Houston MC Monaleo has long draped herself in pink, using the color as both armor and attitude, but as she proves on *Who Did the Body*, beneath all the glam lies true grit. Tracks like “Spare Change” and “Sexy Soulaan” radiate the same fiery confidence that fueled her 2021 breakout single, “Beating Down Yo Block,” while the strip club-ready “Freak Show” (featuring Lizzo) is the MC’s audacity in full form. But don’t for a second believe Monaleo is going it alone. On “Tamron Hall” she declares, “I got God whenever I walk, I can never fail if I lose it all.” Hailing from a hometown that has always honored the ability to flex as a divine blessing, it’s no wonder Houston legends Bun B, Paul Wall, and Lil’ Keke show up on the triumphant closer “We on Dat,” happy to pass the torch to their shared city’s next star.
As both a rapper and an R&B artist, BIA has spent more than a decade building up to the 2025 release of *BIANCA*. While the Massachusetts native’s well-received 2020s EPs *FOR CERTAIN* and *REALLY HER* received tracklist-expanding Deluxe Edition treatments, this 2025 outing marks her first proper album. Rising to the occasion with some of the strongest material of her career to date, she straddles her twin vocal skill sets, sometimes on the same song. Switching between earnest singing and frank bar-slinging, she contends with romantic regret on “SAD PARTY” and steps confidently into the reggae space of “ONE THING.” On the guest front, she’s joined by an impressive and eclectic group that enhances her strengths across genres and styles. Latin power-players Becky G and Young Miko amplify her bilingual might on “HARD WAY” and “BIRTHDAY BEHAVIOR,” respectively, while Southern rap stars Key Glock and Denzel Curry each match her lyrical energy on the booming pair “DADE” and “WE ON GO II,” the latter also featuring an especially animated A$AP Ferg.
Sam Gellaitry has spent most of his life thinking about what his debut should sound like. “I’ve been making this album for pretty much 28 years,” he tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. It’s not far from the truth: Since uploading his first tracks as a teenager from Stirling, the Scottish producer, singer, and songwriter has experimented across future beats, house, funk, and pop—a jazz record was even considered at one point—following his creative impulses wherever (and whenever) they called. “I guess that’s why it kind of took this long, because I was jumping around,” he admits. “I have that kind of creative scatterbrain. This is the first time I’ve been very thematic and calculated about the sonics. My other projects have not stuck to one genre. The challenge of this album was to stick to one.” *ANYWHERE HERE IS PERFECT* feels like Gellaitry expanded the bright, prismatic world of his 2021 hit “Assumptions” (which, serendipitously, resurfaced in a viral moment just months before the project announcement) into an album. It pairs funky dance-floor grooves with sparkling synth-pop and runs them through a retro filter. Songs like “START UP A RUMOUR” and “CURIOUS” beam with the French-house sheen of Daft Punk, while “LOVE ON ME” recalls George Michael in its earnest, exuberant sparkle. Elsewhere, swirling synths, noodly guitar riffs, and digitized vocal harmonies add playful hues and textures. And yes, there are even a few beat switch-ups to scratch that scatterbrain itch. The album is as much a personal evolution as it is creative. Across 12 songs, Gellaitry navigates the highs and lows of love with the kind of directness that makes every feeling hit harder. “LIGHTNING,” with its walloping drums and marching-band fervor, captures the intense rush of infatuation when meeting someone new, while “DANGER!” reignites the spark of an old flame. Pushing through relationship paranoia (“ON&ON”), quiet reckoning (“CLOUDS”), and the jagged wounds of past pain (“SCAR / A NEW VOID”), he finds euphoric catharsis in “YOU MIGHT FIND THE ONE.” Gellaitry’s rainbow palette is informed in part by his synesthesia, but he also sees it as a reflection of his Scottish roots, nodding to the country’s cultural exports like happy hardcore and Calvin Harris. “We’ve got so much beautiful nature, but if you’re in a city, like Glasgow, it is a bit gray,” he says. “I feel like a lot of the sounds that come from there are basically painting over the gray. Maybe we’re filling that void that we’re not getting enough sunlight.”
Though Armani White unveiled his third LP, *THERE’S A GHOST IN MY HOUSE.*, on Halloween 2025, the project is about much more than spooky vibes and haunted spirits. Rather, White uses the release date as a springboard to introduce a wide-ranging and artfully sketched narrative about how the past can either tear down or forge resilience. On *THERE’S A GHOST IN MY HOUSE.*, Armani White is leaving, but he’s not running away; he’s moving forward. There’s the energetic, hyper-verbose lyrical flex of the opener “HOME.,” which finds White working through trauma normally reserved for the therapist’s couch. Elsewhere, though, triumph prevails: On “CUT THE LIGHTS.” he’s quick to note just how quickly he’s able to get a party going, and on “SAY IT TO ME.,” he flips a sample of Justice’s “D.A.N.C.E.” and showcases his quick wit when he declares that he’ll turn a couple of “grapevines into a cabernet.”
Fans always knew Daddy Yankee would eventually return with a new album. Despite the ceremonial finality that surrounded his 2022 full-length farewell, *LEGENDADDY*, the Puerto Rican icon didn’t exactly go away, performing live and dropping singles as he saw fit in the subsequent years. Still, the arrival of *Lamento en Baile*, a faith-based outing from the perreo pioneer, seems less an extension of his prior work than a reinvention that opens him up to new audiences who’d otherwise have avoided an oft salacious genre. Sparked by his public conversion to Christianity, this roughly hour-long effort sees him sidestep his King of Reggaetón title to preach about a kingdom greater than his own, beginning with the rhythmic appeal of “Tan Invitao’” and continuing through such profoundly positive fare as the thumping yet tropical “Sonríele.” Shifting from such ecstatic joy to a more studious seriousness, he looks deeper into Scripture on the cautionary salsa “Jezabel y Júdas” and revives the Noah’s Ark parable on the sleek “Súbete.” Yet he can also find humor in life’s mishaps and small ironies, shrugging it all off for the bubbly “DTB.” Even Yankee’s love songs now carry a devotional bent, evident on the praise-laden “Jardín Rojo.” His gratitude in this new phase of life imbues so much of *Lamento en Baile*’s contents, bursting out of the dance floor-ready “Ayo Ayo,” “Tu Amor Me Conviene,” and “El Toque.” Truly, his commitment to composing catchy songs regardless of subject matter carries through here, sure to aid in converting those who came to him in more secular years.
Since first going viral with her breakthrough single “Riri” back in 2022, Young Miko quickly became the sort of star that Latin trap had long been needing. Yet by the time her full-length debut *att.* dropped some two years later, it was abundantly clear that this Puerto Rican rapper couldn’t be contained by any one style or sound. For instance, her joint single “Classy 101” with Feid proved a massive success, its reggaetón beat and her charged-up lyrics making for a perfect match. With *Do Not Disturb*, she looks to better unify her expanding set of styles under one artistic roof, resulting in an album that holds her hip-hop bona fides close, even as she takes creative risks. Thematically, Miko leans assertively into her queerness here, righteously upending Latin rap and reggaetón’s predominantly male gaze with her own highly credible brand of sex positivity and unmistakable charm on such songs as “En el Ritz” and “Piki.” On “WASSUP,” she deftly reimagines Lil Wayne’s seminal hit single “Lollipop” as a raunchy albeit femme-forward cut, while the irresistible “Dosis” presents a perreo full of licentious promises and persuasive prompts. Miko’s bilingual prowess speaks across language barriers as well, seeking to draw a broad coalition of listeners into her space with natural ease on “What’s Ur Vibe” and the emboldened “Likey Likey.” Though she plays with sounds as disparate as jungle and R&B on “Ojalá” and the gauzy “Sin pausa,” respectively, she reliably remains a trapera through and through. She basks in a luxe life on “Plug (Type Shit)” and goes bar-for-bar with Eladio Carrión on the momentous “Traviesa.”
