Hiphopheads Best of 2022

Back in the Myspace era, the duo of Chuck Inglish and Mikey Rocks bubbled just below the mainstream: two Chicago producers-turned-rappers who bonded over throwback streetwear, BMX bikes, and ’80s-style beats that knocked pictures off the walls. Though they disbanded shortly after their long-awaited 2011 debut album to focus on solo projects, real heads rejoiced upon news of The Cool Kids’ reunion in 2017. On *BEFORE SHIT GOT WEIRD*, the duo makes up for lost time, chronicling their inimitable brand of flyness (which includes hibachi restaurants and trips to Topgolf) and trading hilariously deadpan punchlines about esoteric stunting. With an assist from Chance the Rapper, “LOW SODIUM” is a deadpan but cocky homecoming celebration: “Don’t go too heavy trying to imitate us/Low-key, we them n\*\*\*as that they been afraid of,” warns Mikey, ice-cold as ever.

Rising MCs 42 Dugg and EST Gee may have declared themselves the *Last Ones Left* on their latest LP, but contextualizing what that means for the uninitiated isn’t the easiest thing to do. “It\'s like a group of people that\'s a certain type of way,” EST Gee told Apple Music\'s Ebro Darden just ahead of the album’s release. “And it ain\'t a whole lot. So it ain\'t just speaking of me and Dugg specifically, but like the group of us. Like it might not be no more members like us after.” Dugg and Gee, who hail from Detroit and Louisville respectively, built their fanbases over the past half decade in near lockstep, frequently appearing in the same playlists and also guesting on each other’s projects and those of peers they both enjoy. “We got so many songs together,” Gee says. “Both of us is artists in demand—in our general area, it\'s like a tie, Michigan and Kentucky. So it just makes sense.” With *Last Ones Left*’s robust 17 tracks, it’s clear the two enjoy making music with each other and are operating on a very similar wavelength. The project contains a handful of back-and-forth verses that express, in tandem, a penchant for forging their own mythology (“Spin,” “All 100s,” “Can’t Be Fucked With,” “Who Hotter Than Gee”), fair warning to their detractors (“Skcretch Sum,” “Everybody Shooters Too”), a considered regard for the people who look up to them (“My Yungin”), and a shared longing for loved ones locked behind bars (“Free the Shiners,” “Free Zoski”). Though they were unable to coordinate for the interview—Dugg, allegedly having missed three separate flights, dialed in by phone from a Prada store—they know each other well enough that Gee was able to predict (before Dugg joined the call) that he’d name the riotous “Thump Shit” as his favorite song from the project. “That\'s his theme song,” Gee said. “He wake up in the morning, they just start playing it over his house, as soon as he get up out of the bed.” Dugg confirmed it just as soon as he got on the phone. “If I was wrong, I was going to leave,” Gee added. But he wasn’t, so he didn’t. And they’d have one more thing to joke about the next time they got back in the studio with each other.

The legend of A Boogie wit da Hoodie was built on heartbreak. The Bronx-hailing MC’s breakout 2014 mixtape *Artist* was chock-full of it, with A Boogie—whose real name actually is Artist—rapping and singing over consistently melancholy piano about a disloyal partner, a perspective he’d distill into a mantra: “D.T.B.,” or “don’t trust bitches.” Upon the creation of his fourth studio album *Me vs. Myself*, A Boogie found himself down in the dumps yet again, but in a way he’ll say was maybe too real for the radio. “My mom just beat cancer,” he told Zane Lowe in a conversation ahead of the album. “I was going through that for two years. Just keeping her happy is the main important thing of my process right now. \[And\] when it comes to PnB Rock, too, that was a big one right there.” Near the end of the project’s creation, A Boogie’s world was rocked by the September 2022 murder of beloved Philadelphia singer PnB Rock, who also happened to be one of his most cherished collaborators. “I had to put him on the album, \[but\] at the same time, I don\'t like to do that when it comes to people passing away,” A Boogie says. “It feels like a weird tension towards that. And I don\'t like that at all, so I separated his song from my album and I\'m dropping it \[later\].” Artist says there were “a lot of negative things going on at the time I was making the album,” but you wouldn’t necessarily know that from listening. The project’s 22 tracks sound most indebted to the “rock star lifestyle” he sang about on *Artist 2.0*’s “Might Not Give Up.” There’s an abundance of big-money talk (“Money Conversations,” “Ballin,” “Chanelly,” “Regular,” “Man in the Mirror”), but also ruminations on waviness (“Water,” “Bounce Back,” “February”), rich rapper courtship (“Take Shots,” “Last Time,” “Come Here,” “Back It Up”), and an ode to friendship (“B.R.O. \[Better Ride Out\]”). While creating *Me vs. Myself*, A Boogie wit da Hoodie was clearly focused on giving fans the best of his life, something that makes the project sound like little more than a personal creative challenge. “This feels like my best project in that way where I can really listen to something in the car, something in the crib—at the same time \[I’m\] going out, hearing it in the club,” he says. “This is my favorite vibe right now.”

Before this album even had a name, Buddy says he had always been working on it, always making music. He estimates it was around 70 percent complete before he even began to think about what to call it. “I’ve always just been trying to make the best songs and then consolidate,” the Compton rapper tells Apple Music. He describes his recording process as “sporadic,” but really it seems more like alchemy—a collection of minds transforming silence into magic, culture combusting into sound. “I was really just trying to assemble an amazing team of producers and instrumentalists,” he says. “Whether we jam out over a bunch of live instruments, or a producer comes and plays a bunch of different beats, I would just freestyle, catch a vibe instantly, and just double back and flush it into full records.” *Superghetto* is some of Buddy’s most engulfing work. His West Coast rap DNA is prevalent, as always, but it sounds more universal than ever, blended with jazz, R&B, and beachy pop. The cadences (“whatever’s on my heart in the moment”) and subject matter (“my day-to-day experience, remembering how things made me feel”) are varied and colorful. Sometimes, it’s the political ferocity of “Black 2”; at other times, it’s the carefree levity of “Happy Hour.” In his exploration and experimentation, he lands on something that signals evolution, both personal and creative. “These songs sound and feel bigger,” he says, “but it still sounds and feels like me at the same time—the instrumentation, the versatility, and the risks that I’m taking this time around.” Below, he explains the inspiration and production behind each of the album’s tracks. **“Hoochie Mama”** “I just feel \[‘Hoochie Mama’\] is what is known to be super ghetto. That is the most ghetto song on the album, I feel like. It’s just the essence of what I’m really trying to change the narrative of—because once you get into the album, it just feels a little different.” **“Ghetto 24” (feat. Tinashe)** “Me and Tinashe was working on music, and we made a bunch of different songs, and it was just one of those moments where we didn’t know what to work on, but we wanted to work on something. I was going through a bunch of beats, and we really liked that beat. It was the homie Axl Folie made that beat. She went in there and did her parts, and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s hard.’ I started writing—I was trying to rap real good and just kind of got into it. I stepped away for a while to get the second verse and fine-tune the first to make it more album-worthy because it felt so current and ready for people to hear. We just caught a crazy vibe that day.” **“Wait Too Long” (feat. Blxst)** “Me and Blxst, we’ve been overdue to work for a while, and he really just carved his own lane and sound so perfect, it’s crazy. And for me to just resurface and start dropping music again, it just felt so right. It felt serendipitous that the song is called ‘Wait Too Long,’ because I feel like everybody’s been waiting too long for moments like this, for me and Blxst together. Only we can stand in the light that’s there for us. We was kicking it—Hollywood Cole made that beat. It was crazy. And Blxst did the hook. We was just vibing out, watching movies, playing chess, hanging out with a bunch of friends. I had to, again, step away and just really give my verses some love. I think I wrote three different verses just so it would be as good as the hook. I was listening to that hook by itself for a couple of weeks.” **“Black 2”** “It’s so funny because I don’t know what type of mode I be in when I be making these ‘Black’ records. I just am Black, so I’m always thinking about Black trauma, Black pride, Black enjoyment, Black excellence, Black everything all the time. It was just another day—I think it was during February, so I was just in the mood. The homie Roofeeo made that beat, and it was so tight. I was rapping real good that day, but I just try to talk about it from my perspective, which is less political and just more communal. From where I stand, on the inside looking out, everybody else is always trying to do some Black stuff that we be on in the first place. So, that’s the perspective that I was taking that day. I was working with the homie Kent \[Jamz\]—he helped me write the hook. We was paying homage to Malcolm X and Paul Mooney.” **“High School Crush”** “Shout-out to Axl Folie—he made that beat again. It was him and Leon Thomas. I was just in the singing mood that day. I was feeling all lovey-dovey—I don’t know, I might’ve had a new boo thing or something. It was just the same feeling as when you got that high school crush. So, I tried to turn a current event—just bridge it with a memory to capture the whole feeling of interest turning into infatuation into a full-on obsession in the heat of the moment. I just wanted to capsulize it and stay there in that moment forever. I was just rapping hella good. I was trying to sound like André 3000 on the rap.” **“Happy Hour” (feat. T-Pain)** “I just feel so honored to provide a canvas for such an artist to put some paint where it ain’t. T-Pain is such a legend, and I do enjoy myself a nice happy hour. I remember when I first turned 21, and I even found out about the concept—just being in a position to have my own money, hang out with friends, and just go out and buy food and drink for cheap. I was really just trying to capture that moment. We was for sure drinking when we made that song, and it was a bunch of live instrumentation. D’Mile made that beat, but we had Brody Brown come through with the bass, and then Robert Glasper did some stuff on there, Terrace Martin, Derrick Hodge played some guitar. It just happened so organically. It came together so cold. And then we got the T-Pain vocal, and he T-Pained it—Mr. Bartender, Mr. Buy U a Drank.” **“Coolest Things” (feat. Ari Lennox)** “I was working with D’Mile, and he made that beat so crazy, he barely talked that day. I was working with Jesse Boykins. He wrote the hook, and it resonated with me so deep. I feel like I’ve been cool before it was cool to be cool, and then cool got oversaturated, and now everybody trying to figure out what is this cool thing that anybody even speaks of because everything is just so watered down and not cool at all. I just was rapping about that and trying to talk about past love and just keep it super vague so people could attach their own moments to the same feelings that I am talking about in my verses.” **“Ain’t Fair”** “Organized Noize made that beat, and they some legends. They are just legendary producers. They lost the files and remade the beat, and it sounded even better. I was just trying to—it was a stream of consciousness that day when I was rapping. The beat-switch was so crazy. It was two separate beats that we pieced together because it just sounded tight. And I was just talking about how unfair it is to be in the position—just as artists or anybody in the public eye, it just seems like whatever happens, it don’t really make a difference for the consumer or the listener, but it always has to translate into an amazing song or some amazing art. It’s just not taking into account mental health or just a person’s emotions, all the invisible things that nobody really sees. It’s just not a fair position to be in. And everybody else, too, just a crazy, evil world we live in.” **“Bad News”** “\[Production trio\] 1Mind came to the studio, and I was just trying to try something different. They was playing a bunch of different beats, but when this one came on, I was just jamming out. The hook was there instantly, and I was like, ‘Hold on. Load this up. We need to do this.’ And then, I started mumbling different cadences for the verse, tried to paint a picture of some ghetto scenario that could happen in this amazing vibe of music. It just sets the tone for fun, but it’s just a crazy story, like how people who ain’t from the hood try to glorify hood shit.” **“Superghetto”** “I feel like I haven’t really put too much out there about my upbringing or myself in my raps. A lot of my raps are super vague and not really detailed of my story, so I just tried to be more introspective. I really set an intention to talk about things in my personal life that I haven’t talked about for whatever reason and just put it all in the music. I think it came out good. The beat is super—it’s not that many sounds, so it’s a lot of space for people to just hear what I’m saying.”

Florida-born Doechii’s breakthrough hit (2020’s “Yucky Blucky Fruitcake,” with a title inspired by a Junie B. Jones book) introduced the rapper as a schoolgirl who self-actualizes before our eyes; she starts off an awkward kid doing bedroom karaoke to Paramore, and by the end, she’s proudly proclaiming, “I am a Black girl who beat the statistics.” Since then, she’s performed on late-night talk shows and awards stages and signed with Kendrick Lamar’s Top Dawg Entertainment. There’s no sign of that shy schoolgirl on *she / her / black bitch*, her third EP. Instead, she’s in boss mode—hitting on girls, blowing money fast, and feeling herself. The highlight is a remix of her bad-girl anthem “Persuasive,” a silky-smooth, two-step number with an assist from SZA.**

Silky-smooth vocals and alt-R&B jams ignite an assured debut LP.

Wiz Khalifa contains multitudes. This isn’t news to longtime fans—nor is it, in regard to public perception, an actual concern of his—but one listen to the Pittsburgh-hailing MC’s *Multiverse* and you’re bound to come away knowing something about Wiz that you didn’t before. “For this project, it was important for me to kind of break free of anybody’s expectations or speculations or what the next project would sound like,” he tells Apple Music. “It was real important for me to not think about that and just have as much creative freedom to do whatever and be whoever and sound however and let that kind of dictate what normal is for me right now.” The ‘“normal” Wiz exposes us to in *Multiverse* isn’t that far removed from the one Wiz has shown us throughout his career. He is still very much a dedicated stoner, doting father, and irrepressible chick-magnet. But he’s also an MC who is proudly the sum of his influences, one whose artistic practice is steeped in self-love and acceptance, one who’s been traumatized by losing a bevy of friends and an older brother, and one who, by album’s end, will have let the world know how important God is in his life. Though *Multiverse* is clearly an album centered in connection, to get there Khalifa says he actually had to disconnect. “While I was creating it, I felt like I had to separate myself from everything that was going on and create my own world,” he says. “And while creating that world, I was able to travel through it and find things about myself that are able to help other people who are like-minded. And I felt like it was a world worth inviting a bunch of those people to.” Below, Wiz talks us through some of the key tracks that make up the world he’s calling *Multiverse*. **“Big Daddy Wiz” (feat. Girl Talk)** “Girl Talk is one of my favorite producers to work with because his sound is so identifiable to Pittsburgh; he could take some funk music or he could take pop music and give it really, really hard drums and then use my voice over there to just bring it all together and make it make sense. And when I heard the ‘Big Daddy Wiz’ beat, I automatically understood the sample—it’s an old Big Daddy Kane sample and it’s been sampled other places, too. So, I was like, how can I supe this up and make this casual for 2022. My idea was just to construct a really grown-man sound—something mature, something that’s fun, but something that is classy.” **“Memory Lane”** “A goal of mine was to let go of the typical structure that people have. It’s three verses, so that’s like a real rap song. I grew up in the ‘verse, hook, verse, hook, bridge, hook, out,’ you know what I mean? That was the formula. But songs have been shaved down. So, I just really wanted to give people the option to sit down and listen to a full song. A lot of people are going to be getting stoned to my music. You need more minutes for that experience. Like ‘Memory Lane’ could have been one verse or two verses or had a feature on it, but it ended up taking the whole summer to complete just because it was that type of record.” **“1000 Women” (feat. THEY.)** “So, the majority of ‘1000 Women’ comes from the hook part, Drew Love \[of THEY.\]. We wrote this song, and it had a totally different context to it, but I loved Drew’s hook and what he was saying, and the part that stuck out to me the most was like, ‘No matter what I say, all the things I hide inside, everything I go through—it’s only you.’ So, I was thinking, you can’t hide from certain people in this world and in this life, and those are your loved ones and your natural self. And to me, those are two of the most important people to put the most energy into, especially right now. If you’re not treating yourself good, or if you’re not spreading the knowledge, then you’re not really doing too much.” **“Like You (Groove 3)”** “During the recording process of making the album, that school shooting happened down in Uvalde, Texas, and that shit just hurt my heart so bad, man. I take my son to school every day, and I couldn’t imagine taking him to school and not being able to pick him up. So, ‘Like You’ was just me being empathetic and sharing my pain and trying to get some healing and some clarity for those people who go through things like that. And I listened to Marvin Gaye and things like that, and that was one of his most important messages on the *What’s Going On* album: ‘Save the babies.’” **“High Maintenance”** “Sometimes you just catch a wave. I did the first two verses and the hook one night, and I always envisioned who else could be on the song. So, I was thinking about a feature, but the feature didn’t come through. So, I’m like, what’s the best way for me to really crush this? And the first thing I thought about was, ‘Might go Cam on them and just pull up in the Lam.’ And then I was like, ‘Ooh, that’s hard. I might as well finish the whole verse like that.’ My Rolodex of, like, inspirations and influences is crazy. Like, people don’t even know I listen to the type of music that I listen to, or that I’m as knowledgeable about the MCs that I am. But everybody that I mentioned, I’ve done plenty of homework on. When I said it, I meant it.” **“We Don’t Go Out to Nightclubs Anymore/Candlelight Girl”** “My band is amazing. I’ve always wanted to incorporate Kenny \[Wright\] and CJ \[Branch\] and Mike \[Nelson\]. And this was, like, my opportunity to say something without actually saying any words. And it ended up being eight minutes, and I wasn’t mad at it at all. Like I said, I’m giving people the option to sit down and enjoy some shit. And that’s the perfect opportunity to—whether it’s reflect or roll up or make out with your girl, it gives you the perfect intermission to an already exciting ride. And musically, a lot of people, they’re into that type of stuff, they just don’t know it. And I’m going to help program people into understanding that’s what their body needs and shit like that.” **“Homies”** “My main thing is to get the feeling out. And so, when I heard the beat, the first thing I did was write the first verse about the dead homies because that was something that was in a conversation that I had with somebody. And I didn’t realize how traumatizing that shit was. Like, I was just talking about it like it was normal, and this motherfucker was looking at me like I was crazy. But then the poem came because—a lot of people don’t know—my brother passed away four years ago. And just dealing with that, like not covering it up or acting like it’s not something that helps me throughout my day, my life, or everything—that was just my idea behind using the poem dedicated to him, to just keep him a part of my story. And I tied it up with the real homies at the end. And the song is called ‘Homies’ because that’s, like, a way in Pittsburgh that people swear \[down\]. Like the way people say, ‘Oh, God’ or ‘I swear to God,’ \[in Pittsburgh\] it’ll be like, ‘Homies.’” **“Nobody Knows”** “These types of songs, I like putting them on my albums just because one of my favorite songs is ‘You Can Never Feel My Pain’ by Prodigy, a song where you can kind of envision the story of that individual or whatever they’re telling you. And that’s kind of how ‘Nobody Knows’ was for me. I was just feeling a few things. So, it was easier for me to write it down or just say it and sing it. And then, for the hook, it’s kind of like a healing of those things that you go through and an understanding, and you just got to get that shit out. So, I feel like it’s really, really important for me to always tap in and tell real stories that people can still learn about me from.” **“Thank Him”** “I love God. I thank God every day. I praise God every day. And me just getting older, I felt like I never really made a song that was dedicated to Him. I made a song about weed. I made songs about women. I made songs about my kid. I made songs about my car. It’s like, let me make a song about my other favorite guy. And hell yeah, He’s that man. He deserve it.”

If in 2022 one were to create a scouting report assessing the talents of South Florida hero Kodak Black, it needn’t be more than a single, incredulous line: This guy does not miss. Young Kodak’s *Kutthroat Bill: Vol. 1* comes to fans in the midst of a seemingly endless run of wins, including multiple appearances on Kendrick Lamar’s *Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers*, scene-stealing guest spots on tracks from DJ Khaled (“IT AIN’T SAFE”) and King Combs (“Can’t Stop Won’t Stop”), and the extended shelf life of his own album *Back for Everything* and the chart-topping “Super Gremlin” single that preceded it. And it all seems to come so easy to him. The large majority of the verses on *Kutthroat Bill: Vol. 1* sound freestyled in the purest sense, Kodak bounding line by line from topic to topic, piloting a Magic School Bus of sorts through the dark and sometimes confounding corners of his brain. There are, of course, recurring themes like betrayal (“300 Blackout”), his love life (“Starter Kit,” “Kutthroat Barbie”), and, most frequently, the unimpeachable pedigree of his gangsta (“Slay Like Santa,” “If You Ever,” “Demand My Respect,” “Hop Out Shoot,” “Silencer”), but there’s usually no telling where any particular verse or even line will lead. What you can depend on, though, is a masterful reframing of even the most rote street life themes, like on “Freezing My Pinky”—a song that’s barely about jewelry at all—when he tells us, “My iPhone recognize me with my ski mask, I’m a whole nother goon.”

In the five years between Syd’s solo debut, *Fin*, and its follow-up, the singer-songwriter experienced her first major heartbreak. It upended her world right as our social lives were already contracting under the weight of the pandemic, giving her plenty of time to mourn and then heal. Most of the songs on *Broken Hearts Club*, despite its name, were written before that, when she was still swaddled in the bliss of deep, reciprocal love. What results is a conceptual evolution of romance and its subsequent unraveling, traced over the course of the album. “CYBAH” (as in “could you break a heart”—one of the few songs written after the fact) captures the ambivalence of catching feelings, as fear begins to give way to surrender. Warm fuzzy feelings abound. They\'re in the ecstasy of “Fast Car,” an ode to not-so-secret rendezvous and stolen kisses, and the sentimental delight of “Sweet” and “Control,” both emblems of infatuation transforming into safety and comfort. Around “Out Loud”—a gorgeous plea to be desired and adored without shame which becomes especially cogent through the voices of Syd and Kehlani, both of whom are gay—cracks begin to emerge, before the all-out shattering of “Goodbye My Love.” Love is a risk and deserves music that reflects as much, and likewise, within the space of *Broken Hearts Club*, Syd shows up more vulnerable than ever. The lilt of her voice shifts forward, front and center to sing the kind of lyrics that could only come from real-life inspiration. There\'s no hiding here. It may be her most personal album to date, but it resonates far beyond.

Fairly or unfairly, hip-hop fans have come to associate the music of Rod Wave with sadness. His catalog contains plenty of it, but the man who has “Hard Times” tattooed across his forearms sounds less sad on his fourth studio album *Beautiful Mind* than he does contented and hopeful about the future. There are love songs on the project—and not just ones lamenting relationships gone cold or unrequited devotion. He’s got those, too—“Never Get Over Me,” “Sweet Little Lies,” “Everything”—but we meet Wave the hopeless romantic on tracks like “Forever,” “Never Find Us,” “Pieces,” and “Married Next Year.” He’s even made time for his friend December Joy to showcase his own lothario chops on “Quiet Storm.” If there’s anything troubling Wave across *Beautiful Mind*, it’s his relationship with fame and what his increasing star status means for his peace of mind and safety. He’ll never again have to worry about where his next meal comes from or even about having the ability to help out his loved ones, but his life has changed significantly since “Heart on Ice,” and with great power, naturally, comes extra security. “I’m tryna ball, these n\*\*\*as tryna take my life,” he sings on “No Deal.” He sings of the fleeting nature of fame on “Fading” and how his grind can’t be stopped on “Keep Going,” but it’s a couplet from “Me vs. the World” that fully distills the pressures of his influence. “It ain’t easy being me/Will I see the penitentiary or will I stay free?” he wonders. “It ain’t easy having fans/Will I see, will I see my next birthday or will I see the grave?” Some fears you just can’t let go of.

“I had a responsibility to give people what they were asking for, especially during the pandemic,” Robert Glasper tells Apple Music. “They wanted another *Black Radio*, so I had to deliver.” The pianist, composer, songwriter, and producer has spent the past decade pushing the boundaries of what constitutes jazz music, combining its acoustic instrumentation with hip-hop swagger, R&B melodies, and an ear attuned to improvisation. Ten years after the first *Black Radio* album, he returns to the genre-hopping, collaborative format, producing 13 tracks that seamlessly transition from the power of Amir Sulaiman’s poetry on opener “In Tune” to an elegantly downbeat version of Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” to the funk of “Why We Speak” with Q-Tip and Esperanza Spalding. Here, Glasper talks through all the collaborations, track by track. **“In Tune” (feat. Amir Sulaiman)** “I was scoring a Dave Chappelle documentary, and in the film, Amir performs a poem that floored me. I’ve never had a poem reach me that way. I was in tears. I immediately asked Dave to connect us, and we had a short conversation about what I was looking for. Two days later, he came back with this incredible poem that opens the record. A lot has happened in the 10 years since the first *Black Radio*, and a whole lot has happened for Black people in America in the last two years. I felt like I had to address the elephant in the room with this track and with ‘Black Superhero.’” **“Black Superhero” (feat. Killer Mike, BJ The Chicago Kid & Big K.R.I.T.)** “BJ is my bro, but this is the first time we’ve done something together on wax. He came to the studio, and I was just playing around and testing the keyboard and he said, ‘That sounds like some superhero shit,’ so I kept playing and the concept started from there. After that, I wanted to pick rappers that teach us. I wanted them to say something that spoke to this moment. I knew K.R.I.T. and Killer Mike would do it justice.” **“Shine” (feat. Robert Glasper, D Smoke & Tiffany Gouche)** “‘Shine’ came out of a jam session. I was playing drums and my drummer was playing keys and we came up with this riff that I then looped. I refined it on keys and added bass and then sent it to D Smoke to see what he thought. He sent me back a draft the next day. The song is all about self-love and knowing that you’re enough. That’s something I feel like a lot of hip-hop songs don’t talk about, and especially during the pandemic, people needed to hear that.” **“Why We Speak” (feat. Q-Tip & Esperanza Spalding)** “A lot of my music starts off with jam sessions. I have my guys come over and we throw down some vibes and see what sticks. We came up with this joint and, immediately, I thought of Esperanza. I sent it to her and a few days later, she sent it back, and I thought something was wrong with the mic. She never told me she was writing it in French! I thought it was so dope, though, and I realized it sounded like something that would fit Q-Tip too. I used to play in his band, but I’ve never had him rock on an album, so it was perfect.” **“Over” (feat. Yebba)** “Yebba was part of the *Fuck Yo Feelings* sessions. She’s become like a little sister to me since, and I knew I had to have her on the record. While we were at Electric Lady Studios, listening to her latest album, we jammed and came up with this pattern and the skeleton of the song. That was in early 2021, and a few months later, we got back to LA and finished up here at my studio. Her voice is so beautiful, and I’m so happy we got to make this one together.” **“Better Than I Imagined” (feat. H.E.R. + Meshell Ndegeocello)** “I scored a film called *The Photograph*, which came out in February 2020. H.E.R. sang the ending song for the movie, and at the premiere, she told me she was so inspired by my score that she wanted to write something together. We literally went from the movie theater to the studio and wrote ‘Better Than I Imagined.’ It wasn’t planned for any project, but it did so well when I put it out, it planted the seed for the rest of *Black Radio III*.” **“Everybody Wants to Rule the World” (feat. Lalah Hathaway & Common)** “I have this thing with Lalah. On the first *Black Radio*, she did a cover of ‘Cherish the Day’ and killed it. The next time, I was like, ‘Let’s do Stevie Wonder’s “Jesus Children of America.”’ She recorded it in one take, and it won a Grammy. So why not keep it going? I’ve always loved ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’—I don’t think I would trust a person who doesn’t like that song—but I don’t know anyone who has made a version of it. I redid it in my own vibe, and Common loved it so much, he invited himself on it too!” **“Everybody Love” (feat. Musiq Soulchild & Posdnous)** “My DJ, Jahi Sundance, and I wanted to make a house EP together, and this was the first song we wrote for it. I sent it to Musiq Soulchild, who I have known for a long time, and he came up with his joint in three days. I’ve never done a house song and neither has he, so it was new for both of us. It has a party vibe, and when it comes to party rappers, I always think of De La Soul and Posdnuos. I knew he would kill it, and he delivered.” **“It Don’t Matter” (feat. Gregory Porter & Ledisi)** “I have wanted to produce an R&B album with Gregory for a while now, and when his tour with Ledisi got canceled, I called them both up. I was luckily able to get them in the studio because the COVID restrictions had eased at that point, and they wrote it to fit their voices. They’re both so powerful and definitely have their own sound, so this felt like a match made in heaven.” **“Heaven’s Here” (feat. Ant Clemons)** “I went to Snoop Dogg’s birthday party and on my way out, Ant Clemons stopped me and introduced himself. Terrace Martin told me that he’s high-level and that we should work together. Fast-forward to the next week and we started writing songs. We wrote four or five tracks since he was working with Justin Timberlake on his new album and Usher too. This was one we were going to give to Usher, but it didn’t work out with the timing. I love it so much, I had to put it on *Black Radio*.” **“Out of My Hands” (feat. Jennifer Hudson)** “Jennifer came to one of my shows with my homegirl Kelly Rowland, who I know from Houston. They both sat in with me onstage, and I knew I had to get Jennifer on something. When I wrote this song, I heard her voice on it. It took us a little while to get together, but she performed it perfectly.” **“Forever” (feat. PJ Morton & India.Arie)** “PJ worked with me on *Black Radio 2* back in 2013, and he wrote the song ‘Worries,’ which Dwele sang. I love matching people up who’ve never recorded together, since it makes the song become more special. I knew PJ and India would sound perfect together, and we luckily managed to make this more of a back-and-forth process to make it feel like a duet where we were in the studio at the same time.” **“Bright Lights” (feat. Ty Dolla $ign)”** “I’ve jammed with Ty before. He is a legend who changed the game up, and I wanted to do something with a modern, pop-R&B vibe because that’s where Ty thrives. It’s different from any of the other *Black Radio* tracks that I’ve made, and so I wanted to end the album with this one because it has such a unique feel.”

Tory Lanez\'s seventh studio album, *Sorry 4 What*, was bound to be controversial for reasons beyond its title or the music it contained. That\'s because it arrived in September 2022—only a few months before the Brampton, ON, rapper and singer stood trial, charged with the shooting of Megan Thee Stallion in July 2020. He was ultimately convicted on three felony counts and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Though Lanez did make lyrical references to the incident in past tracks, he mostly avoids directly addressing it in the songs here, leaving listeners to speculate what might be \"weighin\' on my mind\" on the opening track, \"Sorry 4 What? // LV BELT.\" What\'s unmistakable is the note of defiance that he expresses throughout the album, which is arguably his fiercest and most purely hip-hop release. A far cry from the glossy \'80s-pop aesthetic that prevailed on 2021\'s *Alone at Prom*, the tense, tight trap sound of \"Where 2 Start\" and \"Not Tricking // Black Keys\" and Lanez\'s preference for fiery raps over seductive crooning reflect a very different mood and mind frame. Likewise, the often crowded guest list for the preceding albums has been pruned down to the names of A Boogie wit da Hoodie (who adds force to \"Role Call\") and Yoko Gold (the Toronto artist appears on \"Collection\"). While the roster of producers includes Smash David, Jakik, Sergio .R, and longtime Lanez collaborator Play Picasso, the artist keeps a tight control on the proceedings, resulting in a focused set. As much as Lanez wants to project toughness, *Sorry 4 What* includes many moments that showcase his softer side, an equally characteristic aspect of his persona. With the dreamy vibe of \"Hennessy Memories\" and \"Hurting Me\" comes chances to express the emotional vulnerability that lies beneath the bravado. Nor can he conceal the strain of mounting pressures on \"No More Parties in LA,\" a gritty yet haunting track that hints at the toll of the glamorous life. Like many songs here, it takes on additional meaning knowing what\'s to come for its creator.

Doing a great job.

Loyle Carner has always made music out of the things he’s been through in life. Sometimes, the South London rapper and songwriter wishes he could weave some fictional tales so he could save something for himself, but that’s not how it works for him. “It’s the only thing that inspires me to write,” he tells Apple Music. He was feeling uninspired after the release of his second album, *Not Waving, But Drowning*, in 2019, but the news that his girlfriend was pregnant opened the creative floodgates. What has emerged is *hugo*, a remarkable record that not only sees Carner reflect on life as a new father but also prompted him to iron out the troubled relationship he has with his own dad. “It was really useful to have the space to be able to write about it and reflect on it in real time to help me make sense of my thoughts,” he says. “But other times it was quite exhausting. Sometimes it was good, sometimes it was tough.” It makes for a cathartic listen. Let him guide you through it, track by track. **“Hate”** “We made it really quickly, a stream of consciousness. It’s not a big, smash-hit single, but it was the one that summed up where I was at the beginning of the process and it couldn’t go anywhere else. It had to be the first thing that people heard from the album. When you pick up the album, I want you to come on a journey with me, because I started in a bad place and I ended in a good place. I want people to go on that with me.” **“Nobody Knows (Ladas Road)”** “This was probably the first song I wrote for the album. It was before lockdown, even before I found out my girlfriend was pregnant. I had already been thinking about a lot of the subjects on the album, and this was one of the first times where I tapped into something and was like, ‘OK, this is the start of a new project. I can see that I have an idea here.’ I tried to put the songs that I made at the beginning of the process at the beginning of the album. It’s quite autobiographical and you need it to run in a linear fashion, it needs to be chapters of a story.” **“Georgetown” (feat. John Agard)** “This was produced by Madlib. I was saving it for a project with him. I’ve got loads of music that we’ve made together, and we wanted to do a MadLoyle tape, which is a dream come true for me. But I played this to my friend Mike, who was working as an A&R and a collaborator on this project, and he was like, ‘You have to put this on the album. It’s too good to be held back just in case you drop it later.’ I think it really tapped into the same story as the rest of the album. It was really close to ‘Nobody Knows’ but one of them is self-depreciative and the other one is self-fulfilling, really lifted and full of self-belief. They work nicely together.” **“Speed of Plight”** “I was in the studio with Rebel Kleff, who’s a longtime collaborator of mine, and Jordan Rakei and Nick Mills, who’s my engineer and good friend. It came together quite quickly, as did a lot of the stuff for this album. It was such a relief to be really letting fly, not being afraid to be a bit more aggressive, a bit more frustrated, to have a place to vent. That’s what this song really was.” **“Homerton”** “Homerton \[in East London\] was where my son was born. All these songs are little pieces of a journey between me and my father and where I was at. I used to see my father as flawed, and in the first few tracks on the album, he’s very flawed to me. ‘Homerton’ is really that middle point where I start to look at my son and then I’m able to finally, as a father, see myself as flawed as well. Then I’m able to begin the journey of understanding where my father was at and how difficult it is to be a parent and how nobody is a bad person. People make bad decisions and some people have no tools to deal with some of the things that get thrown at them.” **“Blood on My Nikes”** “After ‘Homerton,’ my mind then went to, ‘OK, but what happens when my son grows up in the area that we live in?’ A young boy’s life was taken over a pair of shoes near where my girlfriend teaches around the time that I was writing this song, and I was so moved by it. I was really quite surprised at how numb I had become to hearing these stories and seeing this loss in the communities that I had grown up in. It was important to reflect on this story that’s told by many artists, but through my lens and through my words. I enlisted \[activist and writer\] Athian Akec to help me be able to speak to a younger generation with his voice, to reflect on what it is to see how many young people’s lives we’re losing and how the music is not the problem.” **“Plastic”** “At the end of ‘Blood on My Nikes,’ Athian is eloquently disrespecting the government and saying that where we’re at politically, socially is not good enough, that we’re putting emphasis on the wrong things. ‘Plastic’ is my version of his speech where I also attack these big companies that are making mistakes and hold them accountable, but also hold society accountable, hold myself accountable for putting emphasis on the wrong thing, wanting nice flashy trainers and a new iPhone instead of other bits. But I love my iPhone, so I can’t say anything about it. It’s just trying to find the balance between soul and commerce. Yes, everyone has to make money and live, but we also need to just take a step back, walk into nature and relax, and not put so much pressure on material things.” **“A Lasting Place”** “I was reading a book by Philippa Perry recently called *The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (And Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did)*. There’s a large part about rupture and repair and this idea that you’re having a bad day and you shout at your kid. That’s going to happen, because people get angry. But the repair is the important part, going to your son or daughter and being, ‘Hey, Dad’s having a rubbish day and I took it out on you and that’s not right. It must have made you feel like X, Y, and Z, and I apologize.’ That’s what this song is about, making mistakes and being like, ‘It’s OK.’” **“Polyfilla”** “Towards the end of ‘A Lasting Place,’ it starts to feel like, ‘OK, I’ve got it made, I’m a dad, I’m brilliant, I’m repairing my ruptures. Yeah, I’ve got this in the bag.’ And I think ‘Polyfilla’ is that crashing back down to earth with another mistake or losing my temper or getting frustrated or being late to pick up my son or whatever it is. Battling with that thing of, ‘Man, maybe I’m not cut out for this.’ That worry of impostor syndrome: ‘Maybe I’m not a good parent. Maybe I’m not a good person.’” **“HGU”** “This is about forgiving my dad, and forgiveness in general. It’s not even forgiving for him, it’s about forgiveness for myself: ‘If I hold on to this, carry around this albatross my whole life, it’s weighing me down.’ I’ve taken so much from hip-hop and I wanted to give something back. Within rap, everyone else is like, ‘If your dad left and he’s rubbish, you don’t need to forgive him, just let that anger be your motivation.’ I think that’s cool to an extent, but it can cripple you if you let it go further than an initial youthful rebellion. It’s a nice little reveal at the end that we’re in the car. The album is called *hugo* because my dad’s car was called Hugo and he taught me to drive over lockdown. It’s a small story, but with some big topics.”

5 to the Eye with Stars A Fantastic Ruby Yacht Voyage this album is how i count coup, a demonstration of my talk no jutsu. "I must become a menace to my enemies." - June Jordan

Part of what made Kevin Gates’ 2016 breakthrough, *Islah*, appealing is how complete his personality felt. Crass, humble, loving, violent, and introspective, he’s the kind of guy who rapped about giggling over his lover’s feet one minute (yes, “giggling,” on “Pride”) and how the good thing about getting rich is that you can pay other people to murder for you the next (“One Thing”). *Khaza* is something like *Islah*’s spiritual successor. He’s a devoted Muslim (“Intro”) terrorized by his libido (“Thinking With My Dick”), a reformed hustler still drawn in by—what else—sex, money, and sex and money at the same time (“PTOE”). And while the hooks are pop (“I’m In Love,” “Bad for Me”), the mentality is street. He doesn’t like talking about violence anymore, he says at the beginning of “Steppin’”—and proceeds to spend two ferocious minutes doing just that.

EST Gee’s *I Never Felt Nun* is a continuation of a mixtape series that began in 2020 with *Ion Feel Nun*, continued with *I Still Don’t Feel Nun*), and, in 2022, finds that same detachment maybe stronger than ever. Feelings, however—or a pronounced lack thereof in Gee’s case—aren’t wholly indicative of self-awareness, and the MC knows exactly who he is across *I Never Felt Nun*. EST Gee stands proudly atop his own street general mythology on songs like “Shoot It Myself,” “Hell,” and “Both Arms.” He’s cranked his aggression up to about an 11 (at least) for veritable war hymns like “Come Home,” “Bow and Say Grace,” and “Blood,” but there’s plenty of wisdom to absorb from songs like “Have Mercy,” “I Can’t Feel a Thing,” and “Is Heaven for a Gangsta.” He disarms, if only briefly, for the Bryson Tiller collab “Sabotage” and perhaps the grizzliest love song in recent memory, “Double Back,” but closes out the tape with “The Realest,” a clear celebration of the countless hands he’s won with the cards he was dealt.

Whether condemning cops on the ruthless “FTP” or bragging about wealth on the outsized “BIG BANK,” YG always comes correct and direct. The bluntness of his delivery lends itself well to deathly serious topics as much as minor personal gripes, making the Compton rapper one of the most relatable figures in the game today. Largely a respite from the bleak themes of 2020’s *My Life 4Hunnid*, his follow-up *I GOT ISSUES* captures a comparatively lighter side of his engaging essence while simultaneously grappling with the tougher lessons gleaned from his lifestyle. Not surprisingly, YG’s views on women and relationships past and present proves one of the album’s most reliable recurring motifs. From the embittered finger-pointing tell-alls of “No Love” to the stressed-out grievances of “Baby Momma,” he offers up scathing and remorseless accounts to justify his perspectives. Buoyed by a throwback Mary J. Blige interpolation, “Toxic” leads to explicit situations amid a gruff assessment of contemporary hookup culture, while “Sober” gets him reflective and romantic opposite Post Malone and Roddy Ricch. Elsewhere on the guest front, he taps quirky alt fave Cuco and Latin trap spitter Duki for “I Dance,” his latest in a run of team-ups with Spanish-language collaborators.

Michigan street rap has been experiencing a renaissance in recent years; on the Detroit native’s most ambitious album yet, Babyface Ray hopes to parlay a decade of regional success into national stardom. As an MC, he’s equal parts hustler and Zen master: “Nah, I ain’t trap, I’m just moving off survival/Tryna figure out how to sell the church Bibles,” he murmurs on “Me, Wife & Kids” in his mellow, understated way. On *FACE*, he splits the difference between the funky, rough-edged gangster tales his hometown is known for (“Sincerely Face,” “Richard Flair”) and big-name collabs that aim to infiltrate the mainstream (“Dancing With the Devil” and “Kush & Codeine,” which feature, respectively, Pusha T and Wiz Khalifa). But the highlights are somewhere in between, like “Overtime,” an unlikely meetup with Swedish sadboi Yung Lean that submerges rubbery Detroit basslines in spacey atmospherics so weird it works.

CLBBNG features four remixes including “Nothing Is Safe,” from There Existed An Addiction To Blood, the group’s horrorcore album of 2019, which has a dance remix, and an instrumental rework (titled "Drop Low"); Meanwhile, remixes of “Get Up” (titled “Get Mine”), and “Dominoes” (titled “Drop That”) from CLPPNG, the group’s Sub Pop debut of 2014, round out the tracklisting. Clipping has wanted to make a record of dance remixes for some time, and inspiration struck when they performed what has to be the all time tiniest desk concert (see for yourself!) for NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Concert. Jonathan Snipes elaborated further, “I had come up with the name CLBBNG mostly as a joke when we made the first album for Sub Pop (titled CLPPNG). I made a couple of remixes back then (none of the tracks released in this volume), but some combination of losing interest and getting distracted by other projects meant that we didn't release them at the time. When we recorded drums with Chukwudi Hodge for "Say the Name" in 2019, we also had him play a four-on-the-floor disco beat over the top of the "Nothing is Safe" instrumental with the idea that someday we'd make a sprawling dark-disco Moroder-esque version of the song. When we were asked to do "Tiny Desk" I thought maybe it was the time to finally make that track. Soon after we were asked to do another virtual performance inside Minecraft, and I thought it would be fun to make more dance remixes and create an entire "CLBBNG" club/rave set. It's versions of these edits and remixes that have made it on to this, the first CLBBNG EP. I have a deep love and appreciation for dance music, and I relish any excuse to make it myself. It's a lot of fun to bring those sensibilities to clipping songs, and I'm excited to continue making CLBBNG releases in the future.” Additionally, four of Clipping’s songs, including the “Nothing Is Safe” remix, are being featured on a new app developed with Modify Music which also launches today on iOS and Android app stores. This is a real time mixing app, that has each song separated into four “stems” that can be mixed on the fly. Alongside the original stems, the listener will have the option to switch out and mix in alternative stems that Jonathan Snipes produced just for the app. The app can be found here: modifymusic.com/artists/clipping/

*“I want you to feel like it’s a rollercoaster ride.” Read on as Burna Boy himself breaks down his sixth album—as told to Apple Music.* After turning 30, birthdays seem to make you reflect on your life choices, or a lack thereof—your goals, dreams, hopes, achievements, and fears. Even though it put me in a vulnerable place, it also challenged me to do and feel more. I started working on a Punjab mixtape with the late great Sidhu Moose Wala, halfway through recording this project, because I needed to open my mind more. I’m eternally grateful to him for that, and so, on this album, I thought about a few things: **“Start as you intend to finish.”** Shout-out to the iconic group from South Africa, the legendary Ladysmith Black Mambazo, for bringing their energy to tracks 1 and 19 (the beginning and end). **“Love is fragile.”** Relations and relationships are fragile; compartmentalizing the different shades of gray around this concept in “For My Hand,” “Science,” and “Last Last.” Hopefully this translates to you all. **“Expect nothing.”** Just don’t forget that life can feel like a cloak-and-dagger mission. **“Dream wildly and live intentionally.”** People may never get it, but do it anyway! I want you to listen to this and feel like it’s a rollercoaster ride. Catch a vibe, buss a whine, party like it’s your birthday, or even grab a tissue. I’ve got you, always. Love, Damini

The centerpiece and title track of Mary J. Blige’s 14th album is an emotional display of self-love—the kind of song that, after three decades of heartbreak anthems, feels like the soft landing spot she’s been searching for this entire time. “All the times that I hated myself, all the times that I wanted to be someone else, all the times that I should’ve been gentle with me,” she sings in the second verse. “I wake up every morning and tell myself, ‘Good morning gorgeous.’” Across the album, her voice sounds just as convincing as it has all these years, contoured in soul and grit. Her lyrics, though, beautifully reflect her life experiences, evolved and brimming with wisdom. There are no histrionics to be found here; she knows what she wants and will put up with nothing less. On songs like “Love Without the Heartbreak” (“I’m so got’damn sick of the pain,” she cries on the hook) and “Enough” (“You can’t see what you got at home, you dead wrong not to fight for it,” goes that chorus), she sounds genuinely fed up, far from the wounded defeat of those beloved earlier releases. It’s no small feat to have a career and catalog as long and storied as Mary J.’s, and here she reveals some of the secret. Her brand of R&B is uniquely hers, ebbing and flowing with the waves of her own life; here, her take on love feels honest and lived-in without the pretense of autobiography. *Good Morning Gorgeous* stands up as not just a possible blueprint for artistic longevity, but also a model for how to love yourself even when others have failed to.

Back in December 2021, Roddy Ricch promised fans that the third edition of his celebrated *Feed Tha Streets* mixtape series was on the way. Though we’d still be begging him for it some six months later, Roddy delivered a holdover of sorts in *The Big 3*. The title is a reference to the single’s three songs, all of which paint a clearer picture of the LA MC’s lifestyle. On “Real Talk,” the Mustard collab he previewed at New York City’s Summer Jam festival, Ricch reminds listeners how he got to where he is: “Ain’t nobody out-vibing me,” he spits. He’s unrepentant about the frivolousness of his spending habits on “Tootsies,” and then, on “No Mop,” forthright about the lengths he’ll go to reward exceptional lovers. Together, the songs comprise a brief yet sturdy reminder that it’s still Roddy’s world and the rest of us are just living it.

Wiz Khalifa was an admitted Three 6 Mafia disciple long before he signed one half of the group’s production engine, Juicy J, to his Taylor Gang label. Understandably, the pair went on to collaborate on an untold number of projects, each pushing each other’s sound forward. With their first full-length collaborative LP *Stoner’s Night*, however, the two go back in time, mining the Juicemane’s exceptionally rich production catalog for inspiration. “Testin,” which exists at the nexus of the Memphis crunk sound Three 6 Mafia invented and the happy-go-lucky stoner rap Wiz has made his brand, asks “Why they test my gangsta?” the same way the chorus of Three 6 Mafia’s 2003 hit “Testin My Gangsta” does. Further in, we get an updated version of Three 6’s “Weak Azz B\*\*\*h” (“Weak”), production that very specifically recalls the group\'s *Chapter 2: World Domination* era (“Pop That Trunk”), and nods to Project Pat songs like “Make Dat Azz Clap” (“Backseat”) and “North Memphis” (“They Wanna See You”). The original references are old enough now that Juice and Wiz are likely introducing them to a new generation, but if *Stoner’s Night* tells us anything about its creators, it’s that classic Three 6 Mafia songs and production will forever have a place in their hearts (and stereos).

Key Glock’s *Yellow Tape 2*—like its predecessor, 2020’s *Yellow Tape*, and the project that came between those two, 2020’s *Son of a Gun*—contains no credited features. Though Glock has played collaborator to artists like Project Pat and Gucci Mane and is the cousin and business partner of Young Dolph, the young Memphis MC wants his props to come from what he says in the booth and not who he can get to come to the studio. Dutifully, *Yellow Tape 2* is 20 tracks of Glock’s conspicuously well-enunciated South Memphis slick talk, sans the help of any of the numerous big dogs he’s been known to rub elbows with. Production here comes mainly from frequent collaborator Bandplay, who crafts a trap-heavy sound for him wholly reminiscent of mixtape-era Gucci Mane. Glock may not be releasing projects at the clip Gucci did during that period, but if the two share anything else in common, it’s that when all is said and done, they\'ll know exactly who was responsible for their success.