For years, Childish Gambino’s *Atavista* hid in plain sight. When he released an unfinished version of the record on March 15, 2020, it spent just 12 hours on his website before he pulled it down. Reappearing on streaming a week later as *3.15.20*, the project brought up almost as many questions as sparkling neo-soul anthems, which still sounded slicker than the average as raw cuts titled after timestamps. Flash forward to 2024 and Donald Glover has upgraded and updated *3.15.20* with added tracks. He worked closely with Los Angeles producer DJ Dahi and Swedish producer and esteemed film and TV composer Ludwig Göransson, a longtime collaborator, to set a sumptuous tone seated back between the ’70s funk reverence of 2016’s *“Awaken, My Love!”* and the smooth Caribbean-inflected soul of 2014’s *Kauai*. Features from Ariana Grande, 21 Savage, and Summer Walker soar on reinvigorated mixes, while “Little Foot Big Foot” features a spotlight-ready Young Nudy, finding Gambino’s eye still fixed towards the future of the regional scene he portrayed in vivid color on FX’s *Atlanta*. *Atavista* is an ode to impermanence, never more directly than over the glimmering guitar of “Time” with Grande. (“One thing’s for certain, baby/We’re running out of time,” they harmonize on the chorus.) But in Gambino’s capable hands, *Atavista* also slows down to enjoy the view, the sonic equivalent of a luxe leather-interior BMW cruising an open California highway. “I did what I wanted to,” he revels on closing track “Final Church.” *Atavista* took many shapes over the years to reach a final form. In each warm refrain, tight sequence, and carefully chosen collaborator, Gambino demonstrates why some things are worth waiting for.
It’s understandable if Gunna feels a bit isolated these days. For some two years now, the Georgia-bred rapper has been on the defensive—first, when he was indicted in a sweeping YSL Records RICO case and, subsequently, in the time since his release by the feds. “I’m still fighting,” he tells Apple Music. “I still got friends incarcerated, and I’m still growing, too and getting massive.” Indeed, amid the sly whispers and outright accusations levied against him in hip-hop’s court of public opinion, he nonetheless managed to maintain both his commercial viability and star status with 2023’s *a Gift & a Curse*. That earned him one of the biggest singles of his career in “fukumean,” which, like the rest of the album, eschewed features and put the spotlight squarely upon himself. “It’s a bittersweet moment for me,” he admits. Nearly one year later, he returns with *One of Wun*, another defiant and largely solo testament to his endurance in the face of genuine adversity. Opener “collage” seems to take stock of his current situation, dismissing those who wish he’d retire or otherwise quit the rap game. From there, Gunna faces down opposition with impeccable drip while reveling in the lifestyle he’s become accustomed to, conflating matters on “whatsapp (wassam)” and the title track. From his perspective, professional jealousy and rumor-mongering are no match for his swag. “I’m wearing clothes differently now,” he says of his sartorial aesthetic, which comes up not infrequently throughout the project. “It’s not just about the name. It’s more like really where it come from or the cut of it.” Unlike on *a Gift & a Curse*, a few guests do stop by to show support. Gunna and Offset go way back to the *Drip Season 2* days, making their reunion on “prada dem” all the more momentous. Another repeat collaborator, Roddy Ricch comes through for “let it breathe,” a sleek and moody rebuttal to the haters.
More than a decade removed from his 2013 self-titled debut, Jahron Anthony Brathwaite—aka PARTYNEXTDOOR—remains an enigma in the OVO ecosystem: He takes several years between album releases and makes few live appearances, while his elusive reputation is intensified by the fact that some of the biggest moments of his career have come as a behind-the-scenes writer for artists like Rihanna. But his first album in four years represents the purest statement of purpose we’ve heard from the Toronto R&B auteur. If *PARTYNEXTDOOR 4*’s NSFW cover art doesn’t make his intentions clear, then the album’s very first lyric—“Take off your clothes”—instantly thrusts you into the boudoir where many of these songs play out, with foggy keyboard tones wafting in like incense and trap beats flickering like candlelight. But PARTYNEXTDOOR is a certified lover boy keenly attuned to the destabilizing dynamics inherent to desire: After making the aforementioned request for disrobing on the opening “C o n t r o l,” he asks, “Who is in control?”—reframing his bedroom conquest as an act of surrender. Even his most salacious admissions project a certain ecstatic innocence: The Auto-Tuned devotional “L o s e M y M i n d” is possibly the most rapturous song ever written about enjoying a threesome on molly, while the dreamy “M a k e I t T o T h e M o r n i n g” renders mutual oral sex as a near-religious experience. But *PARTYNEXTDOOR 4* does more than merely celebrate his X-rated exploits: The awestruck “R e a l W o m a n” suggests he’s looking for a relationship that goes beyond sunrise, while the downcast closing duo of “F a m i l y” and “R e s e n t m e n t” tap a deeper emotional vein to reveal the hang-ups that come with the hookups.
After nearly two decades in the game, Rapsody’s left no room for doubt when it comes to her formidable pen. But it wasn’t until 2020, when she began piecing together her fourth studio album, *Please Don’t Cry*, that Marlanna Evans realized that she’d shared very little of herself beyond her mic skills. “People had to put up a mirror for me,” she admitted to Apple Music’s Ebro Darden, recalling a pivotal conversation with the producer No ID. “He was like, ‘Everybody knows you can rap, but I can’t tell you five things that I know about you.’” Thus began the North Carolina native’s journey inward: Before she could reintroduce herself to her fans, she’d have to know herself first. The result of that journey, *Please Don’t Cry*, is Rapsody’s deepest and boldest work yet. “Who are you in your rawest state?” asks the gentle voice of the album’s narrator, Phylicia Rashad. Making the record, Rapsody found her mind wandering towards *The Matrix*, in particular the relationship between Neo and the Oracle. “He’s trying to find his way, trying to find himself…and she’s kind of his guiding voice,” she tells Darden. “I was like, ‘That’s kind of what this journey has been for me, but who would be my Oracle?’” Rashad was the first name that came to mind. Through interludes, the Tony Award winner nudges Rapsody further down the path of vulnerability: “Who are you when you’re joyful? What makes you sad? Why do you cry?” Rapsody doesn’t hold back her answers on tracks like “Diary of a Mad Bitch,” a cathartic shit-talking session, or the bittersweet “Loose Rocks,” where she grapples with a loved one’s dementia diagnosis with backup vocals from Alex Isley (yes, that Isley). Intense emotions are countered with airy, meditative beats on the gorgeous “3:AM,” a late-night love song with a hook from Erykah Badu, and the balmy reggae jam “Never Enough.” By the closing track “Forget Me Not,” her fear of vulnerability feels like a distant memory as she raps: “I want to know everything/I want to feel, I want to be alive/It’s too good.”
Since dropping *WON’T HE DO IT* in 2023, Conway the Machine began teasing that the album was merely one-half of a hip-hop diptych. Though the Buffalo-bred rapper abandoned the austere working title *Side B* for the more definitive *Slant Face Killah*, the auspicious arrival of this hour-long set fulfills his promise to further its predecessor’s high-caliber, highly diversified vibes. It does that, to be sure, with the Griselda vet turned Drumwork don laying waste to beats as unconventional as “Raw!” or as comfortably familiar as “Milano Nights.” Beyond his now undeniable, possibly innate ability to convincingly convey his unique voice and learned perspective, the cunning spitter brings along an impressive roster of guests like Ab-Soul, Key Glock, and Larry June that showcases both his reach and his taste. Method Man may never have truly left rap, but “Meth Back!” has him sounding downright exuberant on the mic, heading up a tight posse cut that also includes SK Da King and Flee Lord. Conway did that, as he did before with the esteemed Wu-Tang clansman on 2020’s *From King to A GOD*. The feature flexes continue almost unabated, tapping Pro Era’s Joey Bada\$$ for “Vertino” and the notorious Swizz Beatz for the Jamaican beat-switcher “Ninja Man.” While the Griselda’s core trio was represented on the other side of *WON’T HE DO IT*, he brings a couple of its more recent cohorts in for the back half. Jay Worthy sips freely from his pimp cup for the boastful “Surf & Turf,” while coke-rap dynamo Stove God Cooks emerges from the kitchen for the far grittier “Mutty,” both tracks produced by Conductor Williams himself.
When Dallas native 4batz—real name Neko Bennett—walked up to the mic on the popular performance YouTube series *From the Block* in a black ski mask and a full set of gold grillz, with a double cup in hand and his crew in the background, he looked like he was about to spit raps about his trials and tribulations growing up in his neighborhood. Which is why many listeners were shocked when a gentle and pitched-up croon came out of his mouth instead. “For me to sing, it was different,” he tells Apple Music. “I didn’t think anybody was going to accept it, but at the time, I didn’t care. I took that shit the most dramatic way. I was on the block with my guys behind me, just doing my own thing, popping out, and really just having my own way. I embraced that to the core all the way.” The first time 4batz appeared on *From the Block* he performed his debut single “act i: stickerz ‘99,’” but it was when he returned to do the infectious and moody track “act ii: date @ 8” that he catapulted from underground artist to breakout star. The viral track earned him co-signs from SZA, Timbaland, and Drake, who appears on the remix. His ambitious debut mixtape *u made me a st4r* further mines his love of ’90s R&B and emotive storytelling, using pitched-up and slowed-down vocals to tell, over the course of eight “acts,” the personal story of a turbulent relationship gone wrong. On “act i: stickerz ‘99,’” 4batz uses a metaphor to illustrate unrequited yearning. “I felt delusional over a certain female, and I remember I was like, ‘Yo, I feel like this girl doesn’t want to be with me, but I still fly to see her. I’ll still be with her right now.’ And that’s how ‘Stickerz’ came about, because I was stuck to someone that wasn’t stuck to me,” he says. The project is bookended by that and “act viii: i hate to be alone,” which ruminates on finality and heartbreak. And if it all sounds a little too real, that’s because, for 4batz, it was. “All this, it’s actual things,” he says. “It’s not just something I just walked in the living room, came in the booth, and just made. This is real life.”
Few genres feel as inherently collaborative as jazz, and even fewer contemporary artists embody that spirit quite like Kamasi Washington. After bringing a whole new generation of listeners to jazz through his albums *The Epic* and *Heaven and Earth*, as well as his collaborations with Kendrick Lamar, the Los Angeles native and saxophonist amassed an impressively eclectic set of guests to join his forthcoming bandleader project *Fearless Movement*. Among the guests were Los Angeles rapper D Smoke and funk legend George Clinton, who joined him for “Get Lit.” “That was definitely a beautiful moment,” Washington tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “The sessions were magical; it was like being in a studio with just geniuses.” Originally written by Washington’s longtime drummer Ronald Bruner Jr. (also known as the brother of bass virtuoso Thundercat), “Get Lit” sat around for a bit before the divine inspiration struck to invite Clinton and D Smoke to build upon it. After Washington attended the former’s art exhibition and the latter’s Hollywood Bowl concert in Los Angeles, it couldn’t have been clearer to him who the band needed to make the song shine. Washington compares Clinton’s involvement to magic, marveling in the studio at just how the Parliament-Funkadelic icon operates. “It\'s like we\'re listening to it and he\'s living in it,” he says, conveying how natural it felt having him participate. “When he decides to add something to some music, it\'s like water.” As for D Smoke, Washington was so impressed by the two-time Grammy nominee’s sense of musicality. “He plays keys, he understands harmony, and all that other stuff. He just knew exactly what to do.” As implied by “Get Lit,” the contributors on *Fearless Movement* come from varied backgrounds and scenes, from the modern R&B styles of singer BJ the Chicago Kid to the shape-shifting sounds of Washington’s *To Pimp a Butterfly* peer Terrace Martin. Still, the name that will stand out for many listeners is André 3000, who locked in with the band on the improvisational piece “Dream State.” The Outkast rapper turned critically acclaimed flautist arrived with a veritable arsenal of flutes, inspiring all the players present. “André has one of the most powerful creative spirits that I\'ve ever experienced,” Washington says. “We just created that whole song in the moment together without knowing where we was going.” Allowing himself to give in to the uncertainty and promise of that particular moment succinctly encapsulates the wider ethos behind all of *Fearless Movement*. “A lot of times, I feel like you can get stuck holding on to what you have because you\'re unwilling to let it go,” he says. “This album is really speaking on that idea of just being comfortable in what you are and where you want to go.”
It’s been two years since A Boogie wit da Hoodie’s *Me vs. Myself*, and his 2024 effort *Better Off Alone* charts just how much his life has changed since. Due to both his love life and his success as a rapper, the MC from the Bronx spins tales of heartbreak and deceit. On the title track, which kicks off the album, he outlines how romantic flings continue to betray him and opps remain relentless in their pursuit. Over mournful piano bars and bouncy 808s, Boogie croons: “Guess I\'m better off alone right now, I\'m ducked off in the Bahamas/Got so much shit on my shoulders, think my back broke.” Later, he adds: “Only feelin\' safe around my bros, I gotta bulletproof the bus/They won\'t catch me lackin\' on the road.” Boogie uses features from Young Thug, Future, Cash Cobain, Lil Durk, and more to infuse the album with positive vibes, like on the Thugger-assisted “Let’s Go Away,” which is a dose of pure joy after A Boogie’s laundry list of friends turned enemies and lovers turned rivals.
Eladio Carrión has reached a point in his career where even the smallest of his releases carries weight. That said, even before *Porque Puedo* dropped, the Puerto Rican rapper often did more on shorter releases like the *SEN2 KBRN* installments than most Latin hip-hop artists do on their full-length albums. Following the intimately personal *Sol María* album and its risk-taking forays into poppier spaces, this five-track return to form for the proven trapero comes with far lower stakes. The dismissively casual boldness of the title carries over on songs like “Susanoo” and the potent “Heavyweight.” The latest in an ongoing series, “Don KBRN Freestyle” lets the bars fly freely once again, reminding that he’ll always be one of Latin trap’s toughest emcees. He lays down the proverbial law on “Código G” yet slips effortlessly into a less aggressive mode for the more relatable “Henny Mood.”
