When trap entered the mainstream in the late 2000s, it was uniformly serious business; now it can sound as playful and dreamy as anything we call “indie” or “pop,” and we have producers like Pi’erre Bourne to thank. His rapping has gotten better, but his beats are still the draw, a buffet of video game blips and accordion riffs (“La Loi, C’est La Loi”), drums that rumble like toy tanks, and melodies as sweet and light as the breeze through his extremely expensive hotel curtains (“JBH”), more *Looney Tunes* than *Gangsta Grillz*. Even his sexual conquests are framed as fairy tales (“Rapunzel”). He’s having fun with it—and why not?
In the course of making his fourth album, Loyle Carner came to the conclusion that perhaps it was time to lighten up a little. “I needed to not take myself so seriously,” he tells Apple Music. “I think I’m learning how to do that slowly.” One thing that has undoubtedly helped iron out that furrowed brow is just how much the South London rapper, songwriter, spoken-word artist, and now actor, born Ben Coyle-Larner, is reveling in fatherhood. “My son was in the studio so much, we were just in a place of living in the moment,” he explains. “When you’re around kids, that’s the only thing that exists to them. There’s no present or past or future or whatever.” That sense of savoring the here and now runs right through *hopefully !*. It’s an album that shakes off the contemplative turmoil of 2022’s *hugo*, where he explored his relationship with his own father, with these songs possessing a reassuring warmth. An airy, elegant hip-hop record from an artist who sounds totally at ease with himself, *hopefully !* has a cover that serves as the perfect snapshot for its themes of paternal love. “It always happens that my son just decides to draw on my face,” he says. “My partner captured the moment. What’s so nice is you can’t tell in that photo if he’s supporting me or comforting me or if I’m comforting him. I think that’s true of our relationship. It’s quite ambiguous, who’s looking after who?” Let Loyle Carner guide through the soothing sounds of *hopefully !*, track by track. **“feel at home”** “This was made with a friend of mine called Zach Nahome. I went to his house and we made it quite quickly. I was trying really hard to not write too many words down. Then, when I brought it back to the studio with my friends that I was working on the rest of the album with, I played them a little voice note I had on my phone of my son playing wind chimes in the park and it just happened to be in the perfect key with the song. Literally, he was kind of playing along with the song. It had to be at the start of the song and everyone around me was like, ‘It has to be the opener.’” **“in my mind”** “If ‘feel at home’ is the opening credits then ‘in my mind’ is the first scene. This was actually the first song we made together as a band and the first song for this album. We were in the studio in between sessions on tour and we had two days in the studio. It was a totally clean slate. I was listening to a lot more music from my childhood, The Smiths, The Cure, Bob Dylan, Stevie Smith, Elliott Smith—a lot of Smiths!—and new stuff too like Fontaines D.C.. Trying to get back to the stuff I listened to before I was told what I should listen to. That was feeding into it a lot.” **“all i need”** “This is one of my favorites. I wrote it in the car park of a Big Yellow Self Storage in East London. I was struck with how many things people keep, all the stuff that they hold onto. I wish that we had less stuff as people. I was thinking about all the emotional baggage that you don’t see that people carry around. I wish you could put that in a Big Yellow Self Storage instead.” **“lyin”** “This was written just before my daughter was born. It was about not being sure if she was going to make it or not. Birth and pregnancy is so complicated, and it doesn’t always work out. I was thinking about who she would be and hoping that she makes it. Also, putting my son to bed and thinking about how that’s my favorite time and how scared I was the first time around I was having a kid and how light and chill I was the second time because I knew it was easier than I thought.” **“time to go”** “‘time to go’’s days were numbered on the album for a long time. I was trying to get it to fit into the palette of the rest of the music, it was cool but it sounded so big and I wanted it to feel small. Then we went around the houses, tried to take everything away from it and, in the end, we decided that it was meant to be what it was and we couldn’t change it. We left it how it was and gave it a chance. We knew that there was something about it that made us feel good. We were like, ‘Look, if we can’t figure out how to change it, but we want it to come out, it’s going to have to be what it is.’” **“horcrux”** “I was thinking about my son and my daughter. In Harry Potter, Voldemort has the Horcruxes, where he takes a piece of his soul and puts it somewhere else. Someone had said to me, ‘You only get out of life alive through your kids. They’re the ones who get you out of life alive.’ I thought it was such a funny saying but I thought about it a lot because all of the best bits of me, I’ve taken them and tried to put them into my kids.” **“strangers”** “I made this with the intention of passing it over to someone I’m a big fan of: Adrianne Lenker. I really wanted her to sing it. I thought she could sing better than me, but she wasn’t around or whatever, so it fell back to me. At first, I was going to put it in the bin, and then I was like, ‘Actually, maybe this has got a chance.’ Other people started saying to me, ‘Please don’t lose this song. I really love it,’ so I gave it a shot, and here it is. Singing is fucking scary, if I’m honest. I didn’t think it through until it was too late. Obviously, it’s easy in front of no one. Then, the more people who started to come into touch with it and start to listen to it, it’s been a bit more scary. I’m trying to roll with it, trying to brave it.” **“hopefully” (with Benjamin Zephaniah)** “This features Benjamin Zephaniah. I was trying to be a little bit more coded in my language and be abstract a bit more to protect my kids, it’s so hard to express my love for them, literally. The echo you can hear is me and my son underneath a bridge on our bike. Every time we cycle underneath a bridge, he says, ‘Echo,’ because he likes the way it sounds, and so do I. I’ve recorded loads of those. Then, Benjamin Zephaniah, at the end, I had watched this documentary the day before and I heard that excerpt, and I was like, ‘That sums up what I’m saying in a more literal and pointed way.’” **“purpose” (with Navy Blue)** “This features Navy Blue. That was a dream come true, to collab with him. It came about really easily. We had been texting a bit. I texted him on a whim and was like, ‘I made this song, I think you’ll like it.’ He was sat on a beach in Jamaica and he wrote to it then and there and sent it back the next day.” **“don’t fix it” (with Nick Hakim)** “This is me and the main man, Nick Hakim. It was the last song we made for the album. It was in the studio at his in New York. It was quite a profound day for me to watch him. I’m a big fan of Nick Hakim. He wasn’t singing because obviously it’s a hard thing to part with when it’s so special to you. Then he got hunched up into the corner, put the mic to his lips, and spoke this little chorus into the mic. It was a privilege to watch someone do the thing they’re meant to do in your presence.” **“about time”** “It had to be at the end of the album because of my son, ’cause it sounds like he’s telling me to stop making music and focus on being a dad. I wanted it to be quite close to the beginning so it didn’t get lost but then it couldn’t be anywhere else. It was made to be there.”
The Louisville slugger kicked off 2025 with January’s *I Ain’t Feeling You*, his star-studded second album with guest spots from Travis Scott, Lil Baby, and Veeze. Not six months later, Gee returns with a surprise third album, *My World*, whose unfussy song titles suggest a more spontaneous approach from the gravelly-voiced hustler who’s spent the six years since his 2019 debut mixtape *El Toro* ascending from the Kentucky hip-hop underground to the mainstream. He’s still balancing stone-cold street tales with a healthy dose of soul-searching. On “Take my time Geeski SH Feb 23,” Gee reflects on his trajectory as one of few rappers to make it out of his hometown. And an appearance from Yo Gotti on “PABLO FINAL GOTTI version” as the album’s only feature should implicitly quell the recent rumors of Gee’s supposed departure from the Memphis veteran’s CMG label.
When she broke through in 2017 with her studio debut, *Wash & Set*, the New York rapper obscured her face behind a ski mask in videos and onstage, as she’d continue to do over the rest of her *Beauty Series* album trilogy (2018’s *Acrylic* and 2022’s *Shape Up*). But when she announced her fourth album with the video for lead single “450” in fall 2024, the once-mysterious Leikeli47 appeared unmasked for the first time, though rapping just as hard as ever: “Stay mad, I ain’t never letting up!” *Lei Keli ft. 47 / For Promotional Use Only*, her first independent release, marks a new chapter for the cult-favorite MC, who leaps from pulsing ballroom house (“soft serve”) to sleazy ’80s glam (“starlight”) to fantastical reggae (“sandhills”). It’s equal parts soul and swagger: On “queen,” Leikeli shouts out resilient women (“This one’s for the girls in the shelters/AKs and them Deltas/Cashiers at the Food Lion/All that matters is you tryin’/So keep it up, queen”), then peacocks over the stone-cold funk of “hnic,” ending her three-year hiatus with a warning: “The bitch is back!”
In the roughly two years since his Def Jam return *Fortune Favors the Bold*, Dave East opted to build as an independent with some choice collaborators. A good deal of this came as proper projects co-headlined by AraabMUZIK, Cruch Calhoun, and Scram Jones, among others. Arriving mere months after *The Final Call*, his joint album with Ransom, he links here in similar fashion with Roc-A-Fella Records alumnus Young Chris. Those who remember Philly duo Young Gunz and the adjacent State Property collective know how well Chris works with others, and *Fine Dining* demonstrates that he’s only gotten better at it with time. Most of the beats come from East’s go-to Triple A, who lays down rugged and soulful instrumentals like “Pablo & Gunner” and “Ain’t Adding Up” for the formidable pair to get their seasoned streetwise bars off. Their insular guest list reflects the respect they deservedly garner, with ElCamino coming through along with the aforementioned Calhoun and Ransom.
Who knows if hip-hop would’ve ever made it this far without Slick Rick? A style icon, rhyme maestro, and gifted storyteller, the London-born rapper/producer set the tone in the mid-’80s as Ricky D alongside Doug E. Fresh in The Get Fresh Crew. By the end of that decade, he’d transcended those auspicious beginnings with the full-length solo debut under his now best-known moniker, *The Great Adventures of Slick Rick*. In the more than three and a half decades since that album, a lot changed in the genre as well as in his personal and professional lives. Yet over all those years, even as his output slowed or stalled, respect for The Ruler never waned. For *VICTORY*, his first album since 1999’s *The Art of Storytelling*, a 60-year-old Rick doesn’t even try to play in the contentious spaces currently occupied by viral drill and trap stars. Instead, he’s back for the love of the rap game, choosing playful production to match his seasoned flow. Lest anyone need an introduction, “I Did That” runs through his résumé with ease before dipping into clubland for “Come On Let’s Go.” The unmistakeable spark of his narrative rap greatness flicks on once again for “Landlord,” a witty if scathing barrage of rent-due anecdotes timed for the first of the month, and “So You’re Having My Baby,” a jazzy chronicle that packs plenty in scarce little time. Even his guest selection, while highly limited, speaks to his own exquisite tastes rather than the marketplace, with Giggs popping in for “Stress” and Nas putting his stamp on “Documents.”
Death is at the forefront of AJ Tracey’s mind on his third studio album; the title, *Don’t Die Before You’re Dead*, makes that more than clear. And although success has granted the West London rapper a certain level of immortality, no one, not even Tracey—who has seen his career go from strength to strength since he put his home borough on the map with the 2019 hit single “Ladbroke Grove”—lives forever. “I’ve been through a lot of things since I dropped the second album,” he tells Apple Music’s Dotty. “Life is beautiful, but it’s also quite tough sometimes…We all go through it, but I come out the other side stronger and with a different perspective on life.” The reason for his preoccupation is laid out in “3rd Time Lucky,” which finds him sorting through his emotions as his mother recovers from cancer, over solemn chords reminiscent of Sting’s “Shape of My Heart.” The track is a rare moment of vulnerability on an album that often pulses with the desire for women, pleasure, and leisure, and an even rarer window into Tracey’s interior world—but the album title’s morbidly inverse framing of the message that life should be lived to its fullest is revealing. “Heavens beneath mum’s feet, for her whole life, she had the world on her shoulder,” he raps in the opening seconds of “3rd Time Lucky.” It’s an airtight bar, vacuum sealing an intense tangle of emotions inside another, grittier layer of meaning behind his sentiment: Hang on, even when you think it’s over. Don’t die before you’re dead. Despite the heaviness at the heart of the record, *Don’t Die Before You’re Dead* is an otherwise energetic offering that showcases the level of charisma on the mic that has made Tracey a festival favorite, his sharp enunciation and rhythmic flow often adding an extra percussive element to the production. “Crush” flips a sample from a classic Brandy ballad into a flirty back and forth with Jorja Smith, “Chat Rooms” thumps with the beat of jersey club drums. There’s a healthy dose of braggadocio in the recipe for tracks like “Second Nature” and “Paid in Full,” perfectly counterbalanced by tracks like “West Life,” with its winking references to ’90s girl groups or “Red Wine,” an indie-pop collaboration with Ivor Novello winner Master Peace which emerges as an unexpected highlight as it closes out the record. It makes for a well-rounded body of work, proving there’s no avenue Tracey isn’t prepared to explore, both artistically and emotionally, in his quest to make the most of his time on Earth. “I thought I need to give people what they need and not what they want, but sometimes they’re going to express to you like, ‘If you do this, maybe you’re going to tap into something,’” says Tracey. “Sometimes you’ve got to just go into that unknown, man.”
Kae Tempest says that *Self Titled* is a record borne out of synchronicity. The South Londoner is a master of many arts—he’s a rapper, poet, spoken word act, novelist, and more—but something didn’t feel right as he approached making what he thought would be his fifth solo album. Seeking an outside take on it, Tempest played some of the songs to Fraser T. Smith, with whom he’d collaborated on the Dave and Adele producer’s Future Utopia project, and Smith’s feedback opened up a whole new way forward. “He just said, ‘This isn’t right for right now, this just isn’t quite it, there’s something else I think that needs to come out of you right now,’” Tempest tells Apple Music. “He said, ‘Why don’t you just park this and come into the studio and let’s see what happens?’” What happened is *Self Titled*, a career peak that takes in menacing hip-hop grooves, jubilant, expansive pop, jagged beats, and bombastic soundscapes. By some margin, it is Tempest’s most ambitious musical work to date. Working with Smith unlocked something. “It brought out the bigness of my sound, my intentionality around songwriting, wanting to be more concise, more driven, wanting bigger sound,” Tempest says. “Fraser is a big songwriter.” The process of making the record, he explains, felt like being swept up in a strong current. “We were just going with it, and the minute we tried to lead and not flow, it wouldn’t quite work. If I tried to get something to happen, it just wouldn’t happen.” *Self Titled* is very much the album that Kae Tempest was meant to make right now. Let Tempest guide you through it, track by track. **“I Stand on the Line”** “This is a statement piece. It’s huge. The orchestral instrumentation, the expansiveness of the sound and the production. This was that moment when I said to Fraser, ‘I want big sound. I want to make big songs,’ and this was his response. Lyrically, Fraser was encouraging me to tell my story. My natural place when I’m writing lyrics is to write from character perspectives or zoom in on one very specific thing but retain some kind of abstract relationship with the object of the poem or the lyric. But with this, Fraser was encouraging me to tell my story. I realized this is what appeals to me in songs, when you get this insight into somebody’s truth.” **“Statue in the Square”** “I was wondering whether to follow ‘I Stand on the Line’ with this because, in some ways, they tread some of the same ground lyrically, but in other ways, it’s a one-two punch that is so satisfying. I played Fraser Megan Thee Stallion’s ‘HISS’ and Run The Jewels. I was like, ‘I just want something so simple, but I want it to be so big, but so clear in each of its parts.’ I liked the idea of creating something on the piano that felt like an old loop but we’re just playing it now in the room. Lyrically, the first draft went on for ages and ages. The verses were really long, but the chorus jumped out and I thought, ‘OK, I know what this song wants me to do now, I just have to minimize and reduce and distill what I’m saying.’” **“Know Yourself”** “In my late teenage years, I was going through some heavy stuff, I felt at a bit of a crossroads. What I understood to be my older self came into my head and basically instructed my younger self to keep writing, to focus on creativity rather than destruction, and to know myself. That older self was what I understood my lyrics were coming from. Each time I wrote lyrics, it was advice I was getting from my older self. As I got older, I was like, ‘Well, it wasn’t me, I haven’t gone back, so who the fuck was that?’ Writing ‘Know Yourself,’ I was like, ‘This is the moment, this is when I went back,’ and it’s because that kid did what they did, that I can do what I’m doing. Fraser said, ‘Oh, that’s crazy,’ because he wrote this beat with Tom Rowlands from The Chemical Brothers. They went to school together but they didn’t see each other for 30 years. Tom went to Fraser’s house, they talked about their lives for about 10 minutes, then Fraser picks up a guitar, Tom’s on a drum machine. He said it was like, ‘Suddenly we’re 15 again.’ So lyrically, I’m talking to my younger self, musically, Fraser’s talking to his younger self.” **“Sunshine on Catford”** “I feel very strongly about dynamic and pace and gradient, I love to position albums and live shows, the journey of it all is very important. The idea is that once you know yourself, then you can know love and then in comes this beautiful love song, it’s like a thank you. It’s just a little gratitude prayer to a beautiful moment. We were blessed with the vocal of the fairy godfather of the album who came and sprinkled a bit of magic Pet Shop Boys dust on the record \[Neil Tennant is a guest vocalist on the track\]. This is a hymn of thanks to the small moments when you are trying to make a life with someone, when things just feel great.” **“Bless the Bold Future”** “The lyric began years ago. I always set myself this rule that I mustn’t write backwards because I thought if I ever went back, I wouldn’t be able to go forwards. I always went into the studio with a blank notebook and started from wherever I was at. After writing ‘Know Yourself’ and going back and sampling \[an\] old lyric, I was like, ‘Actually, maybe this is the moment where I can go back into older material with this new perspective.’ This lyric had been floating around and I couldn’t let go of it. There was something about it that I thought was interesting. It never quite found its home before, then we found this fucking absolutely rolling monster beat. It was beautiful.” **“Everything All Together”** “In my live show, I like to take a line from each of the songs at some point in the set and weave them all together and start repeating things that people have heard before. It gives this cumulative trance-like power to the whole experience. As the album was finished, I was saying to Fraser, ‘I want to make this kind of master poem,’ so I took a line from each of the songs and wove them together. We got all the session files up and took the horn line from that song, the snare from that song, one little piano part from that song, so there’s something from every single song and we put it on a grid almost like it was artwork rather than music work. We did it by eye rather than listening to it and then pressed play on that loop. It’s like the soul of the album speaking. It tells you everything that you’ve just heard and everything you’re about to hear.” **“Prayers to Whisper”** “This came out of me experimenting with form, four lines and the repeated fifth line three times. Obviously, it’s about something that’s close to my heart, the death of a friend. The chords Fraser found for it were quite somber. I was like, ‘No, no, no, no.’ Lyrically and musically, if the two things are going the same way, it’s death. We need uplift in the music. We need celebration. Fraser found these beautiful chords and it felt massive. It felt anthemic, which is how you want it to feel. It’s tough to feel optimistic in the face of somebody leaving, but there is this push and pull, if you lose somebody to something where they were suffering, to illness, to something painful, then there is some sense of release. I wanted the music to embody that and then it became this huge ballad, big pop song.” **“Diagnoses”** “I wanted to make something playful, celebratory, a summer banger about fucking antipsychotics and HRT. Why the fuck not? That’s your life. You still want to fucking dance. You’re still dancing. It’s another example of the lyric and the music pushing against each other. That’s what creates the good feeling. That’s what I like. It’s like, if this is your life, it’s no big deal. It’s a massive deal. You’re fucked. Life is just mental, of course. But at the same time, it’s just your life. And we are all just dealing with the fallout of what we’re in.” **“Hyperdistillation”** “I loved the beat but I was struggling to find the lyrical shape. It’s a love song to London, to my city, and there were these little hooky moments and I was like, ‘I need something in that hook.’ I went to Raven Bush, the string player from Speakers Corner Quartet, and said, ‘Can you write me a violin line that almost sounds like a soaring melody, like a vocal hook?’ He wrote this beautiful string part. It’s amazing, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted more of an uplift. Then I remembered \[singer-songwriter\] Connie Constance, who I’d bumped into a few times backstage and who I just love. She came down to the studio and wrote this amazing part. These fractured pieces suddenly came together in this perfect moment, which is what the song’s about.” **“Forever”** “This started as a love song about the uncertainty of a relationship and having this idea that let’s just fucking enjoy this for all that it is. And then Fraser was saying, ‘I know I was encouraging you to tell your story, but actually I feel like now the album needs more of your outward perspective.’ I totally agreed but I’d grown attached to that hook. If I tried to write a song about the world, I would never have written a hook so tender. The way that hook is addressed to a lover enables it to be more honest and truthful about the world, you escape the narrative trap of ‘I’m going to write a song about everything, which means you can write a song about nothing.’” **“Breathe”** “This is when I knew that the album wanted to be born. This was when Fraser had said to me, ‘Tell your story.’ I loved the beat, I wrote it, scribbled it out, went in the studio. This is the first time I did it. I could barely read the paper, my hands were shaking, and it is like a freestyle, wrote it, rapped it, that’s it. I haven’t quite got my head around what it is that I’m even trying to say, but the rush of that feeling, it is irreplaceable. Getting Young Fathers on there was amazing because within the world of that song I’m talking about, when *Everybody Down* \[Tempest’s 2014 Mercury-nominated debut\] came out, they were there, we were labelmates. They’ve been a part of this journey and it felt like a massive blessing to have them there on this song.” **“Till Morning”** “I wanted it to feel like the morning was coming, the sun was coming out, it was getting warmer, it’s getting brighter. When the chords come in at the end, it’s like the light. By the time we’d got our heads around that arrangement, it was two in the morning. I went in to put the vocal on it and I’d been metabolizing the lyric quite a lot and the take that I did was quite angry. Fraser said there was a tenderness in the original guide vocal because I was being very tentative with it. Sometimes, when something’s really new, you don’t even dare to say it, so I went back in and I did it like that. More gentle, more optimistic, more hopeful, more loving, less raging—and what you get is this very beautiful song about survival and about what comes after, about the possibility, a declaration of love. I thought, ‘How lucky I am to have met Fraser and to be in this relationship with somebody who can give a note like that, that can just shine a light on your performance?’”
Wolves tend to pop up regularly on Russ’ album art, but the creature on the cover of *W!LD* is something more ambiguous—perhaps a kind of wolf-horse hybrid, looking wistfully over its shoulder. Breaking down the image and title of what he bills as his sixth album (though technically you could consider it his 17th) on social media, the 32-year-old rapper explained that after spending years single-mindedly focused on external success, he’d grown more interested in exploring the “wilderness” of self-discovery. Five years after completing his deal with Columbia Records and going fully independent, the rapper who was once known as a lightning rod for controversy seems to have chilled significantly, meditating on success, love, and his own unexpected trajectory over soulful self-produced beats. (“How’d I beat the game without looking at the user guide?” he marvels on the intro.) He has yet to chill on punny entendres that oscillate between cringe and brilliant, like the one he drops on “Go Up”: “Brooks Garth/This country’s backwards.”
Since first making waves in 2011, Nigerian singer, rapper, and YBNL label head Olamide has released 10 albums, numerous hits, and shepherded the careers of chart-toppers such as Asake, Young Jonn, Fireboy DML, and Lil Kesh. He hasn’t restricted himself to Afropop, fùjí, rap, or R&B; he has been an Afropop innovator, with a voice which he variously modulates across genres, a knack for indelible hooks that reflects his fùjí music heritage, and a non-hierarchical collaborative spirit. Now, with his 11th album, 2025’s self-titled *Olamidé*—which means “wealth” in Yoruba—the artist turns inward without being indulgent, the focus never straying from the songmaking even when the source of some songs is personal and private. “I name things how I feel them,” he tells Apple Music. “I wanted to create more mellow sounds for listeners who prefer laid‐back tracks over heavy drums. Knowing there’s fans who love that keeps me motivated to perfect each record.” With the clear direction in mind, Olamide sat with a coterie of trusted producers to more closely align his feelings and intentions with the final output, though happenstance played a part: “On 99 percent of the songs, I sat in the studio with my producers, explained my ideas and the fan reaction I wanted, then we built the sound. Three tracks, ‘Billionaires Club,’ ‘Duro,’ and ‘Luvaluvah,’ came from P.Priime without any conversation—he just delivered smart beats,” asserts Olamide. His goal for the listening experience was clear: “From the jump, the idea was to make a body of work that aligns with my craftsmanship and sonically breaks the norms. I wanted the album to feel like entering a jazz bar; an immersive experience where everything tightens up together, not a rollercoaster of random highs and lows.” The result is a suite of songs which avoid maudlin introspection and showy rapping, as though he has no more points to prove, striking a balance between confident songcraft and a lifelong habit for listening and experimentation. “Growing up, I absorbed everything. I eat, breathe, and sleep music,” he recalls. “\[Most\] of the time I’m online, discovering new sounds and genres. I rarely relisten to my own tracks, except during mixing and mastering. Life is a teacher, and as long as you stay open‑minded, you realize there’s always more to learn.” Below, Olamide talks through key songs on the album. **“Prelude” (feat. Fxrtune)** “So Fxrtune is someone you all have to watch out for. He’s going to be the next big thing. By the way, that’s my brother.” **“Hasibunallah”** “At the end of the day Arabic is just a language, you know? I grew up in a Muslim family, and Muslims obviously speak Arabic, but I’ve met a couple of Christian friends also who are from the Middle East, that speak Arabic as well. So it’s just a language. ‘Hasibunallah’ is strictly talking about the journey so far, and how much God has been there for me, and holding me down and helping me actualize my dreams and everything. And I clear whoever is in doubt or whoever cares to know that I’m still with my God, and I’m still not bothered by nothing, and I’m still always going to remain successful no matter what.” **“Kai!” (with Wizkid)** “Why do I rate Wiz? To be honest, I think it’s his approach to everything—from his vocals to his writing to his approach to life and everything. He’s just an all-rounder. He’s got his stuff together, everything on point. And it’s very rare to come across people like that, that’s 1000 percent certain about what they want in life and how they want to be perceived and how they want to roll, how they want to deliver their stuff, how they want people to feel when they hear their stuff and all that. That’s very rare.” **“Luvaluvah”** “We had some pushback from clearing a Lauryn Hill sample, but that was not an issue, because I totally understand it. So we came up with something else entirely to replace that \[a sample of Hill’s 1998 track, ‘Can’t Take My Eyes off of You (I Love You Baby)’\] and it’s sounding very good. I’ve been a big fan since forever and her music’s had so much impact in my life. Every time I listen to Lauryn’s music, it feels like a slice of heaven to me. And whenever I’m down or want solace and I need something to just keep me going, I listen to Lauryn. So I am just so much of a fan and I didn’t even know when I ended up sampling her, because I’ve always been so into Lauryn Hill, so into her music.” **“Billionaires Club” (feat. Wizkid, Darkoo)** “Myself and Wiz, we agreed from the jump that we should try to get a third person on the record. And I reached out to a couple of people, but Darkoo came through with that verse. I’ve listened to her over and over, and I’ve realized that she’s got some finesse. It’s one thing to love making music, then it’s another thing to have a finesse to it. Darkoo’s got some finesse to it. She can easily write on anything.” **“Duro”** “An inspiration for this song was fùjí music which often feels like a musical diary: no single hook, just hooks everywhere. Each four‐line section could be someone else’s chorus. It’s simple, relatable, and even if you don’t understand every word, you feel the vibe.” **“Indika” (feat. Dr. Dre, SPINALL)** “For me, making a song with Dr. Dre goes way beyond a stamp. This whole Afrobeats-to-the-world thing, if you’d asked us 15 or 20 years ago, none of us thought it’d be like this. Growing up watching mandem on MTV Base, then making music with them is madness. I never thought a day like this would come. It’s too crazy to put everything together now. Absurd. I have SPINALL to thank for the introduction.” **“1 Shot”** “I was a musician before I was a rapper, but rap gave me my platform. I respect rap and believe finesse is key.” **“99” (feat. Daecolm) (with Seyi Vibez, Asake, Young Jonn)** “While recording the album, Young Jonn came by my camp and played me a record. He wasn’t feeling it yet, so I asked if I could take it. I added my verse, then recruited Asake, Seyi Vibez, and Daecolm, keeping everyone in the loop so it never felt competitive. Asake sent his verse the next day; Seyi Vibez sent his after I explained the direction; Daecolm recorded immediately. Given Daecolm’s house music credentials, he was perfect for the vibe. The phrase ‘party like ’99’ is just a nostalgic vibe. None of us were really partying like that then, but it’s a feeling everyone connects with.” **“Ruba”** “If people think it’s a love song, it is and that was the intention. I don’t shy away from making love songs. I’m only human. I wanted to create something lovable that resonates with female fans and shows my vulnerable side: that I can fall in love and go the extra mile. It comes from practice and experience.” **“Rain” (feat. Popcaan)** “Growing up, rain was something my friends and I adored. We’d dance and play under it, and it felt beautiful. That changed when I visited a friend whose house would flood whenever it rained. Their roof leaked and their bed floated. I didn’t realize rain’s darker side until then. Now it’s bittersweet: It can calm you, ease your pain, but it can also bring hardship to others. That duality inspired the theme of ‘Rain.’ I featured Popcaan to lean into the track’s reggae-tinged sonics. The record itself was also inspired by a Bob Marley and Lauryn Hill collaboration I heard years ago \[1999’s ‘Turn Your Lights Down Low’\]. Its mood and message shaped my own vision for this song.” **“Paris” (feat. Fadi)** “I flew to Paris for fittings and meetings, then Ibiza to turn up, and Miami too. That mix of locations is like fùjí music’s diary style, touching on different experiences. ‘Paris’ captures a week of fittings, meetings, and parties; just me sharing my journey.” **“Lalakipo”** “‘Lalakipo’ is Yoruba slang. If your ex isn’t active or solid, he’s a ‘lalakipo.’ I wanted an unexpected hook, not the usual bounce. The beat sounded like a banger, so I crafted something unusual to match.” **“Stronger” (feat. Boj)** “‘Stronger’ celebrates independent women chasing dreams and living their best lives. It’s my way of saying, ‘Go girl, do your thing.’”
Alexander Eli Morand comes by his nom de rap—Smiley—honestly. Even when the Drake-approved Toronto MC is popping off about street struggles and girl trouble over atmospheric OVO beats, he exudes an excitable energy and tongue-in-cheek attitude that turns frowns upside down. The quick-hit mixtape *Don’t Box Me In* functions as a status update on how Smiley’s life has changed ever since his Drizzy collab “Over the Top” blew up in 2021, and whether he’s reaffirming his loyalty to his Pelham Park homies on “Budge” (“This for all the dogs/I’ll never do a Michael Vick”) or fending off gold-digging girlfriends on “6ixSideKids” (“All you do is talk, bitch/Go start a podcast”), Smiley filters his self-aggrandizing bravado through a sly sense of humor. But true to its title, *Don’t Box Me In* exemplifies Smiley’s desire to break free of both geographic and musical boundaries: On “Spill the Tea,” he bids his hometown adieu to pursue his world-conquering ambitions while floating off into the sunset on a dreamy Sean Leon/River Tiber sample.
