Posthumous rap albums can often feel opportunistic: indiscriminate grab bags cobbled together for one last payday. But *Balloonerism*—the second album from the beloved musician since his death in 2018, released two days ahead of what would have been his 33rd birthday—is far from an assemblage of cutting-room floor scraps. Culled from a single week of extended jam sessions (according to close collaborators), the album is considered to be Mac Miller’s “lost project,” recorded between his 2013 album *Watching Movies with the Sound Off* and his 2014 mixtape *Faces*—arguably the most pivotal year of his creative evolution. “It is a project that was of great importance to Malcolm, to the extent that he commissioned artwork for it,” read a statement from Miller’s estate confirming the official release in fall 2024, noting the unofficial bootleg versions that have circulated through the years. There’s only one voice besides Miller’s across *Balloonerism*’s 14 deep and dreamy tracks—that of SZA, his longtime friend, who appears on “DJ’s Chord Organ,” a heady track credited to Miller’s production alter ego Larry Fisherman that borrows a chord organ once belonging to lo-fi folk hero Daniel Johnston. Otherwise, Miller goes his own way, probing life’s great mysteries with modesty and good humor. The rattle of a tambourine echoes through the album, produced in part by Thundercat, as do Miller’s preoccupations with death as a concept, a puzzle, a voyeuristic spectacle, and, finally, life’s ultimate trip. “What does death feel like?” he wonders repeatedly on “Rick’s Piano,” believed to have been recorded at Rick Rubin’s Shangri-La studio. And on the hushed and haunting epic “Tomorrow Will Never Know,” he looks down at himself from a distant God’s-eye view and arrives at the enlightened conclusion: “Living and dying are one and the same.”
Playboi Carti has hardly been absent in the roughly four years since *Whole Lotta Red*, appearing alongside the likes of Future, Latto, and Trippie Redd in the interim. Still, that didn’t keep his enormous fanbase from persistently clamoring over the prospect of *I AM MUSIC*, ultimately released with the truncated title of, simply, *MUSIC*. Its substantial length seems to acknowledge the wait, opening with a flurry of rage-rap tracks like “POP OUT” and “CRUSH” that herald the raconteur’s welcome arrival. Over its 30-track, 77-minute runtime, his sonics shift between the aggressively blown-out, synth-heavy post-trap he became infamous for and something markedly poppier, yet all of it undeniably within his stylistic range. Carti initially kept his choice of guests close to the vest, as has become custom for high-profile album drops. Yet it would be impossible not to recognize Kendrick Lamar spitting on “GOOD CREDIT,” Future emoting over “TRIM,” or collaborative career mainstay Lil Uzi Vert gliding triumphantly through “TWIN TRIM.” The Weeknd’s prominent feature on “RATHER LIE” makes for perhaps the most overt example of his envelope-pushing here, though appearances by Travis Scott on “PHILLY” and the tag team of Young Thug and Ty Dolla $ign on “WE NEED ALL DA VIBES” make the pivot even more plausible. Even with friends like these, Carti shines brighter on his own, his breathy near-falsetto vocal booming through the escalating video game arpeggios of “I SEEEEEE YOU BABY BOI” and his raspy snarl swerving around the cinematic noise of “COCAINE NOSE.” Not exclusively looking towards the future, there’s an almost nostalgic appreciation for Atlanta’s early 2010s sound evoked on “RADAR,” its beat reminiscent of classic 1017 Brick Squad tapes.
On what was meant to be the last date of his 2022 tour, The Weeknd took the stage at Inglewood, California’s SoFi Stadium, but when he opened his mouth to sing for 80,000 screaming fans, nothing came out. Over the past 14 years, Abel Tesfaye has experienced what you might call pop’s glow-up of the century: When he emerged from obscurity as the faceless voice behind 2011’s noir-ish *House of Balloons* mixtape, nobody could have guessed that he’d be headlining the Super Bowl Halftime Show a decade later. But that moment onstage triggered what Tesfaye has since described as a breakdown, inspiring a period of intense reflection on his life and career—and *Hurry Up Tomorrow*, his sixth studio album. Tesfaye has called *Tomorrow* the final chapter in the trilogy he began with 2020’s *After Hours*, the album that launched him into a new stratosphere of pop success, and continued with 2022’s high-concept *Dawn FM*. Continuing the narrative of its semi-autobiographical narrator’s journey through a dark night of the soul, *Tomorrow* doubles as an allegory about fame’s power to destroy: The curtain rises, and it’s all downhill from there. He longs for a time “when my blood never tasted like wine,” he wails over the night-drive synth-pop of “Take Me Back to LA,” and diagnoses fame as a disease on the glittering “Drive.” He’s ready to leave it all behind on “Wake Me Up,” a collaboration with French duo Justice: “No afterlife, no other side,” he sings, sounding entranced by the thought. Its 22 tracks play out like the swan song to end all swan songs, joined by a murderer’s row of guests: Future lends a layer of scuzz to the deceptively sweet R&B slow-burner “Enjoy the Show,” Anitta taps in for the nocturnal baile funk of “São Paulo,” and frequent collaborator Lana Del Rey makes an appearance on “The Abyss,” where ominous lyrics like, “What’s the point of staying? It’s going up in flames” hit even harder after LA’s devastating fires in January 2025. Tesfaye has dropped repeated hints that this album won’t just close out the trilogy, but also his existence as The Weeknd. If that’s the case, “Without a Warning” encapsulates the arc of an artist who never let success get in the way of his ambition: “Take me to a time/When I was young/And my heart could take the drugs and heartache without loss/But now my bones are frail/And my voice fails/And my tears fall without a warning/Either way, the crowd will scream my name.”
When Larry June and The Alchemist get together, the results are invariably magical. Two West Coast hip-hop mainstays, their 2023 joint album *The Great Escape* and a few surrounding one-offs clarified just how marvelously the Bay’s healthiest MC could vibe with LA’s infamous beat artisan. While that project’s featured guests were overwhelmingly comprised of ALC familiars, the duo’s 2025 follow-up welcomes a relative newcomer to that particular scene as its third headliner: 2 Chainz. Having established his reputation primarily with trap producers, the Georgia native reached a certain level of ubiquity by working beyond subgenre borders, which contextualizes his presence on *Life Is Beautiful*. As his biggest fans assuredly know, he and June are in no way strangers, appearing together on the latter’s *Spaceships on the Blade* and *The Night Shift*, albeit not over Alchemist beats. Commonalities and contrasts between the two rappers make *Life Is Beautiful* a uniquely satisfying listening experience. “Colossal” recalls 2 Chainz’s *Most Expensivest* exploits, his luxe litany of decidedly un-humble brags pleasantly incongruous with June’s signature lifestyle index involving fresh-squeezed juices, vintage timepieces, and automotive excellence. At times, they suit one another like a well-balanced cocktail, trading unapologetically profane bars for more methodical and measured ones on “I Been” and “Any Day.” Elsewhere, their shared maturity differentiates them from the brand-name-dropping rap pack, their grown-folks motivations informing the flexes of “LLC” and the title track. Devoid of distractions from outside guests, both artists’ skills and quirks come to the fore over Alchemist’s breathtaking, often sublimely soulful, instrumentals.
May 5, 2025, will stand now as a historic benchmark for André 3000. Famously elusive since the split of his iconic Southern hip-hop duo, Outkast, André arrived at the Met Gala—a celebration of Black dandyism that raised a record-setting $31 million—with a massive model of a piano strapped across his back. Beneath a red cap and round glasses, he beamed for red-carpet cameras. The night represented not only the surprising relaunch of his erstwhile fashion line, Benji Bixby, but also the surprising release of *7 piano sketches*, his first full project since his surprise 2023 entry into serene spiritual jazz, *New Blue Sun*. *7 piano sketches* began to take shape a decade ago, when André and his son temporarily lived in a Houston house with spartan furnishings—some TVs, some beds, a piano. Around the time of the final shows of the most-recent Outkast reunion, he began recording little piano pieces and even pondered releasing several as *The Best Worst Rap Album in History*. The liner notes were set to read, “It’s the free-est emotionally and best I’ve felt personally.” But he shelved them, leading first to lingering questions about when he would return to music and, ultimately, to *New Blue Sun*, a stunning break with expectations for one of hip-hop’s best-ever minds. These little pieces—seven tracks, 16 total minutes—perpetuate that break. After a voice offers the track number and title, André feels his way through a theme and variations. Where opener “bluffing in the snow” is a refracted and pensive blues, “hotel lobby pianos” drifts into a confident midtempo stride as voices drift in the background. The record ultimately points toward new directions. After he dances through a smiling melody for a while, “off rhythm laughter” blooms into an exquisite drone. And on closer “i spend all day waiting for the night,” he improvises around a drum machine’s languid march, his sunken-world piano rising to meet the rhythm in the middle. André 3000 continues to push hip-hop expectations off his back, this time with the actual piano strapped to it.
Much like his unending devotion for wrestling and sartorial sense of streetwear, Westside Gunn perpetually seeks to put other rappers on. For this spiritual sequel to 2022’s *Peace “Fly” God* that also technically serves as the 12th installment in his *Hermes* series, the Griselda impresario once again centers Estee Nack and Stove God Cooks, who collectively and respectively appear on seven of these 11 tracks. Their joint presence on trio cuts “BOSWELL” and the Daringer-produced “VEERT” pushes the fashionably flamboyant FLYGOD back towards coke-rap braggadocio and surrounding themes of luxury amid violence. (Even as his cohorts talk street business, he still fires off a big brag about parallel parking a Bugatti.) The duo moments shine as well, with Stove reminiscing about the recipe with Gunn on “055” and Nack mixing ugly business with filthy pleasure on “BURY ME WITH A STOVE.” A standout presence on 2024’s *Still Praying*, Brother Tom Sos returns here for two songs in a move that furthers Gunn’s artistic patronage. On “HEALTH SCIENCE,” he moves the proceedings towards something resembling what used to be dubbed conscious rap, while on “GUMBO YAYA” he transforms murderous metaphors into a more principled path. Though better known for his production placements on Mach-Hommy’s *#RICHAXXHAITIAN* and Conway The Machine’s *Slant Face Killah*, Elijah Hooks makes an unexpected if rewarding appearance over Conductor Williams’ “DUMP WORLD.” The album’s sole solo joint, “OUTLANDER” allows Gunn to synthesize all of *12*’s ideas with his signature WWE nods and the mournful reflections that came to the fore on his preceding *11* EP.
What makes the darkness of billy woods’ raps bearable is that you’re always a step or two away from a good joke or decent meal—a real-world, life-goes-on resilience that has been the bedrock of hip-hop from the beginning. That said, *GOLLIWOG* is probably the most out-and-out unsettling album he’s made yet, a smear of synth rumbles, creaky pianos, and horror-movie strings whose dissonances amplify scenes of otherwise ordinary dread, whether it’s the Black artist trying to charm the boardroom of white executives on “Cold Sweat” or prolonged eviction scene of “BLK XMAS.” Now in his mid-forties, woods is confident enough in his critique to make you squirm in it and has a rolodex of some of the best producers in underground rap to back him up, including Kenny Segal, El-P, Conductor Williams, and DJ Haram. Spoiler alert: The real monsters are human.
A chart fixture since 2017, Lil Baby has earned the right to a little nostalgia. Holding it down for Atlanta in the 2020s, his lengthy run of rap hits over a seven-year stretch inevitably led the hip-hop star back to his beginnings, at least thematically. *WHAM*, a bespoke acronym for Who Hard As Me, calls back to some of those earlier successes by reclaiming the titular fortitude of breakthrough projects like *Harder Than Ever* and *Too Hard*. Still operating at the fore of trap’s commercial evolution, indeed with some of the same producers he’s been with throughout his journey, he comes through with reliably polished bangers “F U 2x,” “Say Twin,” and the Southside- and Wheezy-helmed “Stiff Gang.” On “I Promise,” he looks back on where he started from his now-vaunted vantage point, with nods to the illicit activities that prepared him for his contemporary money moves. He frequently focuses his attention on personal and romantic matters, evidenced best on the conciliatory yet booming “So Sorry.” At this stage in Lil Baby’s career, he could have just about anyone he wants as a feature. *WHAM* demonstrates his pull from early on, grabbing ATL titans Future and a newly freed Young Thug on the flex-fest “Dum, Dumb, and Dumber.” 21 Savage maintains an ominous vibe on “Outfit,” while Rod Wave and Rylo Rodriguez tap in for the comparatively sleeker “By Myself.” Yet it’s GloRilla who offers the rapper his finest foil here, giving as good as she gets on the standout “Redbone.”
By sheer force of will, MIKE has become a leading voice in New York’s underground rap renaissance. He drops one or two albums a year, each expanding his lyrical scope, laidback delivery, and excellent ear for beats. His crew runs deep, and 2024’s *Pinball* with producer Tony Seltzer featured many of his closest collaborators, like Earl Sweatshirt and Tony Shhnow. His 2025 effort, *Showbiz!*, is similar in the sense that it’s a deeply immersive effort, but the guest list is limited. MIKE’s world is nevertheless unmistakable, filled with weed smoke, knotty lyrics, and beats that continue to help forge a new golden age in New York. “Then we could be free” takes an old soul sample and highlights the bassline, giving MIKE’s unrelenting delivery a funky underbelly. “Lucky” features drums that explode like fireworks and synths that dance around MIKE’s voice, approximating his slippery flow without ever tying it down to a consistent rhythm. It’s loose but never sloppy.
After back-to-back albums focused on their love of horror, experimental hip-hop trio clipping. head into the cybernetic unknown on their sixth, *Dead Channel Sky*. Even as their sound has become progressively more streamlined since the lurching abstractions of their self-titled debut on indie institution Sub Pop back in 2014, co-producers William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes conjure pure and jagged bolts of electricity across these 20 tracks, borrowing equally from the mechanical menace of early house and techno and the kitchen-sink IDM of Squarepusher and Aphex Twin. As with clipping.’s previous records, *Dead Channel Sky* is a highly collaborative affair: Wilco guitarist Nels Cline contributes scorched licks to the inside-out instrumental “Malleus” while indie hip-hop legend Aesop Rock lends his distinctive pipes to “Welcome Home Warrior.” But the speed-demon dexterity that is Daveed Diggs’ rapping skills remain as clipping.’s mainframe; he acrobatically hops across the album’s ones-and-zeroes eruptions like a computer virus avoiding detection, guiding listeners through *Dead Channel Sky*’s corroded landscape with ease.
At the bleeding edge of the 2020s’ rage rap movement is the Opium collective—the Atlanta-based cabal of brooding rappers and producers led by Playboi Carti who favor powerful distortion, belligerent energy, Satanic imagery, and gratuitous angst. If the scene’s high-water mark was Carti’s pandemic-era paradigm shift, 2020’s *Whole Lotta Red*, just behind it was Ken Carson’s third album, 2023’s *A Great Chaos*, whose maximalist squall delivered on the title’s promise while fitting into the long lineage of blustery Atlanta rap. “I’m the lord of chaos! I’m the lord of the mosh!” Carson declares to open *More Chaos*, his fourth album and *A Great Chaos*’s feverishly anticipated follow-up. If its predecessor cranked the mayhem and distortion to 11, here the 25-year-old rapper/rock star turns the knobs to 12, running vintage ATL trap through the 2025 deep fryer. Tried-and-true motifs appear by way of abstract singsong blurts and yelps: Rick and Balenci, goth women, rock star shit. Anyway, it’s not about the lyrics—it’s about catharsis.
One summer night in 2022, during a break from shooting *The Crow* reboot in Prague, FKA twigs found her way outside the city to a warehouse rave, where hundreds of strangers were dancing to loud, immersive techno. The experience snapped the English polymath (singer, dancer, songwriter, actor, force of nature) out of the intense brain fog she’d been stuck inside for years—so much so that she was moved to invent a word to describe the transcendent clarity, a portmanteau of “sex” and “euphoria” (which also sounds a bit like the Greek word used to celebrate a discovery: eureka!). *EUSEXUA*, twigs’ third studio album (and her first full-length release since her adventurous 2022 mixtape, *Caprisongs*), is not explicitly a dance record—more a love letter to dance music’s emancipating powers, channeled through the auteur’s heady, haunting signature style. The throbbing percussion from that fateful warehouse rave pulses through the record, warping according to the mood: slinky, subterranean trip-hop on the hedonistic “Girl Feels Good,” or big-room melodrama on the strobing “Room of Fools.” On the cyborgian “Drums of Death” (produced by Koreless, who worked closely alongside twigs and appears on every track), twigs evokes a short-circuiting sexbot at an after-hours rave in the Matrix, channeling sensations of hot flesh against cold metal as she implores you to “Crash the system...Serve cunt/Serve violence.” Intriguing strangers emerge from *EUSEXUA*’s sea of fog, all of them seeking the same thing twigs is—sticky, sweaty, ego-killing, rapturous catharsis.
There’s a short list of things South Memphis rapper Key Glock never finds himself without: Money. Jewelry. A pistol. The arm of the most beautiful woman in the room. The envy of haters everywhere. We know as much because he tells us over and over again across his wildly fun fifth album, *Glockaveli*. Longtime fans know Glock as a onetime protégé of dearly departed fellow Memphis native Young Dolph. But in the wake of the Paper Route Empire mogul’s death in 2021, Glizzock carved a lane for himself that would have had Dolph smiling big enough to show off the whole of his signature blue-diamond grill. To be specific, Key Glock is having his way across the 18 tracks of *Glockaveli*, never losing sight of the ultimate mission: “I’ma go and get that money, like Dolph told me to,” he raps on “Hallelujah.”
JPEGMAFIA has become one of music’s most trusted collaborators, working with artists ranging from Danny Brown and Kanye West to Kimbra and indie rocker Helena Deland. Despite his sterling stature, the Air Force veteran returns to his experimental, boundary-pushing roots on his fifth solo album, *I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU*. Mixing punk, noise, industrial music, and more into a chaotic cacophony, JPEGMAFIA has proven that success certainly did not change his pursuit of musical freedom. On opener “i scream this in the mirror before i interact with anyone,” JPEG spits over free-jazz drums and metal guitars that explode into screeching solos. He lays out a manifesto of sorts for his perspective, rapping, “When they can’t read you like a book/They gon’ try to attack what you stand on/I’ma take off even if I land wrong/And take everything I can get my hands on.” On “don’t rely on other men,” JPEG leans into his experimental roots and examines his decision to occasionally make a mainstream leap, though he certainly doesn’t do that here. Over a beat from a chopped vocal and blown-out drums, the rapper asks a simple question, wondering at what cost he’s willing to suffer for his art: “Wanna cry on the bus or the Maybach?”
What’s in a name? In the case of Yung Lean, what initially registered as a sardonic take on post-ironic internet rap tropes was, in fact, a riff on the Swedish rapper’s given name: Jonatan Leandoer Håstad. In the decade-plus since he broke through with 2013’s “Ginseng Strip 2002,” Lean has evolved past his position as Scandinavia’s foremost cloud-rap interpreter, embracing sincerity, transparency, and, more recently, post-punk. (On 2024’s *Psykos*, his first full-length collaboration with Drain Gang CEO Bladee, they channeled Joy Division and The Cure for songs about psychosis and ego death.) The title of his fifth solo album says it all: *Jonatan* is Lean at his rawest, a homecoming after a long, dark night of the soul. Lead single “Forever Yung” plays out like a funeral for his former self: Phoenixes rise from the ashes, masks are taken off, a rickety one-note bassline rattles ahead. A handful of bruised love songs crackle with manic energy and magical-realist details: On “Paranoid Paparazzi,” he raps about pills and lullabies in a voice that sounds like he’s just rolled out of bed, and “Babyface Maniacs” could be the theme song of a future *Badlands* remake: “Infamous murderous couple ridin’ through the drylands/Sugarcane kisses and shotguns, candy cane violence.” But at the emotional crux of *Jonatan* are heavy yet hopeful ballads that put chaos in the rearview—like “Swan Song,” on which Lean singsongs, “I wanna know what it feels like to come down from the trip of a lifetime.”
“I kind of prolonged my come-up,” Central Cee tells Apple Music. Off the success of record-breaking global hits “Doja” and “Sprinter,” not to mention the indisputable smash “Band4Band” with Lil Baby, nobody could have faulted the “Wild” West London native from hastily dropping an album to capitalize on any of those singles. But as he’d be happy to remind any of his fans, it was already an uphill battle just being a rapper out of Shepherd’s Bush, which makes his long-anticipated full-length debut, *CAN’T RUSH GREATNESS*, all the more momentous. “The first two projects were mixtapes,” he explains of his prior work. “The energy I put into them is what made it a mixtape, and the energy I premeditated to put into the album and the timing of everything is what the album is.” In line with that intent, Cee’s conflicted state of mind quickly comes to the fore on opener “No Introduction,” acknowledging and accepting the whirlwind of fame while concurrently craving a more tranquil life. Those changes manifest throughout the album, with him straddling diverging worlds on the drill dazzler “5 Star” and struggling with resonant pain on the plaintive “Limitless.” While the instantly gratifying “St. Patrick’s” indulges in familiar flagrant flexes, the album gets decidedly deeper than rap via tracks like “Don’t Know Anymore” and “Walk in Wardrobe,” with the latter’s late beat-switch raising the stakes. “It’s hard for me to rap in such a reflective wake,” he says. “I just want to look ahead at the light at the end of the tunnel and not really think about certain things.” While a substantial amount of the lyrical material skews intimately local, Cee’s worldwide reach reveals itself largely via collaborations with the likes of Lil Durk and Young Miko. Still, as good as it feels to hear him going bar for bar with 21 Savage on trap stunner “GBP,” his link with UK rap icon Skepta on “Ten” and reunion with *Split Decision* mate Dave on “CRG” just hit different, in the best way. “These songs aren’t really for the masses,” he says, “but just to touch the people, remind everyone that I’m human—that *they’re* human.”
It was a big deal when #KushandOrangeJuice became the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter upon the release of the eighth Wiz Khalifa mixtape in April 2010, back when “hashtags” and “trending topics” were cutting-edge promotional tools. Back then, it was practically unheard of for a rapper with no major-label deal to be making such big waves (he’d left his former label, Warner Bros., in 2009). But there was something comforting about the red-eyed Pittsburgh rapper’s laidback mode of rapping about the staples of college dorm-room chatter: weed, women, cars, parties… Did we mention weed? Today, *Kush & Orange Juice* is considered a “blog era” classic—a throwback to a chiller, simpler time. Almost exactly 15 years later, its sequel arrives like a visit from a friend from long ago who’s grown up and gotten richer, but otherwise mostly stayed the same. The 23 terminally chill tracks of *Kush + Orange Juice 2* feature more of the Taylor Gang touchstones you know and love: jet-ski races, beach picnics, fat joints, drop-tops, crab rolls, hot-boxing Ferrari F8s. He’s joined by a loaded roster of guests who haven’t changed much in the past decade and change, either: Curren$y, Smoke DZA, Chevy Woods, Terrace Martin. “I been doing the same thing since I was 19,” Khalifa crows on “I Might Be,” which might be tragic were those things not so timelessly appealing. Throughout the tape, a radio DJ (broadcasting on a station known as W-E-E-D) offers salient advice: “Don’t stay in the house, man. Jump in the car. Ride around with the homies and the homegirls, and put on some of that Wiz Khalifa, y’all.”
From fostering major stars like Kendrick Lamar and SZA to generating rap hitmakers such as Doechii and ScHoolboy Q, Top Dawg Entertainment bears no small responsibility for shaping our current cultural moment in hip-hop and R&B. Given that track record, any TDE signee warrants at least some attention, especially if that artist happens to be from Los Angeles. Long Beach native Ray Vaughn certainly makes as strong a case as possible for his come-up on *The Good The Bad The Dollar Menu*, his substantial debut mixtape for the acclaimed label. On the piano-driven opener “FLOCKER’S remorse,” he sets listeners on a whirlwind tour of his hardscrabble past, one explored in further graphic detail on “XXXL Tee.” Hunger is a well-established lyrical metaphor in rap, for literal and figurative means, but Vaughn makes it as resonant as ever on the shapeshifting “DOLLAR menu.” The troubling reveals of “3PM @ DAIRY’S” will hit like shockwaves for some, while others may find comfort or at least relatability in his contemplative assessments of generational trauma. Yet even when he’s scheming for a way out or at least a way forward, it’s hard not to bounce along when it sounds as danceable as “KLOWN dance” or “LOOK @ GOD.” Skits and segues, including one particularly profane maternal voicemail, somewhat remind of the ones that dotted *good kid, m.A.A.d city*, yet the comparatively looser mixtape feel here allows the rising rapper more flexibility and freedom as he maneuvers through his oft-difficult subject matter. Still, the rather personal nature of songs like “FLAT shasta” and “JANKY moral COMPASS” aligns the rapper with some of his TDE colleagues, past and present. To Vaughn’s credit, though, he avoids relying on flashy features for what amounts to a proper introduction to his boisterous-yet-confessional style. So when labelmate Isaiah Rashad rolls up for “EAST CHATT.” it makes that internal team-up all the more meaningful. By the time the tape wraps up with “SUBURBAN KIDZ,” a thought-provoking summation that touches on themes of addiction and faith, Vaughn’s proverbial star seems well worth ascending.
Louie Pastel and Felix actually hail from Los Angeles, borrowing their name from the title of Wim Wenders’ 1984 road movie. But beyond showing their movie-geek bona fides, the choice also speaks to their fondness for juxtaposing elements that might not typically go together—let’s say, West Coast G-funk and sneering punk rock, which they meld seamlessly on “Dogma 25,” where they deliver the odd cinephiliac bar (“Stanley Kubrick, how I’m making a scene”) in matching growls that do Tumblr-era Tyler, the Creator justice. Since their 2018 debut EP, *I’ll Get My Revenge in Hell*, the duo have earned comparisons to alternative rap groups like Death Grips and clipping. But *They Left Me With the Sword*, their third official EP, suggests that they’re equally inspired by blog-era cult faves The Cool Kids, whose retro-futuristic minimalism they channel on “Holy Spinal Fluid” and “El Camino.” (The latter, with its vocoder balladry and tight lyricism, showcases the pair at their best.)
Like its 2024 predecessor *Pinball*, part of the appeal of *Pinball II* is hearing MIKE step out of the fog of his own introspection and do something a little more sociable. Make no mistake: This is not straightforward rap music. But where *tears of joy*-era MIKE (age 20) sounded hell-bent on unburdening his soul, here he seems not only content with rapping for rap’s sake but resplendent in it. He pulls together West Coast breeziness (“Splat!”), Detroit bounce (“#74,” “WYC4”), weird Cubist R&B (“Dolemite”), and DMV dreamscapes (the Niontay feature “Shaq & Kobe”) with a free-associative joy that manages to be both fun and totally nonlinear. As for his collaborator, you guess he picked the name because of how hard he bubbles.
Is there anything Jane Remover *can’t* do? The 21-year-old rapper, singer, and producer’s surprise-released third album, *Revengeseekerz*, arrives just a few months after their striking and contemplative album *Ghostholding* under their Venturing alias. If that album dove deep into the tangled guitars and complex emotions of Midwestern emo, then *Revengeseekerz* finds Jane Remover fully leaving behind the gauzy anti-rock of 2023’s *Census Designated* and blasting off into the realm of rage music. It’s impossible to hear the bitcrushed synths of “Dreamflasher” and the lurching trap beats of “Experimental Skin” without conjuring images of current rage titans like Yeat and Playboi Carti. But nothing is ever that simple in Jane Remover’s world, as their dizzying and flashy approach to production means that even the catchiest *Revengeseekerz* material is densely packed with sonic bells and whistles. Amid a plethora of sonic gestures tilted towards the neon crags of modern rap, Jane Remover still finds the space to execute a few shocking left turns across these 12 tracks. Danny Brown lends his always elastic voice to the endless-ladder electroclash of “Psychoboost,” while “Professional Vengeance” bounces like a pop-punk Super Mario across a landscape of video-game lasers and pummeling bass. *Revengeseekerz* is the strongest statement yet from a true prodigy at the height of their powers.
After almost four years in prison, Flint, Michigan, rapper Rio Da Yung OG returned in early 2025 with his first project since incarceration: *RIO FREE*. Despite the prolonged absence, the MC, who has been a staple in the Wolverine State since 2019, picks up right where he left off before lockup. On the project, he’s not inclined to harp too intensely on the years lost to prison, instead reiterating that his status has remained unaffected despite his presence missing from the streets. On opener “Yung OGee,” he marvels at his status in the hood, his independent streak, and his ability to cook up a mixtape in less than an hour. He allows for some introspection, though, on “RIO FREE,” spitting over a mournful piano melody, reminiscing on the highs and lows of life in prison. He brags that the guards never found his phone (he hid it in some lotion) but also takes a moment to offer up a striking admission, a pain that clouds the celebration of his freedom: “I just did four years,” he raps. “I’m a lonely man.”
Whether rocking with hip-hop heavyweights like The Alchemist over inventively sampled beats or spitting with lesser-known talents like RichGains and WhoTheHellIsCarlo, Boldy James can’t help but thrive over quality instrumentals. Coming off a string of near-monthly releases with producers ranging from Conductor Williams to Harry Fraud, the versatile Griselda affiliate delivers once more with his second project of 2025, *Permanent Ink*. Recorded with fellow Detroiter Roger Goodman of Royal House, the 13-track effort showcases a specific set of skills applied to yet another sonic side of the genre, one simultaneously more commercial and authentically regional. His street lingo backed up by street smarts, he brings intimate knowledge of the game on cuts like “All On My Side” and “It Hit Different,” mixing business with pleasure as is his wont. “Gargoyle Pelle” and “Stop Signs & Yields” blend him overtly into his city’s distinct palette of sounds, his hustler’s joy and survivor’s pain blurred throughout.
Since he signed to Def Jam at the end of 2021, Benny’s projects have been a mix of underground grit and mainstream appeal—a tough line to walk, but one he walks in style. At seven tracks in 20 minutes, *Excelsior* captures the gruff thrills of the equally brief *The Plugs I Met* series, pairing him with a marquee’s worth of midtempo, heritage-coded, narco-rap heroes including *Plugs* producer Harry Fraud (“Sign Language”), Styles P (“Toxic”), and Boldy James (the exceptionally titled “Duffel Bag Hottie’s Revenge”). You know what they say: You can take the boy out of the street, but…
A broken clock is right twice a day, and a new Boldy James album comes twice a month. Well, not quite, but few rappers have ever been on a run as prolific as the Detroit MC has been in 2025. What makes the barrage of releases so special, however, is the high-quality raps he serves up again and again. On his May 2025 release with LA producer Real Bad Man, *Conversational Pieces*, he keeps the good times rolling like the luxury whips he loves to rap about. Much like the duo’s 2020 collaboration, *Real Bad Boldy*, James and Real Bad Man have an almost telepathic chemistry on *Conversational Pieces*. Whether spitting about cruising the streets late at night on “Tap the Brakes Twice” or luxury vacations on “Aspen,” Boldy floats atop stripped-down beats. It’s a fine line the artists effortlessly walk, balancing minimalism and charisma with an intoxicating nonchalance. It’s a personality Boldy has embodied on this generational run, and lord knows he’s had the practice.
The Chicago drill superstar’s eighth studio album, 2023’s *Almost Healed*, was devoted to the concept of recovering from trauma—a theme that’s haunted Lil Durk’s music, either implicitly or explicitly, since his emergence in the early 2010s as the most melodically gifted of the genre’s rising stars. Its March 2025 follow-up, *Deep Thoughts*, was slated for release in October 2024. But that same month, Durk was arrested (along with several affiliates of his record label and collective, Only the Family) in connection to a murder-for-hire case against a rival rapper. The rapper born Durk Banks has maintained his innocence, but was denied bail on the grounds of being a flight risk. If convicted of the charges, the 32-year-old faces life in prison. This changes the gravity of his long-awaited ninth album, which was delayed four times since the 2024 arrest. But the tracklist of *Deep Thoughts* seems to reflect a different lifetime, with pre-arrest singles like “Turn Up a Notch” and a suite of lusty ballads like the benny blanco-produced Jhene Aiko duet, “Can’t Hide It.” The resounding pathos of Durk’s work remains—most potently on “Keep on Sippin’,” whose candid bars detail the vicious cycle of addiction. But the stakes have changed, and it’s hard not to wonder what the Lil Durk of the past year might have to get off his chest instead. Still, an offhand line from “They Want to Be You,” a melancholy Future collab about the expectations of fame, hits even harder now: “All the kids rap, they wanna be just like you.”
It could be difficult for the casual fan to believe that, a full three decades in the game, Brother Ali is still improving as an MC. But on *Satisfied Soul*, the follow-up to 2024’s *Love & Service*, he’s rapping like he has something to prove. “Broadcasting live from the world tour with Muhammed my man/I hope that y’all understand, conquering land ain’t part of my plan,” he starts in on “The Counts.” “Put my forehead all on your sand/I put my heart in the palm of your hand/I make art and they call it a jam/You play it loud in your car and they call you a fan/Carve it in your skin, now you’re a Stan/I arrived with a wandering band that climbed out of a van/And held the mic like a wand in my dominant hand…” The Brother is, very intentionally, still nice with his. But *Satisfied Soul* isn’t just about lyrical dexterity. The project is produced by Ant (the production half of Minneapolis underground hip-hop heroes Atmosphere), whose long-standing collaborative relationship with Ali dates at least as far back as Ali’s second album, *Shadows in the Sun*. In interviews, Ali has been consistently gracious about what Ant’s production is able to draw out of him. On *Satisfied Soul*, this is the freedom to talk about everything from complicated family relationships (“Deep Cuts,” “Mysterious Things,” “Better But Us”) to Ali’s path to greatness as an MC (“D.R.U.M.”) to the unhoused (“Under the Stars”) to the time in 2008 when he kicked Justin Timberlake offstage for attempting to surprise him with an impromptu beatboxing effort (“Two Dudes”). As the project’s title implies, Ali sounds more comfortable in his skin than he’s ever been. He seems to have a great life—now residing full-time in Istanbul, and releasing music through Arizona-based Mello Music Group—and he can’t wait for you to hear about it.
“I’ve been realizing that I really made the album that I needed to heal myself,” Kali Uchis tells Apple Music about *Sincerely,* perhaps her most liberating work yet. The Colombian American singer-songwriter’s catalog has never felt slight or frivolous, whether in English or in Spanish. Yet this full-length follow-up to her 2024 *ORQUÍDEAS* dyad presents as something truly unique, arriving roughly a decade after her promising EP debut *Por Vida*. The majority of the songs here began simply as voice notes, fortuitously captured in inspired moments outside of the confines or pressures of a studio setting. “Messages would just feel like they were directly coming through me, and I just had to get them out,” she says. Given such natural creative origins, it should come as little surprise that the actual process behind the album eschewed industry norms altogether, favoring home recording and unconventional settings. And despite the demonstrated level of guest vocal talent at her fingertips, she opted out of features, too. “When you’re making emotional music, you have to actually dig into difficult subjects,” she says, marking a clear distinction between this piece and its star-powered predecessor. As a result, *Sincerely,* feels disarmingly intimate for what is ostensibly a pop album, even one from as consistently adventurous an artist as Uchis. The evocative moments of opener “Heaven Is a Home…” and closer “ILYSMIH” speak on love in grand and sweeping gestures, the passing of her mother and the birth of her son making understandably profound impacts on the work. Influences like Cocteau Twins and Fiona Apple can be felt in all that comes between those bookends. “There’s a lot of grief, but there’s a lot of joy,” she says, describing what seeps through the veil of “Silk Lingerie,” or the vamps of “Territorial.” Excess punctuation on titles like “Lose My Cool,” and “For: You” hint at the flowing prose of her lyrics as it contributes to an even greater whole. “I think it is a celebration of life in its own way,” she says, “in the sense of finding beauty in the pain and taking the good.”
If anyone knows something about *FESTIVAL SEASON*, it’s SAINt JHN, the Brooklyn-hailing singer and MC whose “Roses (Imanbek Remix)” has been tearing down electro festivals since its release back in 2018. JHN, though, is an artist whose creative practice extends way beyond single genre. He shows off his range on *FESTIVAL SEASON*, singing and rapping over rage-rap production (“Body on Me,” “4 the Gangsters”), ATL-centric trap music (“Stones!!!,” “Poppin,” “Real Hustler”), pop punk (“Who’s Ex Wife Is This”), pool-party techno (“Glitching”), soca-influenced house (“Loneliness”)—and, because even the greatest parties need a breather, a power ballad (“Never Met Superman”). It’s almost as if it doesn’t matter which festival you choose to attend: SAINt JHN is going to be there.
As much as his Griselda affiliation connects him with a Buffalo, NY state of mind, Boldy James remains a Detroit rapper through and through. Coming amid a fast-and-furious run of new releases from the prodigious spitter, *Hommage* rightfully centers him in his hometown both physically and sonically. With the help of Antt Beatz, producer behind favorites by 42 Dugg and Icewear Vezzo, he shares his astutely local vision of the city on cuts like “Concrete Connie” and “Super Mario.” Even the track titles themselves reflect the rapper’s clever brand of lyricism, as cuts like the exultant “Brick James” and “Himothy Mcveigh” contain his all-but-patented blend of narco knowledge drops and street king statements. As expected, the guest list is rightfully restricted to residents, with Baby Money giving nothing but straight talk on the booming “Off the Richter” and BandGang Lonnie Bands trading tight verses off with Boldy on the melancholic “Met Me.”
