Complex's Best Albums Of 2023 (So Far)

There’s a handful of eyebrow-raising verses across Tyler, The Creator’s *CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST*—particularly those from 42 Dugg, Lil Uzi Vert, YoungBoy Never Broke Again, Pharrell, and Lil Wayne—but none of the aforementioned are as surprising as the ones Tyler delivers himself. The Los Angeles-hailing MC, and onetime nucleus of the culture-shifting Odd Future collective, made a name for himself as a preternaturally talented MC whose impeccable taste in streetwear and calls to “kill people, burn shit, fuck school” perfectly encapsulated the angst of his generation. But across *CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST*, the man once known as Wolf Haley is just a guy who likes to rock ice and collect stamps on his passport, who might whisper into your significant other’s ear while you’re in the restroom. In other words, a prototypical rapper. But in this case, an exceptionally great one. (The 2023 *Estate Sale* version has eight tracks that weren’t on the original, including the single “DOGTOOTH” and features from Vince Staples and A$AP Rocky.) Tyler superfans will remember that the MC was notoriously peeved at his categoric inclusion—and eventual victory—in the 2020 Grammys’ Best Rap Album category for his pop-oriented *IGOR*. The focus here is very clearly hip-hop from the outset. Tyler made an aesthetic choice to frame *CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST* with interjections of shit-talking from DJ Drama, founder of one of 2000s rap’s most storied institutions, the Gangsta Grillz mixtape franchise. The vibes across the album are a disparate combination of sounds Tyler enjoys (and can make)—boom-bap revival (“CORSO,” “LUMBERJACK”), ’90s R&B (“WUSYANAME”), gentle soul samples as a backdrop for vivid lyricism in the Griselda mold (“SIR BAUDELAIRE,” “HOT WIND BLOWS”), and lovers rock (“I THOUGHT YOU WANTED TO DANCE”). And then there’s “RUNITUP,” which features a crunk-style background chant, and “LEMONHEAD,” which has the energy of *Trap or Die*-era Jeezy. “WILSHIRE” is potentially best described as an epic poem. Giving the Grammy the benefit of the doubt, maybe they wanted to reward all the great rapping he’d done until that point. *CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST*, though, is a chance to see if they can recognize rap greatness once it has kicked their door in.

Ice Spice’s “Munch (Feelin’ U),” the Bronx-born MC’s biggest hit to date and the song that has soundtracked an unknowable number of after-school hangs, almost wasn’t. “The song was really a throwaway for me,” Spice told Apple Music’s Ebro. “I made it, and I was like, ‘All right, let me put that away.’ And the people I was playing it for—I played it for a bunch of people, and \[they\] was just like, ‘Oh. OK, cool.’” But the song was not to be denied. By the time “Munch (Feelin’ U)” hit streaming platforms in August 2022, Ice had accumulated a legion of local fans eagerly awaiting its release, having heard a snippet she’d uploaded to socials earlier that summer. Once the phrase “You thought I was feelin’ you?” made it to TikTok, the rest was history. Or as Spice herself puts it on January’s *Like..?* EP, “In the hood, I’m like Princess Diana.” Twenty-three-year-old Ice Spice was born Isis Gaston and got an early start at rapping. “I had little raps and shit since I was a kid,” she says. “I never made full songs, though.” She began recording properly in 2021, with things really revving up after meeting producer and frequent collaborator RIOTUSA while in college at SUNY Purchase. Though her popularity rose fast, her first and likely most important fan was her father, an MC in his own right who, Spice says, used to run with DJ Doo Wop in the early 2000s. “In the crib or on the way to school and everything, he would be on some, ‘Let me hear something’ and always trying to film me, pushing me to do something,” she says. “Or if I would tell him about girls that I didn’t really fuck with in school, he would be like, ‘Write a rap about them.’” He likely couldn’t be prouder of his little star upon the release of *Like..?*, a six-track EP that was, at its arrival, already 50 percent hits. “Munch (Feelin’ U)” is, of course, here, as are the instantly viral “Bikini Bottom” and “In Ha Mood.” Add to those the NYC drill-expressive “Princess Diana,” the P. Diddy “I Need a Girl, Pt. 2”-sampling “Gangsta Boo,” and the Jersey club-indebted “Actin a Smoochie,” and you’ve got a picture of a young talent who is just getting warmed up. “Those are six songs that I already made,” Spice says of *Like..?*. “Fans going to eat that up. And then there’s always time to evolve and grow as an artist. So, I’m not rushing to jump into another sound or rushing to do some different shit. If it happens, it happens. I just want everything to be natural.”

Like…? is Bronx, New York newcomer Ice Spice’s debut EP. Following up the success of “Munch (Feelin' U)” and “Bikini Bottom,” on November 16, 2022, during an interview with RapCaviar, Ice Spice announced that she was working on an EP, stating: I’m excited for this new music. I’m about to put out an EP. It’s about to be like six songs. ‘Bikini Bottom’ is on there, and then there’s some that people haven’t heard. It’s about to be a vibe. Visuals coming with it, too. Yeah, a bunch of content around it. It’s lit. On December 25, 2022, Ice Spice released the EP’s third single, “In Ha Mood.” Although no other information about the EP was announced, the day before it’s release, Ice Spice took to social media revealing the cover art and tracklist. Lil Tjay serves as the sole feature.

The first song on Lil Yachty’s *Let’s Start Here.* is nearly seven minutes long and features breathy singing from Yachty, a freewheeling guitar solo, and a mostly instrumental second half that calls to mind TV depictions of astral projecting. “the BLACK seminole.” is an extremely fulfilling listen, but is this the same guy who just a few months earlier delivered the beautifully off-kilter and instantly viral “Poland”? Better yet, is this the guy who not long before that embedded himself with Detroit hip-hop culture to the point of a soft rebrand as *Michigan Boy Boat*? Sure is. It’s just that, as he puts it on “the BLACK seminole.,” he’s got “No time to joke around/The kid is now a man/And the silence is filled with remarkable sounds.” We could call the silence he’s referring to the years since his last studio album, 2020’s *Lil Boat 3*, but he’s only been slightly less visible than we’re used to, having released the aforementioned *Michigan Boy Boat* mixtape while also lending his discerning production ear to Drake and 21 Savage’s ground-shaking album *Her Loss*. Collaboration, though, is the name of the game across *Let’s Start Here.*, an album deeply indebted to some as yet undisclosed psych-rock influences, with repeated production contributions from onetime blog-rock darlings Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson and Patrick Wimberly, as well as multiple appearances from Diana Gordon, a Queens, New York-hailing singer who made a noise during the earliest parts of her career as Wynter Gordon. Also present are R&B singer Fousheé and Beaumont, Texas, rap weirdo Teezo Touchdown, though rapping is infrequent. In fact, none of what Yachty presents here—which includes dalliances with Parliament-indebted acid funk (“running out of time”), ’80s synthwave (“sAy sOMETHINg,” “paint THE sky”), disco (“drive ME crazy!”), symphonic prog rock (“REACH THE SUNSHINE.”), and a heady monologue called “:(failure(:”—is in any way reflective of any of Yachty’s previous output. Which begs the question, where did all of this come from? You needn’t worry about that, says Yachty on the “the ride-,” singing sternly: “Don’t ask no questions on the ride.”

One listen to “Dirt,” the opening track from Key Glock’s *Glockoma 2*, and it’s obvious that few things have changed in the world of the rising Memphis MC since the November ’22 release of *PRE5L*. He still loves to sip drank, he’s still making money faster than he can spend it, and he still misses cousin and mentor Young Dolph so much that it hurts. What he does here, then, over consistently bass-heavy production from Tay Keith, Bandplay, and HitKidd, among others, is heed the motivation of Dolph, honoring him by continuing to release his best music until his next music. “I lost my dawg, everyday that shit hurt,” Glock raps on “Work.” “His voice in my head keep on telling me, ‘Work!’”

“I spent a lot of moments in my life trying to represent that I was a *bichota*—a boss girl—but I wasn’t feeling that way completely,” KAROL G tells Apple Music. “It’s good and normal sometimes, feeling not that good and not in that mood—but that tomorrow is going to be beautiful.” That sentiment resonates from the first few moments of *MAÑANA SERÁ BONITO*, on the lively opener “MIENTRAS ME CURO DEL CORA.” After dramatically impacting the very landscape of global Latin music with 2021’s career-defining *KG0516*, the Colombian superstar is now focused on what the future holds. If KAROL G’s phenomenal 2022 run of hit singles, from “PROVENZA” to “GATÚBELA” to “CAIRO,” whet her fans’ appetites, the bold and confessional *MAÑANA SERÁ BONITO* provides them with a downright decadent musical feast. Boasting an eclectic series of collaborations with the likes of Carla Morrison, Sean Paul, and Sech, to name a few, her latest album intrepidly explores sounds both familiar and previously unexplored as she further refines and even redefines her artistry. From the FINNEAS-produced alt-pop of “TUS GAFITAS” to the música mexicana stylings of “GUCCI LOS PAÑOS,” *MAÑANA SERÁ BONITO* sets a high bar across genres. All the while, she delivers powerhouse vocal performances with deeply personal lyrics bound to resonate with listeners. “I was scared to just show that vulnerability,” she says. “But this is the way my album came out, and now I just feel proud.” Among its numerous highlights, the undeniable centerpiece of *MAÑANA SERÁ BONITO* is the momentous Shakira team-up “TQG,” an intergenerational and empowering single that unites these Colombian superstars at long last. “I was just seeing what was happening with Shakira in her personal life, and I was like, ‘You know what? Let me contact her,’” she says of the track, one that had been shelved prior to recording this historic feature. “It was worth it for me to launch it again, for girls to represent that moment of the life.” Read more about some of KAROL G’s favorite *MAÑANA SERÁ BONITO* songs below. **“X SI VOLVEMOS”** “I believe that this duet with Romeo was, in fact, destined. The story of choosing Romeo began when I had originally finished the song. For a long period, I found myself unsatisfied with the end result, as if it was a recipe missing its final ingredient. After replaying the song, the thought of duetting with Romeo felt like the perfect idea. I felt that his voice, charisma, and undeniable sensuality would give life to this passionate track. Days after, I decided to post the track on social media, and coincidentally \[in\] what felt like destiny, Romeo reached out to say he loved the song and that he wanted to join. He was the secret ingredient, and this song wouldn’t be complete without his ‘so nasty’ spice.” **“TQG”** “My collaboration with Shakira is a dream come true. She has always been a reference for me, besides being Colombian. She is the kind of artist that you follow throughout their career and dream about how, one day, you want to represent your country in the incredible way that she has done. Working with her has been an enriching experience, and I have learned a lot from her. My admiration is profound. After Shakira sang about her own breakup, I shared the lyrics of ‘TQG’ with her, a song about that stage when you are ready to rip the bandages off and get back on your feet. She loved the lyrics and felt they represented her; in the end, we finished the song together.” **“TUS GAFITAS”** “‘TUS GAFITAS’ represents something special for me; I got to work with FINNEAS on this track, which also happened to be the first love song I wrote for *MAÑANA SERÁ BONITO*. I was heading to Cairo to shoot a video clip when I wrote the lyrics, which I think was symbolic of where I was on my healing journey. It was a fulfilling experience at many levels, personally and creatively, as I was also involved in the production process.” **“OJOS FERRARI”** “I love blending different genres together, and introducing dembow as an eccentric, upbeat track was essential to deliver my idea of a diverse album. My favorite part about the creative process is being able to collaborate with talent that have fresh ideas. Angel Dior and \[Justin\] Quiles brought that energy to the song. It’s a reminder that art doesn’t always have to be sad or profound but can also be a source of joy and excitement.” **“DAÑAMOS LA AMISTAD”** “I always have a great time working with Sech; he is incredibly talented. In “DAÑAMOS LA AMISTAD,” our styles fuse together perfectly to create a unique sound with its own flow and energy. We are thrilled with the final product and hope our fans will be too.” **“MAÑANA SERÁ BONITO”** “The album’s name is a phrase I repeated to myself when I saw or felt that things were wrong. I felt like I was going through a grand moment in my career, but I was very disconnected from myself and my surroundings. Sometimes, despite so many blessings that life had given me, I didn’t feel happy. So, every day I would say to myself, ‘No matter what, tomorrow it will be nice, tomorrow it will be nice.’ And that’s the message I want to convey to you, that even though life sometimes puts us in situations that no matter how bad they hurt us or how cloudy it gets, the next day, the sun will come out, and everything will be beautiful.”

Two of hip-hop’s most prolific contemporary artists, laidback rapper Larry June and production vet The Alchemist, seem to have plotted *The Great Escape* for some time. If prior co-credited appearances on projects by mutuals Curren$y and Jay Worthy signaled their clear studio chemistry, 2022’s *Spaceships on the Blade* standout “Breakfast in Monaco” left little to no doubt that the two absolutely needed to drop a proper album together. Following the anticipatory loosie teases of “60 Days” and “89 Earthquake,” this 15-track effort exceeds expectations by formally bringing June’s entrepreneurial ethos of health and wealth into ALC’s unparalleled sonic world-building. Visions of luxury cars, presidential suites, and, of course, fresh-squeezed orange juice run through June lyrics over the grind dates “Porsches in Spanish” and “Turkish Cotton.” The pair’s no-expense-spared journey takes them to Detroit, where Boldy James spits confidently through a perpetual snarl on “Art Talk” and Big Sean speaks on the long game with unapologetic frankness on “Palisades, CA.” Elsewhere, East Coast renaissance man Action Bronson drops a dizzyingly reference-heavy verse on the jazz-infused “Solid Plan,” while Wiz Khalifa elucidates his core values on the psychedelic soul-powered “What Happened to the World?”

Baby Rose makes healing music for the aimless and heartbroken. The Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter and producer’s uniquely rich voice naturally lends itself to her powerful, smoke-filled ballads lamenting lost loves and broken futures. “I make music to help myself get through things,” she says. The piercing honesty and vulnerability she brings to her lyrics in turn helps others process their feelings and find a place of healing. For Rose, it’s a journey that’s still ongoing. “If I’m going to leave anything behind, it’s going to be getting people back to themselves,” she says. “As I get back to myself, it’s a constant reset: Remember who you are, remember who you want to be.” You can hear the impact of this approach in Baby Rose’s upcoming second album, Through and Through. Take the hypnotic “Fight Club.” Over the track’s simmering baseline and crashing cymbals, she declares, “I don’t need no one else to show me the way.” She describes the song as a “breaking of the shell. It encourages me to just go for it and not care about what anyone else thinks.” Therein lies Baby Rose’s strength: a determination to live, love, and create on her own terms. “I’m not just a singer with a unique voice,” she says. “I’m somebody that has something to say.” Growing up in Washington DC, the artist born Jasmine Rose Wilson first realized the power of her voice by reading aloud original poems at family gatherings. Despite being bullied for her lower vocal register throughout her childhood and teen years, she ultimately found comfort in songwriting and singing while playing her piano, inspired by the likes of Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, and Janis Joplin—strong women who also possessed unique voices. She moved to Fayetteville, N.C for middle and high school. In 2013, Rose moved to Atlanta for college and quickly became immersed in the city’s music scene and which also nourished the gift inside of her. With the release of her seminal projects, From Dusk Til Dawn and To Myself, Rose earned early co-signs from SZA, J. Cole, James Blake, Kehlani, and LeBron James to name a few. Her explosive To Myself project saw Rose channeling immense grief into a body of work that revealed her gift for soul-baring and universally relatable songwriting. The project received large critical acclaim from The New York Times, Pitchfork, Vogue, NPR, Rolling Stone, Billboard, Complex, Harper’s Bazaar, ELLE and many more. Rose’s meteoric rise birthed a one-of-a-kind, stirring NPR Tiny Desk performance, a sold-out headlining worldwide tour and major placements on HBO’s ‘Insecure’ and Kenya Barris’ award-winning ‘Grownish’. In late 2020, Baby Rose made her late night TV debut with an arresting performance of her breakout song “Show You” on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Additionally, Rose was featured on Cole’s Dreamville compilation, Revenge of the Dreamers III (“Self-Love”), after finding her way into a studio, sitting at the piano, and grabbing the attention of J. Cole by writing and producing records for the album. “I just felt, after living in Fayetteville, NC as well for so long, I deserved to be there,” she says. In the years since releasing To Myself, Rose has been painstakingly piecing together its sequel. Started almost immediately after its release, her new body of work finds her in a state of musical and personal transition. It’s a subtle merging of new sounds—stirring rock, upbeat r&b, psychedelic funk, pop, and soulful ballads—, all mastered through analog tape to make the music feel warmer and all-encompassing. It’s also a journey inward as she battles past fear and self-doubt to finally discover—and love—who she is, where she is. Finishing an album with such peace and firm resolution is a first for Rose, but she makes it clear: She’s nowhere near done writing her story. “I think as long as I’m being raw and trying to push past my comfort zone, it will feel rewarding,” she says. “I don’t want to be the type that doesn’t take risks because I’m afraid. I have to trust that as long as the music is honest and innovative, it'll be timeless."

Hip-hop free spirits Aminé and KAYTRANADA broke through around the same time, their respective mid-2010s album debuts having dropped within roughly a year of one another. As such, few should be all that surprised to see their amalgamated KAYTRAMINÉ come to fruition. The sweet soul sensations and razor-sharpened verbiage of initial singles “Rebuke” and the Pharrell-assisted “4EVA” accurately previewed their full-length’s scenic purview, a POV of a righteous escapade through the post-Neptunes/post-Timbaland lineage. Hyper sexual exploits, luxury smackdowns, and much more await listeners on “letstalkaboutit” and “Ugh Ugh,” as well as the aggressively funky cuts “STFU3” and “Who He Iz.” Formidable rapper guests Big Sean and Freddie Gibbs raise the pressure considerably, while Snoop Dogg himself brings his experience in similar sonic spaces to the sparse and synthy “Eye.”

Convenient though it may be, sometimes you have to give in and accept the metaphor. *Gumbo*, the engrossing fourth album from Atlanta’s Young Nudy, is what it says on its packaging: a collection of painstakingly crafted component parts (“Okra,” “Duck Meat,” “Shrimp,” “Portabella”) simmered together to become more than their mere sum, an alchemic blend of flavors and textures. And as with the titular dish, a mere recitation of ingredients would give an imitator little insight into how the real thing is made—the secret ingredients, of course, are proprietary. To shift to another culinary metaphor, there’s a use-every-part-of-the-animal ethos at play on *Gumbo*. Even the most mundane parts of the recording process become opportunities for innovation: Where many rappers use punch-ins to lay verses that are difficult to land in a single take, Nudy uses this technique to achieve a hallucinatory effect. See the opener “Brussel Sprout,” which comes to sound more like a lullaby than the opening salvo to a rap record with such punishing low ends. Rather than feeling stitched together, the takes overlap like blankets falling onto one another; the listener has to track whether Nudy in each subsequent layer is underlining what was said before, or subverting it. Produced in large part by Coupe (with an assist from Nudy’s longtime collaborator Pi’erre Bourne on the Key Glock-featuring “Pot Roast”), *Gumbo* is a heavy, percussive album, its punishing bass and yawning negative space giving the rapper ample room to deploy the most fluid flows of his career to this point. Nudy is a chameleonic rapper, able to dance through complicated patterns or communicate via monosyllables through sheer charisma. On *Gumbo*, those and other approaches are used in precise measures—as the recipe demands.

If 2021’s *Life of a DON* gave us any insight into then newly minted rap star Don Toliver, it was that his lifestyle was both costly and the center of his music’s inspiration. For *Life of a DON*’s follow-up, *Love Sick*, Toliver leans into one of life’s more priceless experiences, delivering ruminations on love and ways he’s experienced it. From chasing unrequited love on “Let Her Go” to falling in love on the dance floor on “Leave the Club” to declaring an undying love on “4 Me” to love through the lens of a Houston native on “Company Pt. 3,” *Love Sick* is the MC’s adventures in courtship. He’s assisted in his storytelling by James Blake, GloRilla, and real-life girlfriend Kali Uchis, who, if nothing else, must love what they and Toliver were able to do here.

Brimming with astrological fervor and unbridled emotionality, *Red Moon in Venus* finds the Colombian American sensation zeroing in on love. From the proud promises behind “Endlessly” to the sweet little profundities of “Love Between...,” the album plays with genre without losing cohesion or connection. On the guest front, Don Toliver matches her R&B potency amid the polyrhythmic blur of “Fantasy,” while Omar Apollo brings his own certain charm to the sumptuous duet “Worth the Wait.” Yet most of the album keeps the spotlight rightfully on her, leading to breathtaking moments like “I Wish You Roses” and the Sade-esque “Blue.” And while *Red Moon in Venus* returns the artist to a primarily English-language mode, she hasn’t dispatched entirely with the approach taken on 2020’s *Sin Miedo (del Amor y Otros Demonios) ∞*. She brings bilingual lyricism alongside orchestral accents for “Como Te Quiero Yo” and retro grooves for “Hasta Cuando.”

Conway the Machine’s path towards rap stardom never meant hopping on trends or diluting his style in the service of others. His successes, in Griselda and otherwise, rarely translate to the hip-hop mainstream, instead demonstrating growth through authenticity and bars on mixtapes and albums like 2022’s gritty Shady Records bow *God Don’t Make Mistakes*. And while *WON’T HE DO IT* doesn’t deviate from that course, the New York rapper has hardly settled into some midlife artistic complacency. For an artist who has steadfastly refused to take a conventionally commercial route, he nonetheless sounds perfectly at home over glistening J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League productions like “The Chosen” and the introspective motivational “Kanye.” Based on song titles like “Water to Wine,” one might misinterpret *WON’T HE DO IT* as a religious record, though in fairness he’s never concealed his personal Rap God complex. He undeniably sees the face of divine power in the streets, admiring his self-described immaculate run on “Flesh of My Flesh” and dubbing himself The Almighty on the segue “Kill Judas.” Rest assured, Conway hasn’t gone gospel, his presence as profane as ever. The coke rap that endeared him to a certain sector of hip-hop fandom persists on the abruptly launched opener “Quarters” and the ruthless “Brick Fare.” Furthermore, rumors of disharmony among the core Buffalo trio remain unfounded, disproven by Westside Gunn’s extended feature on the atmospheric “Brucifix” and Benny the Butcher’s menacingly mesmeric verse on “Brooklyn Chop House.”

The last time we heard new music from Summer Walker was in 2021 with her sophomore effort, *Still Over It*, which chronicled her messy and complicated relationship with Atlanta producer London On Da Track before, during, and after her pregnancy. The album’s relatability, cohesiveness, and introspective lyrics made *Still Over It* a certified hit, giving Walker her first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart. Since then, the singer-songwriter has been featured on tracks with Ari Lennox, Ciara, and The Weeknd, as well as expanding her family by welcoming a set of twins. “I’m really loving life right now, enjoying this new outlook on life, loving the new me, loving my kids and not letting life pass me by anymore,” she writes in an exclusive statement to Apple Music. Walker is in her soft-life era, which, according to social media, is a life free of struggle and stress and focuses more on joy and self-care. These ideals and themes are evident on Walker’s latest EP *CLEAR 2: SOFT LIFE*, a follow-up in her *CLEAR* series, which she debuted in 2019. “The first one was kinda sad—all my music is sad—but I’m in a different space, so this one is more happy,” she said. “It’s a continuation in the sense of the music because it’s all live.” Where *Still Over It* deals with the loss of a relationship and the emotions that come with a breakup, *CLEAR 2: SOFT LIFE* shows the singer-songwriter leaving those feelings of heartbreak and anxiety behind and embracing a life filled with ease. However, she still needs a reminder now and then. On the opener, “To Summer, From Cole (Audio Hug),” J. Cole reaffirms her by letting her know it’s okay to take some time to clear her mind and forget the stresses from her fame. Summer tackles this newfound life that she’s chosen for herself by not following the same patterns from her past relationships (“New Type”) and quickly cuts ties with connections that no longer serve her (“How Does It Feel,” “Pull Up,” “Finding Peace”). On “Mind Yo Mouth,” she finds the confidence to say what’s on her mind, even if it bruises a man’s ego: “Wanna be with me then you gon’ get up off your bottom/Uh, wanna lay with me then you gon’ be a real man,” she swaggers. In true Summer fashion, she offers up introspective lyrics and reflects on her journey within her past relationships on the album closer, “Agayu’s Revelation.” On the Steve Lacy- and Solange-produced track, Summer talks about a realization she had during a conversation with her spiritual guide when she discovered that the partners she chooses are the reason her relationships fail: “They’re fragile/Their egos are fragile/They’re not quite ready to face themselves/Maybe now or ever.” “Maferefun oya, Maferefun Oshun,” Walker writes, with an intriguing kicker: “PS: album 3 soon.”

The nearly six-year period Kelela Mizanekristos took between 2017’s *Take Me Apart* and 2023’s *Raven* wasn’t just a break; it was a reckoning. Like a lot of Black Americans, she’d watched the protests following George Floyd’s murder with outrage and cautious curiosity as to whether the winds of social change might actually shift. She read, she watched, she researched; she digested the pressures of creative perfectionism and tireless productivity not as correlatives of an artistic mind but of capitalism and white supremacy, whose consecration of the risk-free bottom line suddenly felt like the arbitrary and invasive force it is. And suddenly, she realized she wasn’t alone. “Internally, I’ve always wished the world would change around me,” Kelela tells Apple Music. “I felt during the uprising and the \[protests of the early 2020s\] that there’s been an *external* shift. We all have more permission to say, ‘I don’t like that.’” Executive-produced by longtime collaborator Asmara (Asma Maroof of Nguzunguzu), 2023’s *Raven* is both an extension of her earlier work and an expansion of it. The hybrids of progressive dance and ’90s-style R&B that made *Take Me Apart* and *Cut 4 Me* compelling are still there (“Contact,” “Missed Call,” both co-produced by LSDXOXO and Bambii), as is her gift for making the ethereal feel embodied and deeply physical (“Enough for Love”). And for all her respect for the modalities of Black American pop music, you can hear the musical curiosity and experiential outliers—as someone who grew up singing jazz standards and played in a punk band—that led her to stretch the paradigms of it, too. But the album’s heart lies in songs like “Holier” and “Raven,” whose narratives of redemption and self-sufficiency jump the track from personal reflections to metaphors for the struggle with patriarchy and racism more broadly. “I’ve been pretty comfortable to talk about the nitty-gritty of relationships,” she says. “But this album contains a few songs that are overtly political, that feel more literally like *no, you will not*.” Oppression comes in many forms, but they all work the same way; *Raven* imagines a flight out.

Released on Dave’s 25th birthday—the day after Central Cee’s 25th—surprise drop *Split Decision* showcases some of the powers that have embedded the Londoners at UK rap’s top table at a relatively tender age—specifically, the wit, agility, and nuance of their rhymes. The occasion and the artwork—a Ferrari F40 being loaded onto a yacht in Monaco—set a celebratory tone that summer-ready lead single “Sprinter” emboldens, playfully weighing the pair’s success in cars, women, and Amex cards. Characteristically, though, they rarely let bravado run unchecked for too long. Before “Sprinter” is out, Cench has paused to ponder the mental scars left by his journey (“Bare snow in my hood, no Aspen/Can’t get rid of my pain with aspirin”), while over the graceful strings and punchy bass of “Trojan Horse,” a romantic encounter suddenly evokes the trauma of wrongful arrest for Dave. One of Dave’s cleverest rhymes here calls back to the struggle—“Being broke, I can feel that, Mummy had to squeeze into the flats/Like she was borrowing some shoes and her heels snapped” (“Our 25th Birthday”)—but it’s also a joy to hear him skillfully reference Rudimental, Tony Soprano, Nelly Furtado, and Manchester United’s Amad Diallo in the space of seven lines on “UK Rap.”

“I think that for this project and for these songs, I made it a priority to take care of myself first,” 6LACK tells Apple Music. “And now that I’ve been prioritizing that, I just feel inspired in a different way than I was in the past.” Every album 6LACK releases feels like a journal filled with entries about his personal experiences navigating life’s highs, lows, and everything in between. The singer-songwriter popped on the scene with his moody 2016 debut, *FREE 6LACK*, which touched on his shady first record deal and the turmoil and toxicity of past relationships. His vulnerability, honest lyrics, and dark, atmospheric beats made him the first artist inducted into Apple Music’s Up Next program. On his sophomore LP, *East Atlanta Love Letter*, 6LACK explored the trials and tribulations of his rising fame, relationships, and fatherhood, including how it led him to reevaluate his life. His highly anticipated third album, *Since I Have a Lover*, comes after a long-needed break and finds him in a much better headspace than before. Throughout the album’s 19 tracks, the Atlanta crooner showcases the other side of his heart by embracing love and finding joy (“Since I Have a Lover,” “wunna dem,” “B4L”) while acknowledging the growth and healing he has undergone to appreciate the lover in his life (“Spirited Away,” “Inwood Hill Park”). However, not every song on the project is about his newfound love; 6LACK confesses about his mental health struggles that forced him to seek therapy (“Talk”) and the life lessons he’s learned along the way to where he is now (“Talkback”). 6LACK’s growth is evident not just in lyrics but in sound as well. *Since I Have a Lover* leaves behind the dark, melodramatic production that listeners have grown to love from him and replaces it with more acoustic guitars and alternative, midtempo beats reflective of his current mindset.

Pain and tragedy have defined so much of Lil Durk’s life and, by natural extension, his music. The devastating losses he’s experienced since rising to hip-hop stardom from Chicago’s once nascent drill scene compound one another, to the point where even something as common as rap beef takes on a more ominous tone. With *Almost Healed*, he memorializes the deaths of his brother DThang and friend King Von with therapeutic catharsis on his mind. After the introductory framing device by no less than Alicia Keys, the revelations and anecdotes behind “Pelle Coat” and “Never Again” contribute to what hopefully amounts to a healthy path through grief. With high-profile guests like Kodak Black and Morgan Wallen in the mix, the universality of life’s trials and tribulations becomes clearer. When 21 Savage comes through for “War Bout It,” the lure of violence becomes more prominent. Similarly, seasoned hitmakers J. Cole and Future bring big energy to “All My Life” and “Never Imagined,” respectively, without departing too radically from the surrounding themes. Yet Durk doesn’t dwell entirely on morbid subjects, addressing the comparatively lighter cruelty of a bad romance on “Dru Hill” and “Sad Songs.”

Part of what makes Danny Brown and JPEGMAFIA such a natural pair is that they stick out in similar ways. They’re too weird for the mainstream but too confrontational for the subtle or self-consciously progressive set. And while neither of them would be mistaken for traditionalists, the sample-scrambling chaos of tracks like “Burfict!” and “Shut Yo Bitch Ass Up/Muddy Waters” situate them in a lineage of Black music that runs through the comedic ultraviolence of the Wu-Tang Clan back through the Bomb Squad to Funkadelic, who proved just because you were trippy didn’t mean you couldn’t be militant, too.

“I manifested the fuck out of this,” Eladio Carrión tells Apple Music about his new album and its dream lineup of features. The Puerto Rican trap star’s *3MEN2 KBRN* boasts no shortage of formidable rapper guests. Yet the appearances by icons 50 Cent and Lil Wayne, in particular, come after years of him visualizing this moment, so much so that he attached their respective names to the song files well before they’d even agreed to contribute to the record. Though originally intended as a deluxe edition of his 2022 mixtape, *SEN2 KBRN, VOL. 2*, the project soon evolved into a proper album. Carrión likens the resulting *3MEN2 KBRN* to a round of golf, its 18 tracks an intentional, albeit subtle, numeric Easter egg of sorts. Less understated are his vocal guests, a veritable vanguard of hip-hop hitmakers in both English- and Spanish-language spaces, including Future, Ñengo Flow, and Quavo, as well as the aforementioned legends. Though it breaks from the overarching series’ solo-only ethos, Carrión wanted the final volume to achieve something a number of his Latin music peers have strived for. “Sometimes, people do songs with American artists, and they don’t do the right song,” he says. “It’s all about having the right track for the right person, and for them to understand that the music does work on our side.” To that end, he worked largely with the same producers who got him to *3MEN2 KBRN*, namely Foreign Teck, Hydro, and Bassyy. “We really did this bridge between American and Latino artists for the first time. There hasn’t been an album like this before.” Read more about some of Eladio Carrión’s favorite *3MEN2 KBRN* tracks below. **“Padre Tiempo”** “It’s basically me having a conversation with Father Time, asking him for more time. Every time I go on tour, when I come back, I see my parents; they are older with more gray hairs. It’s me trying to say, ‘What can we do?’—trying to negotiate something. It’s just a really powerful track; my intros are known for that. That’s one of those songs you’re going to have to run back like, ‘Damn! He said that shit!’” **“Gladiador Remix” (feat. Lil Wayne)** “Lil Wayne really made me understand how important it is to drop bars in music. So, this is a really big one for me. ‘Gladiador’ was the intro for my last album. I didn’t think that song could get better. Wayne killed the song. It means a lot, just to know he got on it. I manifested it so much, so it’s a beautiful thing. It just talks about, no matter what happens, whatever the obstacle, you have to keep on going.” **“Mbappé Remix” (feat. Future)** “Future was on the top of my wish list, trapwise. You know that is one of my biggest inspirations is trap. Meeting him was super dope. To see his reaction in the studio, and to see how he really fucked with the song, it was super cool to have his blessing on that side. I didn’t see him do the verse. I met him and he went, probably, to the club, and he came back. I got the verse back at like 10 am. So, I think he recorded at like 8 in the morning.” **“Si Salimos” (feat. 50 Cent)** “When I got the 50 verse, I cried like a baby. I knew exactly how he was going to do it. I had manifested and visualized it so many times that, when he sent me the verse, I said that ‘yeah 50’ at the same time \[as him\] because I knew he was going to do it. It’s funny because I went to go see him perform for the first time like two weeks before he dropped the verse. I was right next to him. He was looking at me like, ‘Who the hell is this guy with the big ol’ chain?’ If only you knew, Curtis, I’m your biggest fan. That’s my hero. I’m just rapping with my favorite rapper right now!” **“Cuevita”** “This is more on the pop side. It’s still trap, but it is more commercial. Shout-out to my producers, Hydro and Bassyy. I always try to put one in there, just to see what happens at the shows. That type of vibe, they always do well for shows. I always like to imagine the second my DJ presses that button. That is definitely a festival song.” **“Coco Chanel” (feat. Bad Bunny)** “Me and Bunny haven’t done a song since ‘Kemba Walker.’ That’s why we have been kind of hesitant to drop a song. But when you hear the beat, you’re going to be like, ‘OK, yeah, I get why they chose this song.’ When the hook comes in, that’s when it bops. That’s one of those, you know, fun little tracks that I be doing, him and I.” **“Peso a Peso” (feat. Ñengo Flow, Quavo & Rich the Kid)** “I had this Rich the Kid verse for like a year and a half. I met him in LA, then we met up in Puerto Rico. When he was recording the verse, he was like four bars in and then, out of nowhere, Quavo just walks in the door. I didn’t even know Quavo was in Puerto Rico to begin with. He just pulled up and dropped that in like 15 minutes. It was amazing to watch. I put Ñengo on it to make the best of both worlds on it, and he came in with a super OG verse. That’s just me trying to make those correct collabs and make it sound right.” **“M3” (feat. Fivio Foreign)** “We hit hard in New York. That’s how we got Fivio, we got Lil Tjay, we got 50. Fivio is such a great guy. In the studio, it was so easy to do this because he was just so cool off the bat, like when we met. He went super hard on that one. He did it so fast, too, in like 30 minutes. I said the first words, started in Spanish, and he just went off. That is the only thing I told him.”