing that you’re supposed to feel strong and stable because you’re an adult now. That’s just so beautifully put.” **“I’ll Come Too”** “It’s a real story: When you fall in love, the practical things go out the window, a little bit. And you just want to go to wherever they are.” **“Power On”** “It’s about being in a relationship, and being someone who gets something wrong. If you can swallow your ego a little bit and accept that you aren’t always to know everything, that this person can actually teach you a lot, the better it is for everyone. Once I’ve taken accountability, it’s time to power on—that’s the only way I can be worthy of somebody’s love and affection and time.” **“Don’t Miss It”** “Coming at the end of the album was a choice. I think it kind of sums up the mission statement in some ways: Yes, there are millions of things that I could fixate on, and I have lost years and years and years to anxiety. There are big chunks of my life I can’t remember—moments I didn’t enjoy when I should have. Loves I wasn’t a part of. Heroes I met that I can’t really remember the feeling of meeting. Because I was so wrapped up in myself. And I think that’s what this is—the inner monologue of an egomaniac.” **“Lullaby for My Insomniac”** “I literally wrote it to help someone sleep. This is just me trying to calm the waters so you can just drift off. It does what it says on the tin.”

ScHoolboy Q allowed three years to pass between the release of *Blank Face LP* and his fifth LP, *CrasH Talk*—and if it didn’t feel quite that long to fans, he has the enduring power of “THat Part” to thank for it. Rather than chasing the dragon of another club-burning smash, however, *CrasH Talk* is Q embracing his abilities as a storyteller. The Los Angeles MC uses his gruff and impassioned delivery to paint pictures of the street life he grew up in (“Tales”), his purview as a Black man in America (“Black Folk”), and his adventures in courtship (“CHopstix,” “Lies”), while doubling down on the G’d-up superhero persona he’s embodied since the very beginning (“Gang Gang,” “Die Wit Em”). Q’s flow is naturally aggressive, and it can be hard for him to sand down that edge, even when daydreaming about building a future with a significant other on “Drunk.” Moments like “Numb Numb Juice” and “5200,” where the MC is at his most ornery, sound almost cathartic in comparison. Q is comfortable across *CrasH Talk* regardless, declaring himself so on “Attention,” where after rattling off the names of rap heroes who have given him props—along with friends and family who’ve had an influence on him—he declares, “I can easily tell my story now and climb from this moment.”

Ari Lennox is Dreamville’s resident singer-songwriter, rounding out the label\'s hip-hop-heavy lineup with rich, midtempo soul birthed from basslines, melody, wind instruments, and supreme heartbreak. “I never thought I\'d make money off of soul music,” the Washington, DC-based singer told Beats 1’s Ebro. “I always thought I\'d have to be this pop artist or make this super hit, but no.” Lennox was discovered after putting her music up online, signing with Dreamville in 2015. She\'s contributed “Shea Butter Baby” to the *Creed II* soundtrack and released the 2016 EP *Pho*. The positive response to tracks like “Backseat” showed that her retro R&B fits well in contemporary times. “There\'s so many opportunities that come to me,” she said. “And I\'m just like, ‘You guys like soul and R&B that much? That\'s awesome.’ I didn\'t know it could ever happen again, because I knew it was really booming in the ’90s and the early 2000s, and then it felt like people stopped caring.” On her debut full-length, her voice is strengthened and emboldened by both breakup and “u up?” texts. She celebrates independence (“New Apartment”) and processes pain (“Speak to Me,” “I Been,” “Pop”) with equal parts frankness and freedom. Cameos by JID (“Broke”) and J. Cole (“Shea Butter Baby”) and a classy Galt MacDermot “Space” sample on “BMO” give the album its pronounced bump. “It’s soul,” she told Ebro. “There’s no gimmicks. It’s feeling.”

Maggie Rogers spent the first three years of her career retracing one chance encounter: In 2016, a video of her singing a song that moved Pharrell to tears during a master class at NYU went viral, earning her a record deal, magazine features, and headlining tours (watch it and you’ll understand). But the Maryland native, then 22, was still figuring out who she was, and this sudden flood of fame was a lot to bear. Determined to take control of her own narrative, she assembled a debut album powerful enough to shift the conversation. Measured, subtle, and wise beyond her years, it feels like the introduction she always wanted to make. Like her 2017 EP, *Now That the Light Is Fading*, *Heard It In A Past Life* is a thoughtfully sewn patchwork of anthemic synth-pop, brooding acoustic folk, and soft-lit electronica, the latter of which was inspired by a year spent dancing through Berlin’s nightclub scene. But here, her vision feels both more daring and more polished. On “Retrograde,” long stretches of propulsive synths are punctuated by high-pitched *hah-hah-hah*s; “Say It” blends R&B with light, breathy indie-pop; and “The Knife” could be a sultry come-on or a daring confession. On the Greg Kurstin-produced “Light On,” Rogers seems to make peace with her surreal story. “And I am findin’ out/There’s just no other way/And I’m still dancin’ at the end of the day,” she sings, a bittersweet hat-tip to the moment that got her here. And to her fans, a promise: “If you leave the light on/Then I’ll leave the light on.”

The most punk moment of 2019 is Rico Nasty screaming “Kennyyyyyy!” in a voice like a revved-up chainsaw. The DMV rapper reestablished her signature sound with producer Kenny Beats in 2018 through an alter ego called Trap Lavigne, recalibrating the “sugar trap” style of her early hits into devil-horns missives shouted over heavy metal beats. *Anger Management* is Rico and Kenny’s first full-length collaboration, and it begins in sheer chaos: “Cold” and “Cheat Code” sound like primal screams from the soul. But the mood mellows out over the course of nine bite-sized tracks—a conceptual journey of catharsis from two of the most inventive names in rap right now. It’s like a therapy session, if your therapist was prone to hollering, “I got bitches on my dick and I ain’t even got a dick!” over JAY-Z samples.

“A real-ass n\*gga from the 305/I was raised off of Trina, Trick, Rick, and Plies,” Denzel Curry says on “CAROLMART.” Since his days as a member of Raider Klan, the Miami MC has made it a point to forge a path distinct from the influences he shouts out here. But with *ZUU*, Curry’s fourth studio album, he returns to the well from which he sprang. The album is conspicuously street-life-oriented; Curry paints a picture of a Miami he certainly grew up in, but also one rap fans may not have associated him with previously. Within *ZUU*, there are references to the city’s storied history as a drug haven (“BIRDZ”), odes to Curry’s family (“RICKY”), and retellings of his personal come-up (“AUTOMATIC”), along with a unique exhibition of Miami slang on “YOO.” Across it all, Curry is the verbose, motormouthed MC he made his name as, a profile that is especially recognizable on the album closer “P.A.T.,” where he dips in and out of a bevy of flows over the kind of scuzzy, lo-fi production that set the table for another generation of South Florida rap stars.

Rappers are the new rock stars, they say, though few would have predicted that in 2019, Generation Z’s most cutting-edge rappers would sound like the scattered members of a Florida pop-punk band. YNW Melly’s a smiley-faced teen from an unincorporated Florida town who sings bright, Auto-Tuned lullabies about paranoia and murder. On *We All Shine*, tender melodies belie some seriously dark songs: The syrupy-sweet “Robbery” has Melly plotting a bit of light felony with the melisma of an R&B heartthrob. “Rolling Loud” is pure lighters-in-the-air emo-rap balladry, and on the boppy “Mixed Personalities,” Melly outshines Kanye West by singing like he just inhaled a helium balloon.

In the middle of writing his sixth album *Flamagra*, Steven Ellison—the experimental electronic producer known as Flying Lotus—took up piano lessons. “It’s never too late!” the 35-year-old tells Apple Music. “It\'s always nice to have someone checking your technique and calling you on your bullshit.” For the past decade, Ellison’s primary tool has been his laptop, but for this album, he committed to learning each instrument. “It actually made me faster,” says the artist, who is a product of LA’s beat scene and the grandnephew of John and Alice Coltrane. “Suddenly, I could hear every part.” Inspired by the destructive wildfires that swept California\'s coastline and the deadly 2016 Ghost Ship fire, which broke out at a warehouse in Oakland, *Flamagra*—a jazzy, psychedelic concept album that spans 27 tracks—imagines a world in which Los Angeles was lit by an eternal flame. “One that was contained, and good,” he says. “How would we *use* it?\'\" To explore that heady framework, he tapped some of pop culture\'s most out-of-the-box thinkers, including George Clinton, David Lynch, Anderson .Paak, and Solange—all visionary artists with specific points of view who, Ellison knows, rarely do guest features. \"The fact is, most of these artists are my friends,\" he says. \"I like to do things organically. That\'s the only way it feels right.\" Read on for the story behind each collaboration. **Anderson .Paak, \"More\"** \"I first met Andy a long time ago. He\'s a drummer and grew up around Thundercat and Ronald Bruner Jr., two amazing musicians Andy was probably inspired by. So I chased him down and we recorded the demo to \'More.\' It was dope, but it was never done. There were things both of us wanted to change. For years I\'d run into him at parties where he\'d be like, \'What\'s up with the song, man? Is it done yet? Why ain\'t it done yet?\' It became this running joke with his big ol\' toothy smile. Then, finally, we got it done. And now we don\'t have nothin\' to talk about.\" **George Clinton, \"Burning Down the House\"** \"I made this beat while I was in a big Parliament phase. One day, George came through and I threw it on. We sat next to each other working on it—the lyrics, the arrangements. And even though he\'s so brilliant, I was able to help fill in little gaps that made it work with the album\'s concept, so it was truly collaborative. It also gave me more confidence writing lyrics, which isn\'t something I normally do that often.\" **Yukimi Nagano of Little Dragon, \"Spontaneous\"** \"I\'d been trying to work with Little Dragon for forever. We\'ve always been playing similar shows, passing each other at festivals, being like, \'We gotta do something! We gotta do something!\' Finally I was like, \'I\'ma reach out and get this poppin\'.\' The song was actually one of the last to get added onto the album.\" **Tierra Whack, \"Yellow Belly\"** \"Honestly, I was just a fan of hers from SoundCloud. Then, one day, Lil Dicky came over to play some music and brought her along. He didn\'t really give her the proper introduction. He was just like, \'This is my friend Tierra, she makes music.\' She didn\'t say much, but she was cool and we were vibing out. A couple hours later, Dicky was like, \'Okay, wanna listen to some of this Tierra Whack music?\' I was like, \'Wait a second, you mean, you\'re the—oh my god! I know all your songs. I mean, you\'ve only got two of them, but I know \'em both!\' I super-fanned out.\" **Denzel Curry, \"Black Balloons\"** \"The thing I love about Denzel is that he\'s got so much to prove. He\'s got a fiery spirit. He wants to show the world that he\'s the greatest rapper right now. I love that. But the difference is that he actually comes back better every time I hear him. He\'s putting in the work, not just talking shit. He cares about the craft and is such a thoughtful human. So there\'s an interesting duality there. He\'s got the turn-up spirit, but he\'s very conscious and very smart.\" **David Lynch, \"Fire Is Coming\"** \"This album has a middle point—like a chapter break moment—and David Lynch couldn\'t have been more perfect to introduce it. You know, initially I thought it should be a sound design thing, something weird and narrative and unexpected. I wasn\'t thinking about chopping David Lynch on the beat. But when I sent them a version that was basically atonal jazz—you know, weird sounds—they hit me back like, \'Hey, so we think this would be so cool if it had that Flying Lotus beat!\' I was like, \'Oh, all right, okay, I got you.\'\" **Shabazz Palaces, \"Actually Virtual\"** \"This one is special to me. He came out to my house, stayed in my guest room, and we worked on songs for three days straight. And the truth is, we made so much stuff that we forgot about this track. When I found it later, randomly, I was like, \'What the fuck is this? It needs a little TLC, but man, it could really be something.\' After I spent some time on it and sent it back over to him, he just goes, \'That\'s hardbody.\' Such an East Coast line.\" **Thundercat, \"The Climb\"** \"The thing is, Thundercat is on every track. He\'s pretty much playing on 90 percent of the album. But this is the only one he\'s singing on. We started this song the way we start everything: frustrated and depressed about the world, knowing we want to make something that reminds people that most of the chaos out there is just noise. Be above all that shit. Be above the bullshit.\" **Toro y Moi, \"9 Carrots\"** \"Toro is the person I always wind up in vans with at festivals. Somehow, I always wind up in the van with Toro. We play a lot of the same shows, we get picked up from the same hotels, and he\'s just always in the van, or on the plane, things like that. Over time, I guess I started to feel a kindred spirit thing, even though he\'s someone I don\'t know too well. But finally we were like, \'We gotta make something happen.\'\" **Solange, \"Land of Honey\"** \"I\'d been trying to make this song happen for a long time. We initially started it for a documentary film that didn\'t pan out. But I really loved the song and always thought it was special, so I kept on it. I kept working on it, kept to trying to figure out how to tie it into the universe that I was building. Eventually, we recorded it here at the house and just felt really organic, really natural. She\'s someone I\'d definitely like to keep working with.\" **Honorable Mention: Mac Miller** \"A couple songs on the album, like \'Find Your Own Way Home\' and \'Thank U Malcolm,\' were inspired by Mac. \'Thank U Malcolm\' is special to me because it\'s my way of thanking him for all the inspiration he left behind in his passing, and for all the fire he inspired in me, Thundercat, and all of our friends. He made us want to be better, to let go of the bullshit. And now, you know, none of us are out here experimenting with drugs or anything. That\'s largely because of him. After he left us, everyone was like, \'You know what? Fuck all that shit.\' In a way, in his passing, he\'s got friends of mine clean. He\'ll always mean a lot to me.\"

“It feels right that our fourth album is not 10, 11 songs,” Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig explains on his Beats 1 show *Time Crisis*, laying out the reasoning behind the 18-track breadth of his band\'s first album in six years. “It felt like it needed more room.” The double album—which Koenig considers less akin to the stylistic variety of The Beatles\' White Album and closer to the narrative and thematic cohesion of Bruce Springsteen\'s *The River*—also introduces some personnel changes. Founding member Rostam Batmanglij contributes to a couple of tracks but is no longer in the band, while Haim\'s Danielle Haim and The Internet\'s Steve Lacy are among the guests who play on multiple songs here. The result is decidedly looser and more sprawling than previous Vampire Weekend records, which Koenig feels is an apt way to return after a long hiatus. “After six years gone, it\'s a bigger statement.” Here Koenig unpacks some of *Father of the Bride*\'s key tracks. **\"Hold You Now\" (feat. Danielle Haim)** “From pretty early on, I had a feeling that\'d be a good track one. I like that it opens with just acoustic guitar and vocals, which I thought is such a weird way to open a Vampire Weekend record. I always knew that there should be three duets spread out around the album, and I always knew I wanted them to be with the same person. Thank God it ended up being with Danielle. I wouldn\'t really call them country, but clearly they\'re indebted to classic country-duet songwriting.” **\"Rich Man\"** “I actually remember when I first started writing that; it was when we were at the Grammys for \[2013\'s\] *Modern Vampires of the City*. Sometimes you work so hard to come up with ideas, and you\'re down in the mines just trying to come up with stuff. Then other times you\'re just about to leave, you listen to something, you come up with a little idea. On this long album, with songs like this and \'Big Blue,\' they\'re like these short-story songs—they\'re moments. I just thought there\'s something funny about the narrator of the song being like, \'It\'s so hard to find one rich man in town with a satisfied mind. But I am the one.\' It\'s the trippiest song on the album.” **\"Married in a Gold Rush\" (feat. Danielle Haim)** “I played this song for a couple of people, and some were like, \'Oh, that\'s your country song?\' And I swear, we pulled our hair out trying to make sure the song didn\'t sound too country. Once you get past some of the imagery—midnight train, whatever—that\'s not really what it\'s about. The story is underneath it.” **\"Sympathy”** “That\'s the most metal Vampire Weekend\'s ever gotten with the double bass drum pedal.” **\"Sunflower\" (feat. Steve Lacy)** “I\'ve been critical of certain references people throw at this record. But if people want to say this sounds a little like Phish, I\'m with that.” **\"We Belong Together\" (feat. Danielle Haim)** “That\'s kind of two different songs that came together, as is often the case of Vampire Weekend. We had this old demo that started with programmed drums and Rostam having that 12-string. I always wanted to do a song that was insanely simple, that was just listing things that go together. So I\'d sit at the piano and go, \'We go together like pots and pans, surf and sand, bottles and cans.\' Then we mashed them up. It\'s probably the most wholesome Vampire Weekend song.”

Steve Lacy snapped on this one. The guitarist/bassist of The Internet (and acclaimed producer for Solange and J. Cole, as well as featured collaborator on Vampire Weekend\'s *Father of the Bride*) presents a kaleidoscopic tour of funk and R&B styles on his debut solo album *Apollo XXI*. The sound and drive heard on the album are deeply indebted to the freaky early days of Prince Rogers Nelson, from the way Lacy stylizes song titles (“Love 2 Fast,” “N Side,” “4ever”) to his voice, which ranges from growly lows to pleading, teasing falsetto. “Guide” has *Dirty Mind* on its mind, while “Playground” jumps on the one with funk guitar and slap bass. The nine-minute shape-shifter “Like Me” sparkles with psychedelic touches, as if he’s hitched a ride on the P-Funk mothership. On “Lay Me Down,” Lacy masters the art of patient seduction, taking his time to do it right, while “Basement Jack” and “Hate CD” feel like something Frank Ocean would ride to. Sprinkled among these gems are spontaneous bursts of creativity like “Amandla’s Interlude” and “Outro Freestyle/4ever,” which show Lacy exploring the outer limits of expression and spirituality.

At five songs in 15 minutes, Koffee’s Grammy-winning debut doesn’t waste time. If anything, *Rapture* feels designed to show you everything the Jamaican reggae and dancehall artist can do in as tight a space as possible. And Koffee can *do* things. Rough? “Raggamuffin.” Smooth? “Toast.” Dread? “Throne.” She toasts until she runs out of breath and still manages to sing the chorus and never lets you feel the clutch in the shift. But like \'90s singjays Buju Banton and Capleton (and contemporaries like Protoje and Chronixx), Koffee’s ace isn’t her versatility or even her seamlessness, but the stickiness of her hooks, which, by the way, she builds with dirt and sugar alike. An EP, sure. But you could also call *Rapture* a Swiss Army knife.

At 2018’s Coachella festival, Kevin Abstract (performing as a member of BROCKHAMPTON) wore a bulletproof vest with the word “f\*ggot” emblazoned across the front. The same word appears frequently on *ARIZONA BABY*, the rapper’s third proper solo project; according to Abstract, who frequently raps about being gay, the word was leveled at him often growing up in Texas. He lays bare some of that backstory on the ultra-confessional “Corpus Christi,” while also addressing the stresses of life as a burgeoning rap/pop star. “None of my boys know how to cope with this shit,” he raps over the soft guitar plucks that open the song. “We was on tour in Europe, I tried coke with this kid/See, I need anything that make me feel less lonely/I get called a snake, a liar, a f\*ggot, and a phony.” But Abstract gets the last laugh on his bullies: The main thing he\'ll surely be called after *ARIZONA BABY* is a truly gifted rapper. Former BROCKHAMPTON member Ameer Vann (who gets a shout-out on the aforementioned “Corpus Christi”) was often touted by fans and critics as the group\'s strongest MC, but here Abstract bests much of his bandmates\' previous work—as well as his own—in detailing what it’s like growing up young, gifted, Black, and gay. Rapper, however, is maybe too confining a title for Abstract, whose vocal inspirations leapfrog from *ATLiens*-era André 3000 (“Big Wheels”) to Prince (“Baby Boy”) to Frank Ocean (“Crumble”). Acclaimed songwriter and arranger Jack Antonoff produced *ARIZONA BABY*, and his influence is most apparent in the wealth of live instrumentation. The one clearly audible sample (New Jersey Mass Choir’s “The Harvest Is Ripe”) comes by way of “Use Me,” a song in which Abstract gives testimony about his life and “generational trauma” before assuring himself that “everything gon’ be OK.” With *ARIZONA BABY* as a testament to how far he\'s come, it’s hard not to believe him.

A song about your inability to communicate with a lover is an odd choice for a rap album’s lead single, but Compton MC Boogie has long made it a point to differentiate himself from the gangland posturing his hood is renowned for. “Silent Ride” is half-sung, half-rapped, showing range in both delivery and persona as he confronts an issue plaguing so many relationships. “I can\'t lie, I\'m detached, I need guidance,” he confesses. Boogie’s *Everythings for Sale* album comes three years after *Thirst 48, Pt. II*, making good on the promise he’d shown over the course of a celebrated mixtape run that culminated with his signing to Shady Records in 2017. The album is steeped in vulnerability, opener “Tired/Reflections” a mix of spoken word, rapping, and intense introspection. “I’m tired of questioning if God real, I wanna get murdered already,” Boogie says at one point. On “Swap Meet,” a song about how his relationship has proved to be the best deal, he sings in the way a father would to try and settle an infant child. There is plenty barring up here as well, Boogie talking industry woes alongside JID on “Soho,” and cashing in on an appearance from label boss Eminem on “Rainy Days.” But whereas that Em feature might have once validated the MC’s mettle, in the case of *Everythings for Sale*, it’s a chance for Em to verify that he still knows a game-changing MC when he hears one.

The first artist to land a Latin trap single on the Billboard Hot 100, Farruko seemed well-positioned to ascend into the American mainstream. Yet while “Krippy Kush” colleague Bad Bunny did just that, his Puerto Rican compatriot pivoted away from the urban sounds of 2017’s *TrapXficante*. Subsequent singles “Coolant” and “Inolvidable” circled back not merely to his come-up as a reggaetónero but to the Jamaican dancehall styles that helped birth música urbana. *Gangalee* collects these songs and adds several more to present a fully realized Spanish-language reggae vision that honors traditions and earns him the right to be considered part of that Caribbean canon. Soundtracking an endless summer, cuts like “Mucho Humo” with Jo Mersa Marley and “Ponle” with Kingston’s own Rvssian lend even more authenticity to his efforts. Though Farruko lures in other hardened traperos here to further solidify his cross-cultural cred, pop singers Pedro Capó and Alicia Keys bring out his softer and more easygoing charm on the smash hit “Calma.”

The more music Dave makes, the more out of step his prosaic stage name seems. The richness and daring of his songwriting has already been granted an Ivor Novello Award—for “Question Time,” 2017’s searing address to British politicians—and on his debut album he gets deeper, bolder, and more ambitious. Pitched as excerpts from a year-long course of therapy, these 11 songs show the South Londoner examining the human condition and his own complex wiring. Confession and self-reflection may be nothing new in rap, but they’ve rarely been done with such skill and imagination. Dave’s riveting and poetic at all times, documenting his experience as a young British black man (“Black”) and pulling back the curtain on the realities of fame (“Environment”). With a literary sense of detail and drama, “Lesley”—a cautionary, 11-minute account of abuse and tragedy—is as much a short story as a song: “Touched her destination/Way faster than the cab driver\'s estimation/She put the key in the door/She couldn\'t believe what she see on the floor.” His words are carried by equally stirring music. Strings, harps, and the aching melodies of Dave’s own piano-playing mingle with trap beats and brooding bass in incisive expressions of pain and stress, as well as flashes of optimism and triumph. It may be drawn from an intensely personal place, but *Psychodrama* promises to have a much broader impact, setting dizzying new standards for UK rap.

Within seconds of being introduced on “Hard Bottoms & White Socks,” the opening track on his fourth album, YG makes it abundantly clear where he stands. \"Talkin\' about the West Coast/I\'m the face of it,\" he proclaims in no uncertain terms. Nodding back to predecessors like Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg and giving due props to Kendrick Lamar and the tragically departed Nipsey Hussle, the Compton native proceeds to back up this bold claim credibly throughout the album, recalling the days when rap felt like a bicoastal struggle for dominance. Reteaming once again with Mustard, the production mastermind behind several earlier hits, YG embraces an ultramodern version of his hometown hip-hop sound. Informed by the heralded G-Funk era but imbued with a contemporary slickness, “In The Dark” and the Pan-Latin trap of “Go Loko” speak volumes about how to preserve the spirit of California classics while pushing things forward. Less than a year after *Stay Dangerous* and its star-studded hit single “Big Bank,” he hasn’t lost any of that cocksure swagger, whether he’s celebrating the perks of celebrity status on “Bottle Service” or calling out the fakest of snakes on “Stop Snitchin.” Yet where he really proves himself is through less braggadocious moments like the sobering storytelling of “Keshia Had a Baby” and his heartfelt Nipsey tribute “My Last Words.”

Chicago rapper Juice WRLD’s ascent happened so quickly that in the same year he released his 2018 debut *Goodbye & Good Riddance*, he was able to scratch an item off his career bucket list: creating *WRLD on Drugs*, a collaborative project with Future. Just five months after that, anxious to reacquaint the listening public with his own voice, Juice WRLD has delivered *Death Race for Love*—22 tracks, with only Brent Faiyaz, Clever, and Young Thug as guests. The significance of extra, unadulterated Juice WLRD is not lost on the MC, who raps on the project’s opener, “Empty”: “I was put here to lead the lost souls.” As operating practice, Juice WRLD trades in the dramatic—singing or rapping about love as the force powering his will to live, and also the one responsible for his inevitable undoing. He reaches his poetic peak on “Won’t Let Go,” crooning, “You can bury me with her/And if she die before me, kill me/And carry me with her.” Conversely, the love interest of “Make Believe” meets a grim fate, with Juice WRLD admitting, “I figure she was gonna break my heart regardless/So I took her out and dumped her in the garbage.” Elsewhere on the album are dramatically drawn-out beat changes (“10 Feet”), multiple flows within single songs (“The Bees Knees”), studied introspection (“Flaws and Sins”), and even a touch of flowery dancehall (“Hear Me Calling”). The cover of *Death Race for Love* features an illustrated version of Juice WRLD hovering over a demolition derby of sorts, likening the album to a video game. And not unlike a popular gaming title, there’s enough to explore within *Death Race* to keep all who engage it entertained for untold hours.

Hiding Places is a collaborative album from Brooklyn-based rapper billy woods and Los Angeles beat scene veteran Kenny Segal, set for release by Backwoodz Studioz on March 29, 2019. On its face, it seems an unlikely pairing; woods—who moonlights as ½ of dissonant rap duo Armand Hammer—is a chaotic force, the warped relic of an NY indie-rap wave that never happened. Meanwhile, Segal has been in L.A. for twenty years; from paying dues with Project Blowed to pushing the culture forward with Busdriver and Milo. All the while, his soulful, dreamlike production precariously tethered to earth by the right drums or rumbling bass. But look closer and it makes more sense. After all, Segal lent his production to a couple of songs on Paraffin, Armand Hammer’s critically-acclaimed opus, and the two veterans have more than a few shared collaborators: Open Mike Eagle, ELUCID, and Hemlock Ernst amongst them. Hiding Places finds both artists deep in the labyrinth. Segal’s lush soundscapes have a new edge, woods’ writing is, paradoxically, at its most direct. Hiding Places is a child’s game: funny and cruel, as brutal as a fairy tale. The album features contributions from both artists’ well of collaborators with ELUCID, Self-Jupiter, and MOTHERMARY making appearances.

With a natural versatility not unlike that of fellow Colombian artist Shakira, Karol G’s opulent second album luxuriates in its genre exploits. While reggaetón and trap play their part here—as on “Sin Corazón” and the vivid dembow-laden pop of “Bebesita”—she branches out on more surprising moments like the rootsy groover “Love with a Quality” with Damian Marley. In stark contrast with “Culpables,” her previous duet with Anuel AA, their “Dices Que Te Vas” showcases more of the pair’s shared range with its moving balladry. Later, an extremely faithful cover of Danay Suárez’s “Yo Aprendí” brings the Cuban vocalist herself right to her side as yet another display of humility and humanity.

What happens when the reigning queen of bubblegum pop goes through a breakup? Exactly what you’d think: She turns around and creates her most romantic, wholehearted, blissed-out work yet. Written with various pop producers in LA (Captain Cuts), New York (Jack Antonoff), and Sweden, as well as on a particularly formative soul-searching trip to the Italian coast, Jepsen’s fourth album *Dedicated* is poptimism at its finest: joyous and glitzy, rhythmic and euphoric, with an extra layer of kitsch. It’s never sad—that just isn’t Jepsen—but the “Call Me Maybe” star *does* get more in her feelings; songs like “No Drug Like Me” and “Right Words Wrong Time” aren\'t about fleeing pain so much as running to it. As Jepsen puts it on the synth ballad “Too Much,” she’d do anything to get the rush of being in love, even if it means risking heartache again and again. “Party for One,” the album’s standout single, is an infectious, shriek-worthy celebration of being alone that also acknowledges just how difficult that can be: “Tried to let it go and say I’m over you/I’m not over you/But I’m trying.”

Led by fearless ringleader Luz Elena Mendoza, Y La Bamba fuses tropical beats and ethereal pop with colorful accents in *Mujeres*. Mendoza makes a lateral move from the whimsical folk of her project’s breakthrough release, 2016’s *Ojos del Sol*, by nurturing her inquisitive nature to deliver a savory amalgam of earthy Latin sounds with cheerful abandon. But she approaches this new chapter in her career with a bigger purpose in mind—she wrote *Mujeres* for her mother, and womanhood at large, pointedly addressing the misogyny that continues to plague generations upon generations. “Somos mujeres poderosas” (“we’re powerful women”), she rallies with a chorus of women’s voices over frenetic, Carnival-esque percussion and flamenco palmas on the infectious title track. But Mendoza’s reach extends far beyond her celebratory protest. Her moods ebb and flow like wild currents—“Lightning Storms” and “Una Letra” both speak of the value and patience of love over genteel, reverb-laced ambiance, while on “Conocidos,” she fully surrenders her control over a frantic pairing of tribal psychedelia and cumbia rhythms. “Hay que mover la sangre del cuerpo” (“we have to get that blood flowing”), she urges on album closer “De Lejos,” ending the party with a bang while also staying on message.

Y La Bamba has been many things, but at the heart of it is singer-songwriter Luz Elena Mendoza’s inquisitive sense of self. Their fifth record, Mujeres, carries on the Portland-based band’s affinity for spiritual contemplation, but goes a step further in telling a story with a full emotional spectrum. Coming off Ojos Del Sol, one of NPR’s Top 50 Albums of 2016, Mujeres exhibits the scope of Mendoza’s artistic voice like never before. “Soy como soy,” Mendoza says, and that declaration is the bold— even political— statement that positions Mujeres to be Y La Bamba’s most unbridled offering yet. Mendoza forges new narratives from old stories of heritage and family, tracing history while forging modern chicana feminism. The raw honesty of Mujeres is in fact the raw honesty of Mendoza. Armed with the emotionality of traditional música mexicana and the storytelling of American folk, Y La Bamba’s artistry is not just their musical ability but Mendoza’s search for unadulterated truth. It is in an ancestral journey in which Mendoza comes to terms with the influence and limitations of her upbringing. While there is a celebration of the Mexican creativity that has informed Mendoza’s life, there is a darker side to reconcile with. Where do mujeres fit in to the American story? What are the sins for which we are all guilty? How do different generations interact with the world? How can a culture become visible without being tokenized? It is no surprise that in Mujeres, Y La Bamba’s first record with Mendoza at the helm of production, Mendoza contemplates these questions to tell her story. But it is not just Mendoza’s story. Challenging a narrative and dealing with the emotionality of that effort— that is everyone’s story.

In 2018, Gunna was everywhere. Standout albums from Travis Scott, Lil Baby, 21 Savage, Torey Lanez, and even Mariah Carey, among others, featured verses from the Atlanta MC. Having spent the better part of a year rapping his way into the consciousness of his peers\' fans, Gunna has fashioned his *Drip or Drown 2* album—the sequel to his 2017 EP—as a coming-out party. “I feel like a lot of my new fans just know me from \[Travis Scott’s\] ‘Yosemite’ and *Drip Harder* and some of my recent activities,” the MC told Beats 1’s Zane Lowe. “But on this album, it\'s gonna put the icing on the cake and let them know what kind of artist I am.” Embracing a spotlight he once patiently stood just to the left of, *Drip or Drown 2* is a 16-track jaunt through Gunna’s world. As an orator, his voice is light—just a couple of registers above a whisper—and even when injected with melody, it can sound like he’s singing to himself. It makes you feel as if you’re privy to the MC’s innermost thoughts, which typically span a deep appreciation for luxury fashion and automobiles, how he would prefer women to act around him, and the things money has allowed him to do for his family. “Speed It Up,” one of the project’s standouts, is particularly interesting for the giant gaps of space he leaves between words. Frequent collaborators Wheezy and Turbo the Great (who both serve as executive producers) handle the bulk of the production. Despite his lengthy collaborative resume, Gunna saved the guest spots on *Drip or Drown 2* for hometown heroes Lil Baby, Young Thug, and Playboi Carti. His many industry relationships aside, the MC knows that he’s still on the come-up. “One thing I have learned from putting out music, and just growing, is to know even when you\'ve got good feedback and you\'re doing good, there\'s still another level to go to,” he told Zane Lowe. “It\'s never like, \'Oh, I\'m good, or I\'ll do what I need to do.\' There\'s still more to be done. I’m just getting started.”

*While We Wait* serves as a tasty amuse-bouche before Kehlani’s follow-up to *SweetSexySavage*. The Oakland R&B singer sounds refreshed and fed up with the games—taking lazy lovers to task on “RPG” and “Nights Like This” (6LACK and Ty Dolla $ign, respectively, provide stinging rebuttals). Moments of levity appear in “Nunya,” which takes on exes who can’t mind their business. And “Morning Glory” is like a peak TLC track with Kehlani playing all the roles; she presents the too-real image of herself without makeup, nails, or hair done, asking: Would you still ride? *While We Wait* possesses equal measures of moxie and vulnerability, framing Kehlani as a wise young woman navigating love and life, eager to leave the past behind.

With powerhouse pipes, razor-sharp wit, and a tireless commitment to self-love and self-care, Lizzo is the fearless pop star we needed. Born Melissa Jefferson in Detroit, the singer and classically trained flautist discovered an early gift for music (“It chose me,” she tells Apple Music) and began recording in Minneapolis shortly after high school. But her trademark self-confidence came less naturally. “I had to look deep down inside myself to a really dark place to discover it,” she says. Perhaps that’s why her third album, *Cuz I Love You*, sounds so triumphant, with explosive horns (“Cuz I Love You”), club drums (“Tempo” featuring Missy Elliott), and swaggering diva attitude (“No, I\'m not a snack at all/Look, baby, I’m the whole damn meal,” she howls on the instant hit “Juice\"). But her brand is about more than mic-drop zingers and big-budget features. On songs like “Better in Color”—a stomping, woke plea for people of all stripes to get together—she offers an important message: It’s not enough to love ourselves, we also have to love each other. Read on for Lizzo’s thoughts on each of these blockbuster songs. **“Cuz I Love You”** \"I start every project I do with a big, brassy orchestral moment. And I do mean *moment*. It’s my way of saying, ‘Stand the fuck up, y’all, Lizzo’s here!’ This is just one of those songs that gets you amped from the jump. The moment you hear it, you’re like, ‘Okay, it’s on.’ It’s a great fucking way to start an album.\" **“Like a Girl”** \"We wanted take the old cliché and flip it on its head, shaking out all the negative connotations and replacing them with something empowering. Serena Williams plays like a girl and she’s the greatest athlete on the planet, you know? And what if crying was empowering instead of something that makes you weak? When we got to the bridge, I realized there was an important piece missing: What if you identify as female but aren\'t gender-assigned that at birth? Or what if you\'re male but in touch with your feminine side? What about my gay boys? What about my drag queens? So I decided to say, ‘If you feel like a girl/Then you real like a girl,\' and that\'s my favorite lyric on the whole album.\" **“Juice”** \"If you only listen to one song from *Cuz I Love You*, let it be this. It’s a banger, obviously, but it’s also a state of mind. At the end of the day, I want my music to make people feel good, I want it to help people love themselves. This song is about looking in the mirror, loving what you see, and letting everyone know. It was the second to last song that I wrote for the album, right before ‘Soulmate,\' but to me, this is everything I’m about. I wrote it with Ricky Reed, and he is a genius.” **“Soulmate”** \"I have a relationship with loneliness that is not very healthy, so I’ve been going to therapy to work on it. And I don’t mean loneliness in the \'Oh, I don\'t got a man\' type of loneliness, I mean it more on the depressive side, like an actual manic emotion that I struggle with. One day, I was like, \'I need a song to remind me that I\'m not lonely and to describe the type of person I *want* to be.\' I also wanted a New Orleans bounce song, \'cause you know I grew up listening to DJ Jubilee and twerking in the club. The fact that l got to combine both is wild.” **“Jerome”** \"This was my first song with the X Ambassadors, and \[lead singer\] Sam Harris is something else. It was one of those days where you walk into the studio with no expectations and leave glowing because you did the damn thing. The thing that I love about this song is that it’s modern. It’s about fuccboi love. There aren’t enough songs about that. There are so many songs about fairytale love and unrequited love, but there aren’t a lot of songs about fuccboi love. About when you’re in a situationship. That story needed to be told.” **“Cry Baby”** “This is one of the most musical moments on a very musical album, and it’s got that Minneapolis sound. Plus, it’s almost a power ballad, which I love. The lyrics are a direct anecdote from my life: I was sitting in a car with a guy—in a little red Corvette from the ’80s, and no, it wasn\'t Prince—and I was crying. But it wasn’t because I was sad, it was because I loved him. It was a different field of emotion. The song starts with \'Pull this car over, boy/Don\'t pretend like you don\'t know,’ and that really happened. He pulled the car over and I sat there and cried and told him everything I felt.” **“Tempo”** “‘Tempo\' almost didn\'t make the album, because for so long, I didn’t think it fit. The album has so much guitar and big, brassy instrumentation, but ‘Tempo’ was a club record. I kept it off. When the project was finished and we had a listening session with the label, I played the album straight through. Then, at the end, I asked my team if there were any honorable mentions they thought I should play—and mind you, I had my girls there, we were drinking and dancing—and they said, ‘Tempo! Just play it. Just see how people react.’ So I did. No joke, everybody in the room looked at me like, ‘Are you crazy? If you don\'t put this song on the album, you\'re insane.’ Then we got Missy and the rest is history.” **“Exactly How I Feel”** “Way back when I first started writing the song, I had a line that goes, ‘All my feelings is Gucci.’ I just thought it was funny. Months and months later, I played it at Atlantic \[Records\], and when that part came up, I joked, ‘Thanks for the Gucci feature, guys!\' And this executive says, ‘We can get Gucci if you want.\' And I was like, ‘Well, why the fuck not?\' I love Gucci Mane. In my book, he\'s unproblematic, he does a good job, he adds swag to it. It doesn’t go much deeper than that, to be honest. The rest of the song has plenty of meaning: It’s an ode to being proud of your emotions, not feeling like you have to hide them or fake them, all that. But the Gucci feature was just fun.” **“Better in Color”** “This is the nerdiest song I have ever written, for real. But I love it so much. I wanted to talk about love, attraction, and sex *without* talking about the boxes we put those things in—who we feel like we’re allowed to be in love with, you know? It shouldn’t be about that. It shouldn’t be about gender or sexual orientation or skin color or economic background, because who the fuck cares? Spice it up, man. Love *is* better in color. I don’t want to see love in black and white.\" **“Heaven Help Me”** \"When I made the album, I thought: If Aretha made a rap album, what would that sound like? ‘Heaven Help Me’ is the most Aretha to me. That piano? She would\'ve smashed that. The song is about a person who’s confident and does a good job of self-care—a.k.a. me—but who has a moment of being pissed the fuck off and goes back to their defensive ways. It’s a journey through the full spectrum of my romantic emotions. It starts out like, \'I\'m too cute for you, boo, get the fuck away from me,’ to \'What\'s wrong with me? Why do I drive boys away?’ And then, finally, vulnerability, like, \'I\'m crying and I\'ve been thinking about you.’ I always say, if anyone wants to date me, they just gotta listen to this song to know what they’re getting into.\" **“Lingerie”** “I’ve never really written sexy songs before, so this was new for me. The lyrics literally made me blush. I had to just let go and let God. It’s about one of my fantasies, and it has three different chord changes, so let me tell you, it was not easy to sing. It was very ‘Love On Top’ by Beyoncé of me. Plus, you don’t expect the album to end on this note. It leaves you wanting more.”

Gesaffelstein came to fame with a darkly glamorous spin on techno: the suave international man of mystery to Daft Punk’s chrome disco-bots. Six years after the French producer brought EBM to Kanye’s “Black Skinhead,” he returns with an even broader sound than the one he displayed on his 2013 debut album, *Aleph*. No stranger to pop royalty, he corrals The Weeknd for “Lost in the Fire,” a velvety expanse of darkwave R&B, and he recruits Pharrell for “Blast Off,” a throwback electro-funk epic that’s just begging for soundtrack placement. Even HAIM turns up, on “So Bad,” bringing a ray of California sunshine to Gesaffelstein’s cavernous, claustrophobic sound. What might impress the most is the purism of his strictly electronic fugues: “Hyperion” is pure flickering analog dread, “Reset” offers a gothic twist on trip-hop, and “Humanity Gone” closes the album with nearly 11 minutes of funereal dirge, channeling ’70s synth prog through the austerity of 21st-century minimalism at its most stylish.

Say what you will about Jim Jones, but he knows his ground and holds it hard. Following both 2018’s *Wasted Talent* (his first album in seven years) and a reunion with the Diplomats, *El Capo* is—in the mold of *Pray IV Reign* or *Hustler’s P.O.M.E.*—a gritty, flashy, satisfyingly dramatic shot of New York street rap, right down to the soul-inflected sound of longtime Dipset producers The Heatmakerz. “I think my critics need to hear this,” Jones raps at the outset of “State of the Union.” “Or anyone who doubts my political awareness/I’m what you call a democratic with an automatic.” Elsewhere, we get treated to features from a host of New York legends, from Fat Joe (“NYC”) and Fabolous (the simmering, disco-ish “Nothing Lasts”) to Jadakiss (“Don’t Know What They Took Him For”) and, of course, Cam’ron (“Pity in the Summer”).

From doing over-the-top music videos with Charlie Sheen to declaring himself the most lyrical rapper, provocation is an integral part of what makes the notorious Miami MC\'s full-throated, trap-informed anthems so beloved by fans—and so bewildering to the haters. *Harverd Dropout*—the deliberate misspelling is just the beginning of his trolling—collects and builds upon the hits he’s racked up since “Gucci Gang” blew up. In addition to infamously decadent singles “Esskeetit” and “I Love It,” Pump unveils new features with old pal Smokepurpp and hip-hop game-changer Lil Wayne. Flashing the iced-out Patek timepiece on his wrist, he boasts of his unconventional path to success and excess on opener \"Drop Out.\" Later, on \"Vroom Vroom Vroom,\" Pump rides off into the proverbial sunset in one of his many luxury cars, the speakers booming with producer Ronny J\'s signature overdriven bass.