In the decade since 2015’s *I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside* dropped, Earl Sweatshirt transformed from Odd Future’s mumbly alumnus into one of the most unique hip-hop artists of his generation. The acerbic idiosyncrasies and deceptively lethargic flow that made the ruminative rapper so compelling early on in his run metamorphosed over time to place him in an even less categorizable stratum. More recent work, like 2022’s *SICK!* or the following year’s *VOIR DIRE* with The Alchemist, found him seemingly examining and embracing the possibilities of brevity, doing more by saying less and keeping his projects as concise as they are insular. In line with that apparent methodology, *Live Laugh Love* contains songs that are often quite brief, filling the space provided by his curatorial left-field beat selections with pithy, incisive bars and comparatively looser vocal riffs. Some of these producers have been by his side for a while, namely Black Noi$e and Navy Blue who, respectively, contribute to roughly half the tracks. Apart from a sole instrumental from underground climber Child Actor—the murkily soulful *2 Fast 2 Furious* nod “Heavy Metal aka ejecto seato!”—the remainder come from Theravada, a New York-based artist who Earl’s fans may recall from *SICK!*’s “Tabula Rasa.” The first four songs here benefit from his beats—from the squirmy filter funk of “gsw vs sac” through the percussive jolts of “Gamma (need the <3).” Yet regardless of who happens to be behind the proverbial boards, *Live Laugh Love* is anchored by Earl’s unconventional appeal and discursive proclivities. “INFATUATION” mixes metaphors as if they were recipes, serving up tastily reconstructed wordplay seasoned with heady poetry. Among the longest songs here, “Live” cautiously raises one of the album’s oft-revisited trope dissections—dying on a hill—before spiraling downwards with a beat-flip to match the mood. The slightly redacted “CRISCO” offers up a fractured narrative flecked with graphic imagery, while “WELL DONE!” subversively flexes in different directions than most rappers could even attempt. On the closing “exhaust,” he comments on both work ethic and something far more personal, vacillating between civil splits and parting words of wisdom, albeit with the occasional Erykah Badu interruption.
False narratives about the so-called decline or demise of New York rap have cropped up so often over the past two decades that, to one of the city’s hip-hop natives, it can feel downright conspiratorial. So it couldn’t have come as much of a surprise that someone like Joey Bada\$$ would eventually step up to address the current iteration of this tiresome talking point. After all, the Pro Era figure made his name by both reveling in and refurbishing the hometown sounds of the golden age, building with his crew while seeing his own star rise. “This thing is a competitive art form,” he tells Apple Music. “For people who’s really passionate about this and passionate about moving that pen, we understand that.” His 2025 opening move “The Ruler’s Back” and its subsequent rap ripostes “Sorry Not Sorry” and “Pardon Me” made his position known and, on some level, put him at perceived odds with certain Los Angeles denizens. “I believe I’m at my best when I’m feeling the heat of another pen,” he says, explaining how the perceived rivalry fueled his craft. But regardless of any animosity or gossip generated amid that back-and-forth, it all led to the release of *Lonely at the Top*, a mixtape that fully transitions the *1999* rapper into his present era. The Chuck Strangers-produced opener “DARK AURA” provides a proper reintroduction, leading swiftly into the confident alliance of Joey with Westside Gunn on the ornate “SWANK WHITE.” In line with the flexibility of the project’s format, the beats sometimes surprise, as with the R&B groover “3 FEET AWAY” and the Neptunes-esque throwback “SUPAFLEE.” Yet even when he’s in more familiar musical territory on “HIGHROLLER” or the Statik Selektah-helmed “BK’S FINEST,” he never sounds stale. NYC pride pervades the project, occasionally amplified by locally sourced guests like A$AP Ferg, Rome Streetz, and Pro Era pal CJ Fly. Given Joey’s lyrical swipes at the West Coast that led to this moment, the presence of TDE mainstay Ab-Soul on “STILL” seems less like a conciliatory olive branch than a slightly subversive act of artistic solidarity, one made even more meaningful by Rapsody’s concurrent feature. “I mean, I’ll say we was trolling, but we had to show people that you can do this,” he says. “And it could be love afterwards—and during, even.”
Though Westside Gunn’s attention these days seems largely focused on growing his 4th Rope pro wrestling brand, he can’t seem to stay away from the mic in 2025. With two new releases already under his championship belt, as well as noteworthy collabs with the likes of Doechii and JID, the auspicious arrival of *HEELS HAVE EYES 2* ensures that Griselda’s head honcho stays inextricable from the year’s rap conversation. While the kayfabe-centric series’ initial installment featured no less than WWE’s Ted DiBiase on its cover, this considerably lengthier sequel swaps in Virgil, another iconic in-ring figure whose memorable late-’80s/early ’90s storylines had him either aligned or at odds with the Million Dollar Man. Such choices reflect the world-building his fans have come to expect from him, and returning producers like Conductor Williams and Denny Laflare on deck reinforce the lineage this project plays in his wider discography. Its title reflecting the titular superstar’s shocking bad-guy turn, “HEEL CENA” finds Gunn canonically shrouded in villainous boasts and deeply jazzy vibes. The gloomy “GLOWREALAH” calls back to several thematic hallmarks in his lyrical mix, while “MANDELA” brightens things up without sacrificing his signature fixations. A handful of Griselda familiars come through with fly verses of their own, from veritable veteran Benny the Butcher on the ominous “POWER HOUSE HOBBS” to the more recent affiliate Brother Tom Sos on “AMIRA KITCHEN.” Both narco rap go-to Stove God Cooks and Buffalo mainstay Eastside Flip feature on “BRIKOLAI VOLKOFF,” the former with a profane hook and the latter with a characteristically freestyle coda. And as for that parting Hulk Hogan homage on “LOVE YOU PT. 2,” you know Flygod had to do it.
Ghostface Killah captured lightning in a bottle with *Supreme Clientele*, his supernatural 2000 sophomore solo effort. The album is heralded as a classic, as both his best and as one of the greatest to come from the Wu-Tang Clan. Months after the album’s 25th anniversary, he released a sequel that satisfyingly lives up to the original, part of the seven-record Legend Has It campaign by Nas’ Mass Appeal Records. Recreating the feeling of the 2000s is one thing, but it’s another to actually have old records from decades ago that still hit—and several of the songs here, like “Windows” and the second single, “Metaphysics,” are gems that Ghost has kept in the vault for decades while awaiting the right occasion. Aside from literal relics, Ghost is still in touch with his strengths that made the original so great. “Iron Man” and “Georgy Porgy” are stuffed with his distinctive brand of frenetic, cinematic street storytelling, recollecting robberies with raps as agile as they’ve been in years. Other songs take their time: “4th Disciple” somberly stretches the final moments with a comrade after a deadly shootout, and “The Trial” creates a scene with Raekwon, Method Man, GZA, and Reek da Villian as characters in a courtroom. “Break Beat” and “Beat Box” faithfully emulate the aesthetic of the ’80s hip-hop that he grew up in. And Ghost still knows his way around a soul sample, sometimes letting them play all the way through to extract every ounce of emotion from them. On “The Zoom,” he raps alongside sampled vocals by Lionel Richie, painting a peaceful scene of reading *Roots* author Alex Haley at the pool, with a gorgeous woman by his side. “This shit touch my soul,” he says at the start of the song. “You know I got an old soul.” That might be the case, but his rhymes are ageless.
When Kid Cudi spoke with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe in 2022, Cudi was contemplating closing the door on music entirely. “The Kid Cudi stuff, I think I want to put it on the back burner and chill out with that,” he said. “I think I want to be done with it.” Fifteen years deep into his uncompromising career, he’d scored a handful of megahits, pioneered the melody-driven style that’s defined the past 15 years of hip-hop, and secured his spot among the blog era’s Mount Rushmore. Then he got bored. Three years later, Cudi’s reinspired and happier than ever, following up 2024’s pair of trap-inspired albums—*INSANO* and *INSANO (NITRO MEGA)*—with a record he bills as his first-ever pop album. “I just felt like I needed to drastically make a creative leap in my career,” he tells Lowe in 2025. “I mean, people know that I’m a risk-taker, and I felt like the last five years, I hadn’t really been pushing myself.” Approaching his 11th solo album, *Free*, he asked himself a question: “What does the world not have right now that I can provide?” The answer, it turns out, was hope. The Cleveland native has never shied away from vulnerability, candidly sharing his struggles with depression over the years. On *Free*, the newlywed (he married Lola Abecassis Sartore in June 2025) testifies that it does, in fact, get better. Here he swings for the fences with pop-punk chords, massive hooks, and the occasional dubstep drop as he fights for happiness in the face of fear. “Turns out I had control of my own Truman Show,” he howls over the driving beat of “Truman Show.” And on the lighters-in-the-sky anthem “Neverland” (which he sang to his wife on their wedding day) he swoons: “My heart’s skipping/The scales tipping/It’s called living/And I could get used to it.” Introduced to the world at the age of 24, the 41-year-old rapper never pictured himself making it this far. “When I was younger, I never imagined myself in my forties—I didn’t see past 30 for me,” he tells Lowe. “And it’s just a beautiful thing to have this album as a direct representation of the joy and peace that I feel.” He recalls being overcome with emotion when recording “Salt Water,” which he closes by addressing his audience directly: “Yes, my life has been one hell of a ride,” he says, ditching his signature melodies for spoken word. “There was a time where happiness was a very far-off and distant thing for me to acquire. But I made it out of that darkness. I saw the light.”
In the seven years since Dev Hynes last released an album as Blood Orange, the English musician wasn’t exactly twiddling his thumbs. After 2018’s searching *Negro Swan*, the scene veteran released a mixtape (*Angel’s Pulse*) and an EP (*Four Songs*), composed soundtracks for film and TV, and hopped on records with Lorde, Turnstile, and Vampire Weekend. All the while, he contemplated the future of Blood Orange. “I’m always making music,” Hynes tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. But before he could release it, he had to answer his own questions: “Why should it exist? What’s the point?” Then Hynes’ mother died in 2023, and the direction for the fifth Blood Orange album, *Essex Honey*, became clear. Set in the county outside London that Hynes once called home, it’s a sublime examination of what “home” even means, refracted in the prism of his elegant hybrid of hazy pop, feather-light funk, and ghosts of post-punk and New Wave. Echoes of distant music memories forge pathways into the past: “Regressing back to times you know/Playing songs you forgot you owned/Change a memory, make it 4/3,” Hynes sings on “Westerberg,” its title a nod to The Replacements’ lead singer and its hook a play on the band’s 1987 track “Alex Chilton.” More Easter eggs are buried in the bass grooves, sax solos, distorted guitars, and orchestral swoons—a Durutti Column sample on “The Field,” an Elliott Smith interpolation sung by Lorde on “Mind Loaded,” a line about writer’s block delivered by Zadie Smith on “Vivid Light.” The prevailing mood is liminal, surrendered between past and present, though in Hynes’ hands, purgatory sounds heavenly.
On 2024’s *Samurai*, Lupe Fiasco gave his fans exactly what they wanted. Reuniting with longtime producer Soundtrakk (of “Kick, Push” and “Superstar” fame) for their second consecutive full-length collaboration, following *DRILL MUSIC IN ZION*, he kept his high-level rap songcraft at the fore on the acclaimed album. This EP-length companion expands upon that project somewhat, with some additional material including a few choice remixes featuring his Samurai Tour opening act, singer Troy Tyler. At first, the reworked version of the title track seems a rather nuanced revisiting, yet its final minute and a half gives the groove a more pronounced R&B feel with Tyler’s take on the hook. A similar thing happens with “Bigfoot,” where their vocal interplay elevates an already surging chorus. As for the newer songs, “SOS” delivers the masterly lyricism that people expect from Lupe, his running commentary and intricate metaphors buoying the divinely jazzy, ATCQ-esque beat.
The past few years have been trying for the former member of Migos, which officially disbanded in 2023 after the tragic death of Takeoff in 2022. But hardship has shaped Offset’s path from the beginning, going back to his incarceration during Migos’ big break in 2013. “With me personally, adversity made me focus,” the 33-year-old rapper tells Apple Music’s Ebro Darden. “I’ve learned to just brush it off.” His debut solo album, *FATHER OF 4*, arrived in 2019, but 2023’s *SET IT OFF* marked Offset’s first venture with Migos in the rearview. On his third solo album, the rapper born Kiari Cephus sets aside his alias to dig a little deeper. “I named my album *KIARI* because it’s like me looking at myself in the mirror—my real life, how far I’ve come and what I’ve done, the good and the bad, the mistakes,” he tells Ebro. After seven years of marriage, Offset’s ex-wife, Cardi B, filed for divorce in August 2024. Through the drama, he sought solace in the booth. “I just wanted to focus on the music,” he tells Ebro. “And as soon as I did it, I seen the results.” The 18 tracks of *KIARI* show Offset at his most soul-searching, without sacrificing the technical precision he’s been known for since his scene-stealing turn on 2016’s “Bad and Boujee.” Moody samples add to the gravity, from the flip of Nina Simone’s “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” on “Pills” to “Bodies” with JID, which throws a curveball by interpolating Drowning Pool’s “Bodies.” (“I like the element of surprise on the records,” Offset told Ebro of the collaboration.) On “Move On,” Offset officially closes the book on his relationship with Cardi: “I’m trying to move on in peace,” he sings on the hook. As for a future reconciliation with Quavo for a Takeoff tribute album, Offset tells Ebro, “It’s possible. We just building us first.” Still, he scatters tributes to Takeoff throughout *KIARI*, recollecting the trio’s early days on “Prada Myself” and recruiting John Legend for the poignant hook of “Never Let Go”: “I lost my brother, but I gained an angel.”
You could say that BigXthaPlug has always been country, from his deep Dallas drawl to the cowboy hat he rocked in the video for one of his earliest hits, 2022’s “Texas.” But his first official foray into country as a genre was in April 2025 with “All the Way,” a duet with rising country star Bailey Zimmerman featuring trap drums and steel guitar. With his hypnotic voice and over-the-top charisma, BigX has spent the past few years establishing himself as a bona fide star. But “All the Way” was the biggest hit to date for both BigX and Zimmerman. Throughout the 2020s, the lines between country and rap have blurred: Morgan Wallen and Lil Durk scored a hit with their 2021 collab “Broadway Girls,” onetime rappers like Jelly Roll and Post Malone have been embraced by Nashville, and the biggest song of 2024 was Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” a twangy rework of an old ringtone rap hit. With his third album, *I Hope You’re Happy*, BigX straddles that line with a foot firmly planted in each terrain. Besides a pair of interludes, each track features a duet with a country star, mostly centered around country music’s favorite topic: heartache. Speaking to Thomas Rhett on Apple Music Radio, BigX explained his methodology for choosing the album’s nine features: “The way I went about it, I looked for anybody who I felt like had some type of soul in them.” Hence the assist from Jelly Roll on the bittersweet “Box Me Up,” or the bluesy hook from Darius Rucker on the title track. Alabama’s Ella Langley is gorgeously petty on “Hell at Night,” an ode to taking the low road. (“It’s just one of those situations where you could tell two people was going through some of the same things, just in their own separate ways,” said BigX of the collaboration.) But on the Thomas Rhett duet “Long Nights,” BigX takes a moment to appreciate how far he’s come: “I thank God like every day, ’cause, shit, he helped me find my purpose/I was hurting/I went from hearing shots to hearing fans behind those curtains/So I know that it’s working.”
“This is a warning: Your time is up,” announced Mariah the Scientist in the trailer for her fourth album, *HEARTS SOLD SEPARATELY*. “We will not be led by heartless womanizers. We are more than soldiers. We are heartbeats in a world of hollow men, defenders of a cause worth living and dying for. This is for the lovers.” Since her debut album, 2019’s *MASTER*, romantic drama has been the Georgia native’s muse, as she unpacks the complexities of disappointment and desire with an old soul and a light touch. Drawing from the classics of ’80s R&B, when slow jams by the likes of Sade and Babyface ruled the radio, *HEARTS SOLD SEPARATELY* harkens back to a smoother, sexier time, though there’s a tinge of melancholy to singles like “Burning Blue” and the Kali Uchis duet “Is It a Crime.” The pair of singles represent the 27-year-old singer’s biggest hits to date. “I tried new things with my voice,” she tells Apple Music. “I tried new vibes. New perspectives.” As for what’s changed personally since 2023’s *To Be Eaten Alive*—after four years of her highly publicized relationship with Young Thug, during most of which he was incarcerated, the rapper was released in October 2024. Mariah delves into the situation on “Sacrifice,” the wistful opening track. “When you love somebody, you make sacrifices,” she says. “There was a point in time when there was a lot of distance in my relationship, and I feel like I had to make that sacrifice.” Amidst the sea of love songs floats one self-reliance anthem: “All along, it was me, myself, and I,” the self-professed loner sings on “More.”
The phrase “your favorite rapper’s favorite rapper” is used all the time, but what’s the equivalent for the moral direction of the genre? Shortly after taking a stance for hip-hop’s principles in his battle with Drake, Kendrick Lamar shouted out Lecrae as his own example of who he looks to for guidance. “Sometimes I wonder what Lecrae would do,” he rapped aloud on an untitled track. “Fuck these n\*\*\*\*s up, or show ’em just what prayer would do?” The Texas native has topped the Billboard 200, won four Grammy Awards, and collaborated with other rap greats over his 20-plus-year career, all while creating music that’s firmly rooted in his Christian faith. It’s easy to see why Kendrick would look up to him: He’s stuck by his principles and reshaped the face of Christianity in hip-hop in the process. But a listen to *Reconstruction* shows that Lecrae isn’t the pillar of spiritual steadiness that many think. He’s had rifts with sects of the religious community that made him consider abandoning his faith, he’s still reeling from the deaths of loved ones, and memories from his past in the streets are still fresh in his mind. It’s all led him to a new perspective on his faith, as he explains in the title track, angrily chastising institutional Christianity for getting in bed with crooked politicians and evil forces. “They said we were walking away from faith?/We wasn’t walking away from faith, we was walking away from fraud,” he proclaims. “This ain’t a crisis of belief/It’s a reconstruction for clarity.” But Lecrae hasn’t gotten this far by being preachy. He has just as much skill on the mic as he does conviction in his beliefs. “Brick for Brick” cleverly uses drug and housing metaphors to illustrate spiritual stability, and “H2O” flips water-and-ice wordplay to emphasize the prioritization of spiritual connection over material wealth. “Headphones” finds him bonding with Killer Mike and T.I. over grief and survivor’s guilt, and on “Politickin,” he surprisingly sounds right at home over a thumping West Coast homage. But on “Die for the Party,” he directly responds to Kendrick’s shout-out, mirroring his peer’s disgust with a lack of morality in rap and the world writ large. But he also laments his own imperfections in the same context. “Truthfully, I’m nobody to judge,” he admits.
Teyana Taylor’s fourth studio album commands an A-list cast of Hollywood talent (collectively owning an Oscar, seven Emmys, three Golden Globes, and a Tony) helping the multitalented singer-songwriter to bring the intimate, complicated world of *Escape Room* to life. A charged R&B drama unfolds between scene-setting interludes narrated by stars including Taraji P. Henson, Sarah Paulson, Kerry Washington, Regina King, and Issa Rae, as Taylor demolishes the fourth wall and opens the audience up to a front-row view of life in metamorphosis. The narrative that plays out across *Escape Room* runs parallel to events in Taylor’s own life, finding herself and falling in love again following her separation and subsequent divorce from former Brooklyn Nets player, Iman Shumpert. Opening track “Fire Girl” deploys a distorted vocal sample and lilting, Spanish guitar which lights a blazing trail of raw emotion that stretches the entire expanse of the album. “Long Time” simmers with regret, the KAYTRANADA assist “Open Invite” burns up with pure desire, while “In Your Skin” melts devotion. Although a turbulent ride at times, the gentle acoustic ballad “Always,” which strums the record out—ending on a message to their mother, read aloud by Taylor’s children—makes for a smooth landing, bringing the curtain down on a happy ending.
As an integral part of Southern California’s bountiful, diverse rap scene, D Smoke knows how important community is. These tight relationships inform his 2025 LP, *Wake Up Supa*, which reflects the strength of his neighborly bonds within the context of grief and trauma; the project is also a journal of the Inglewood spitter coming to terms with the death of his mother. On the opening title track, Smoke observes how tragedy can take “the wind out the whole city.” The line may be about a number of significant deaths that have occurred in the city, or it might simply be about the collective grief from his friends and family after he lost his mom. Regardless, there’s a comfort in this openness. Even during his lowest moments, D Smoke finds support in the strength of his bonds. Take the triumphant, uplifting “Chin Up,” which finds the rapper imploring anyone going through it to keep pushing. It’s advice for anyone struggling, but also for himself: “And even if you get knocked down right when you get up, better keep your chin up.”
For LA-via-Boston singer Khamari, fear, regret, and trust issues aren’t just partnership flaws he’s working through; they’re the heart of his sound. Across his second album, *To Dry a Tear*, he’s a man chasing love while wrestling demons. “Lucy wanna build a home up/I’m aware, but I’m a rolling stone,” he confesses on album opener “I Love Lucy.” On “Head in a Jar,” he grapples with settling for emotional scraps. “Close” captures the weariness of feeling disconnected from a partner, Khamari balancing yearning with distance. The D’Angelo-inspired “Sycamore Tree” highlights an enduring duality in his POV, the singer wondering, “Should I stay or should I leave?” Just as in love, there are no easy answers here.
