Hiphopheads

A great deal obviously occurred in the five years between *ASTROWORLD* and *UTOPIA*, Travis Scott’s third and fourth solo studio albums, respectively. Still, looking at hip-hop and rap music specifically, few could deny the extraordinary impact his music had on a young generation of emerging artists, their radical vocal and production style choices so overtly informed by his own vision. His commercial success at least partially hinged on the futuristic, otherworldly sound and image he cultivated, with listeners tuning in just to hear what fresh level of the game he’d unlocked. Thus the collective anticipation for *UTOPIA* could not have been higher. Without fail, Scott delivers something only he could have delivered, a thoroughly riveting album that transmutes star power and experimental artistry into a marvelous musical monument. The opening boom-bap bombast of “HYAENA,” the funkadelic crunch of “MODERN JAM,” and the proggy thump of “CIRCUS MAXIMUS” are just a few examples of how he has so lavishly expanded his sonic universe with this record. He now seems to enjoy a certain austerity, as on “I KNOW ?” and “LOST FOREVER,” but remains incapable of completely escaping the maximalist thrills of his past. The deliberately concealed guest list contains quite a few stars and superstars, and shrewd listeners may enjoy trying to identify them all without a cheat sheet. Drake’s unmistakable baritone leads the shape-shifting “MELTDOWN,” while Playboi Carti unspools his magnificent mumble over the buzzy “FE!N.” But when Beyoncé arrives for “DELRESTO (ECHOES),” its muted club contents echoing her own dance music renaissance, she provides a big diva energy that luxuriates amid Scott’s cutting edge.

*Pink Tape* feels like the first time we’ve heard everything Lil Uzi Vert can be in one place. Club music (“Just Wanna Rock”) and trap metal (“Suicide Doors,” “Werewolf”), pop hybrids (“Pluto to Mars,” the Nicki Minaj-featuring “Endless Fashion”) and pure menace (“Aye,” “Fire Alarm”). The melodies pour out of them like water (“x2,” “Mama, I’m Sorry”) and their cadence, flow, and energy can be astonishing—they make rapping sound like a physical feat (“Flooded the Face”). Like *Eternal Atake*, the prospect of taking it all in at once can seem totally overwhelming, but in a way, that’s the point: While they can be exacting about details (some of these tracks have been under construction since 2017), the experience of their music is like standing in a big bath of neon light—a cumulative approach that puts them in a growing tradition of mood-first rappers like Future and Young Thug. And while they’ve got some eccentricities, they’re not half as weird as hip-hop’s conservative wing might have you think. Do they think big? Yeah. Listen broadly? That, too. They just want to cram all the stuff they love into one place no matter how little it seems to fit together, from *Dragon Ball Z* to Marilyn Manson to jewelers most civilians have never heard of. Who are you to yuck their yum?

For years, Childish Gambino’s *Atavista* hid in plain sight. When he released an unfinished version of the record on March 15, 2020, it spent just 12 hours on his website before he pulled it down. Reappearing on streaming a week later as *3.15.20*, the project brought up almost as many questions as sparkling neo-soul anthems, which still sounded slicker than the average as raw cuts titled after timestamps. Flash forward to 2024 and Donald Glover has upgraded and updated *3.15.20* with added tracks. He worked closely with Los Angeles producer DJ Dahi and Swedish producer and esteemed film and TV composer Ludwig Göransson, a longtime collaborator, to set a sumptuous tone seated back between the ’70s funk reverence of 2016’s *“Awaken, My Love!”* and the smooth Caribbean-inflected soul of 2014’s *Kauai*. Features from Ariana Grande, 21 Savage, and Summer Walker soar on reinvigorated mixes, while “Little Foot Big Foot” features a spotlight-ready Young Nudy, finding Gambino’s eye still fixed towards the future of the regional scene he portrayed in vivid color on FX’s *Atlanta*. *Atavista* is an ode to impermanence, never more directly than over the glimmering guitar of “Time” with Grande. (“One thing’s for certain, baby/We’re running out of time,” they harmonize on the chorus.) But in Gambino’s capable hands, *Atavista* also slows down to enjoy the view, the sonic equivalent of a luxe leather-interior BMW cruising an open California highway. “I did what I wanted to,” he revels on closing track “Final Church.” *Atavista* took many shapes over the years to reach a final form. In each warm refrain, tight sequence, and carefully chosen collaborator, Gambino demonstrates why some things are worth waiting for.

A Top Dawg Entertainment fixture since the early 2010s, ScHoolboy Q played no small role in elevating the label to hip-hop’s upper echelon. With his Black Hippy cohorts Kendrick Lamar, Ab-Soul, and Jay Rock, the tremendously talented Los Angeles native made a compelling case for continuing the West Coast’s rap legacy well beyond the G-funk era or the days of Death Row dominance. Even still, his relative absence from the game after *CrasH Talk* dropped in 2019 has been hard to ignore, particularly as the most prominent member of his group departed TDE while SZA became the roster’s most undeniable hitmaker. Indeed, it’s been nearly five years since he gave us more than a loosie, which makes the arrival of his sixth full-length *BLUE LIPS* all the more auspicious. His concerns as a lyricist draw upon the micro as well as the macro level, as a parent decrying mass school shootings on “Cooties” or as a rap star operating on his own terms on “Nunu.” Elevating the drama, the *Saw* soundtrack cue nods of “THank god 4 me” accent his emboldened bars targeting snitches, haters, and fakes. Q’s guest selection reflects a more curatorial ear at work than the gratifying star-power flexes found on *CrasH Talk*. Rico Nasty righteously snarls through her portion of the menacing “Pop,” while Freddie Gibbs glides across the slow funk groove of “oHio” with scene-stealing punchlines. A producer behind TDE records by Isaiah Rashad and REASON, Devin Malik steps out from behind the boards to touch the mic on a handful of cuts, namely “Love Birds” and the booming paean “Back n Love.”

Card-carrying members of the #FutureHive remember where they were on the two consecutive weekends of February 2017 when rap’s reigning king of gorgeously toxic masculinity dropped a pair of albums that nailed the yin and yang of the whole Future thing. The first one, simply titled *FUTURE*, exemplified his singular breed of haunted club crushers, like “Mask Off,” a Metro Boomin joint that became his highest-charting single at the time. Hot on its heels was *HNDRXX*, named for his softer, trippier side, a buoyant return to the romance of his *Pluto*-era hits. Both albums debuted at No. 1 and felt like a return to form for a rapper who’s had more thrilling returns to form than just about any other rap star of the past 15 years. A similar feeling floats on the breeze with the release of *WE STILL DON’T TRUST YOU*, Future’s second collaborative album with Metro Boomin in less than a month. From the spacey and vaguely French disco pulse of the Weeknd-featuring title track, you get the sense that *WE STILL DON’T TRUST YOU* is the *HNDRXX* to *WE DON’T TRUST YOU*’s *FUTURE*—a balmy sunrise after a dark night of the soul. That feeling is confirmed by the shimmering bacchanalia of “Drink N Dance” and the Brownstone-sampling “Luv Bad Bitches,” an instant addition to the canon of Future’s best love songs (“I like good girls, but I love, love, love bad bitches!”). Metro’s productions have rarely sounded prettier, and Future Hendrix fires on all cylinders, reminding you that for all his red-eyed “fuck love” bangers, at his core he’s a romantic. Kendrick Lamar’s surprise verse on *WE DON’T TRUST YOU* reopened the “Big Three” debate floor; with *WE STILL DON’T TRUST YOU*, it’s time to start seriously considering the idea of the “Big Four.”

“Warning: no bars,” reads a label on the packaging of the first-ever solo album from André 3000. The idea of such a thing has haunted hip-hop fandom’s collective consciousness for nearly two decades: a full-length solo effort from Outkast’s Gemini counterpart, not counting his half of *Speakerboxxx/The Love Below*. In the Outkast years, André was known as the far-out yin to Big Boi’s earthier yang, and while the latter pursued a solo career following the duo’s 2006 hiatus, Three Stacks forged a less orthodox path. He designed clothes, produced a cartoon series, and took on a handful of acting roles, popping up every so often to rap a guest verse for Frank Ocean or Beyoncé. Meanwhile, he walked around playing the flute—a habit that, when caught on camera, was something of a meme, but had privately become a passion. The title of the first track on *New Blue Sun*, whose 87 minutes of cosmic flute experimentation are entirely wordless, is at once a caveat and a mission statement: “I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a \'Rap\' Album But This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time.” In a poetic sense, it’s also a truth: The instruments he and his collaborators play here (contrabass flutes, Mayan flutes, bamboo flutes) are powered by wind, or, rather, breath. And it’s reflective of the kismet which guided the album into existence: He hadn’t intended to release his flute music until a chance Erewhon run-in with Carlos Niño, the Los Angeles percussionist and producer of spiritually oriented jazz. Basement jam sessions with Niño became the series of improvised compositions that make up the eight tracks of *New Blue Sun*, along with a community of like-minded players, including guitarist Nate Mercereau and keyboardist Surya Botofasina. From the players’ deepening chemistry, transcendent songs materialized—not unlike the bonds that once inspired the Dungeon Family from which Outkast emerged in early-’90s Atlanta. And though its meandering and meditative (though often hysterically titled) compositions exist in the tradition of Alice Coltrane, Laraaji, and Yusef Lateef more than anything conceivably hip-hop-adjacent, they’re animated by a similar spirit to that which made Outkast’s music stand apart: a dauntless dedication to one’s own vision, alongside a belief in the power of creative communion. In that sense, it’s the André 3000 album we’d been waiting for all along.

It’s not easy being ahead of your time: You have to wait years for the world to catch up. Such was the case when an 18-year-old Chief Keef followed up his anthemic major-label debut (2012’s *Finally Rich*) with a pair of self-released 2013 mixtapes (August’s *Bang, Pt. 2* and October’s *Almighty So*) that sounded obscure in comparison, prompting many a claim that he’d fallen off as quickly as he’d gotten on. These days, you can hear echoes of both projects everywhere, in particular *Almighty So*, the better of the two. You might argue that the slurry, intuitive style which has dominated the past decade of rap began here. Eleven long years later, the project’s sequel arrives after a half decade of teasing. (Keef previewed *Almighty So 2*’s initial cover art way back in 2019.) Hip-hop’s reinvented itself a dozen times over in that time span, perhaps the only constant being Keef’s enduring influence. On *Almighty So 2*, the 28-year-old veteran sounds as if he’s well aware of just how tall his legacy looms. “I done been through so much smoke to where I couldn’t even see myself,” he raps in his oft-copied swing on “Treat Myself” before busting out a classic Sosa-ism: “Diamonds shining off my charm, I think I Christmas tree’d myself!” He spits fire and brimstone over sinister church choirs on “Jesus,” puffs out his chest on the soulful “Runner,” and offers up the most demented Scarface impression since Future circa 2011 on “Tony Montana Flow.” And on “Believe,” the former teenage phenom is now a man who’s done some soul-searching in his time off from shaping the sound of modern rap.

*Just because I been on a run doesn\'t mean I don\'t know how to walk away I\'ll let you get your bars off over text but don\'t forget you\'re talking to Drake Personality Morality Immeasurable salary 100 dollar bills that I\'m counting like a calorie Shells for the peanut gallery Probably better off with Mallory or Valerie You tearing up and sniffling while reacting like some allergies Saying what I mean isn\'t mean if you\'re really listening - it\'s reality* — Drake In the dog days of summer 2023, Drake did a very Drake thing: Just before embarking on tour, he revealed that he’d written a poetry book called *Titles Ruin Everything*. To spread the news, he took out ads in several major newspapers. On them was a QR code which led to another announcement: “I made an album to go with the book. They say they miss the old Drake girl don’t tempt me. FOR ALL THE DOGS.” The “old Drake” line, as real heads know, is a reference to “Headlines,” a song from the early days of Champagne Papi’s rise from Canadian curiosity to global superstar. The old Drake was an underdog, a former child actor and Lil Wayne protégé who blended hip-hop and R&B in a way that would indelibly change both. And the new Drake? He’s a 36-year-old father of one who’s responsible for a not-small percentage of Toronto’s annual tourist economy and who, with the release of “Slime You Out,” is one No. 1 single away from tying Michael Jackson on the all-time list. If there’s anything Old Drake and New Drake can agree on, it’s hour-and-a-half-long blockbuster albums that master the fine art of score-settling. (Speaking of fine art, that’s a drawing from his five-year-old son Adonis on the cover.) Drizzy’s gone through plenty of phases in his 15 years in the running as one of hip-hop’s GOATs: albums full of wintry grime and drill, or breezy dance albums for the baddies to turn up to on girls’ night. *For All the Dogs*, his eighth studio album, has more in common with 2011’s *Take Care*, the star-making opus loaded with luxuriant beats and big-name features. But instead of drunk-dialing his exes, Drake’s…well, he’s still doing that every now and again. Mostly, though, he’s with his dogs. The album’s loose framework is a late-night local radio program: BARK Radio, live from Chapel Hill, whose hosts include Teezo Touchdown, Drake’s crush/idol Sade, and the occasional chorus of hounds. This particular broadcast is a sumptuous banquet of classically Drake techniques, starting with the smirking fake-out that is intro track “Virginia Beach.” (If you know, you know.) There’s the requisite Houston worship on “Screw the World,” the new jack swing peacocking of “Amen,” and the swanky-sounding “Bahamas Promises,” which opens with a couplet only Drizzy could pull off: “Broken pinkie promises/You fucked up our Bahamas trip.” He’s scoffing at rap’s NPCs with J. Cole on “First Person Shooter” and taking relationship advice from Future on “What Would Pluto Do.” On “BBL Love,” he drops an all-timer for the “that’s so Drake” archives, musing, “They say love’s like a BBL, you won’t know if it’s real until you feel one,” as if anyone has ever said such a thing whose name isn’t Aubrey Drake Graham. But it isn’t officially a Drake album till you get to the song with the city name and timestamp in the title. On “8am in Charlotte,” over a boom-bap beat from Conductor Williams, Drake presides over his dogs like a coach before the big game, initiates breakups at five-star restaurants, and unleashes a barrage of knee-slappers you can imagine him deploying 20 years from now at his eventual Vegas residency. In the video, the most successful rapper of his generation wears a hoodie emblazoned with “HATE SURVIVOR.” Never change, Drake, never change.

Listening to the 23-year-old rapper born Noah Olivier Smith, you get a sense of what it must feel like to witness a UFO: awestruck, confused, a little frightened, but convinced of intelligent life beyond this planet. The follow-up to the ever-mysterious rapper’s 2023 album, *AftërLyfe*, is loosely organized around the late-21st-century dystopia in which Yeat apparently already lives: “I’m in 2093, where your life at?” he yelps on the thunderous “Psycho CEO.” The Portland rapper’s best known for rapping over rage beats—dark melodies, booming bass, trap drums—but here he occasionally veers into subterranean techno (“Riot & Set it off”) or scuzzy house rhythms, like the strangely addictive title track. Lil Wayne and Future make brief cameos, but Yeat’s most fascinating on his own, left to ponder life’s great mysteries and make cryptic proclamations that future generations of rap scholars might make sense of in the 2090s. “I made every god cry…I know what happens when you die,” he warbles ominously over the decaying thump of “Team ceo.” Somehow, you kinda believe him.

*“These ideologies are haunting.”* —Drake In the dog days of summer 2023, Drake did a very Drake thing: Just before embarking on tour, he revealed that he’d written a poetry book called *Titles Ruin Everything*. To spread the news, he took out ads in several major newspapers. On them was a QR code which led to another announcement: “I made an album to go with the book. They say they miss the old Drake girl don’t tempt me. FOR ALL THE DOGS.” The “old Drake” line, as real heads know, is a reference to “Headlines,” a song from the early days of Champagne Papi’s rise from Canadian curiosity to global superstar. The old Drake was an underdog, a former child actor and Lil Wayne protégé who blended hip-hop and R&B in a way that would indelibly change both. And the new Drake? He’s a 36-year-old father of one who’s responsible for a not-small percentage of Toronto’s annual tourist economy and who, with the release of “Slime You Out,” is one No. 1 single away from tying Michael Jackson on the all-time list. (By the time his Scary Hours version dropped six weeks later, he’d tied it.) If there’s anything Old Drake and New Drake can agree on, it’s hour-and-a-half-long blockbuster albums that master the fine art of score-settling. Drizzy’s gone through plenty of phases in his 15 years in the running as one of hip-hop’s GOATs: albums full of wintry grime and drill, or breezy dance albums for the baddies to turn up to on girls’ night. *For All the Dogs*, his eighth studio album, has more in common with 2011’s *Take Care*, the star-making opus loaded with luxuriant beats and big-name features. But instead of drunk-dialing his exes, Drake’s…well, he’s still doing that every now and again. Mostly, though, he’s with his dogs. The album’s loose framework is a late-night local radio program: BARK Radio, live from Chapel Hill, whose hosts include Teezo Touchdown, Drake’s crush/idol Sade, and the occasional chorus of hounds. This particular broadcast is a sumptuous banquet of classically Drake techniques, starting with the smirking fake-out that is intro track “Virginia Beach.” (If you know, you know.) There’s the requisite Houston worship on “Screw the World,” the new jack swing peacocking of “Amen,” and the swanky-sounding “Bahamas Promises,” which opens with a couplet only Drizzy could pull off: “Broken pinkie promises/You fucked up our Bahamas trip.” He’s scoffing at rap’s NPCs with J. Cole on “First Person Shooter” and taking relationship advice from Future on “What Would Pluto Do.” On “BBL Love,” he drops an all-timer for the “that’s so Drake” archives, musing, “They say love’s like a BBL, you won’t know if it’s real until you feel one,” as if anyone has ever said such a thing whose name isn’t Aubrey Drake Graham. But it isn’t officially a Drake album till you get to the song with the city name and timestamp in the title. On “8am in Charlotte,” over a boom-bap beat from Conductor Williams, Drake presides over his dogs like a coach before the big game, initiates breakups at five-star restaurants, and unleashes a barrage of knee-slappers you can imagine him deploying 20 years from now at his eventual Vegas residency. In the video, the most successful rapper of his generation wears a hoodie emblazoned with “HATE SURVIVOR.” Six weeks later he returned via Instagram teaser, dressed like Humphrey Bogart, with a pinot noir in hand and an announcement: Rather than rest on his laurels, he’d recorded the third entry in his Scary Hours series in a spontaneous five-day blitz. “It’s like a storm before the calm—we’ll get to the vacation later,” he raps on “Stories About My Brother,” a song made to be played in high-dollar LA supper clubs. There’s a lot of action packed into the project’s six additional tracks: a Yeezy mention in “Red Button,” a refutation of Old Drake’s romantic ways on the scathing “The Shoe Fits,” a second J. Cole verse on “Evil Ways,” and a rousing chorus of “Fuck my ex” over a beat with all the pomp and circumstance of a graduation anthem on closer “You Broke My Heart.”

If, at any point over the past three decades, Nas’ status was ever in question, his 2020s run with Hit-Boy shut down any and all such speculation. The Queensbridge-bred rapper earned his spot in the GOAT debate well before the critically acclaimed and award-winning *King’s Disease* dropped in 2020, and the full-length sequels to that album only strengthened his position, not to mention his already legendary pen. Yet when *Magic* dropped on Christmas Eve 2021, listeners felt the difference. This was Nasir Jones operating on a decidedly different vibe, rapping for the love of it for a half hour straight over some of his go-to producer’s most gratifying beats. A sort of modern-day parallel to his archival *Lost Tapes* compilation, *Magic 2* serves his fans with a veteran’s ear and a dexterous flow. “Abracadabra” offers a rigorous recap of this era of his career, nodding back to his past while marveling at it all. He pulls off a Queens coup with the homegrown “Office Hours,” reuniting with 50 Cent on record for the first time in some 20 years. Hit-Boy’s instrumentals vary between the understated chill of “Black Magic” and the melodic boom-bap revival of “Pistols on Your Album Cover.” The closing bonus of “One Mic, One Gun” with 21 Savage feels less like a victory lap than a leveling up.

One of the first things Bad Bunny fans will notice about *nadie sabe lo que va a pasar mañana* is its conspicuous lack of reggaetón. Following the vibey highs of the preceding *Un Verano Sin Ti*, which included some of the biggest songs he’s ever done within the genre, some might have anticipated more in the vein of “Me Porto Bonito” or “Moscow Mule.” Yet limiting his reggaetón exposure to a mere two tracks here, “PERRO NEGRO” and the closing “UN PREVIEW,” marks one of many deliberate decisions made by the Puerto Rican superstar on his fifth proper album. If fans haven’t quite figured it out just yet, El Conejo Malo does whatever he wants. (This is, after all, the same artist who named his 2020 album *Yo Hago Lo Que Me Da La Gana*.) He speaks rather directly to his unwillingness to compromise or change for anyone else on “NO ME QUIERO CASAR,” which compounds its throwback nods so adroitly that one might miss the subtle Yandel sample near the end. More often than not, *nadie sabe lo que va a pasar mañana* finds him getting things off his chest, beginning with the unapologetically direct opener “NADIE SABE.” Those who’ve been with Bad Bunny since the days of “Soy Peor” and “Chambea” will welcome this overt return to his bold trapero roots, something that echoes through “MONACO,” “VOU 787,” and the especially cutting “GRACIAS POR NADA.” Yet there’s more to *nadie sabe lo que va a pasar mañana* than some rapper rebound. Far from the beach-based pop that peppered *Un Verano Sin Ti*, here he embraces more nocturnal styles on the thumping tech-house cut “HIBIKI” and the frenetic Jersey club variant “WHERE SHE GOES.” He even ventures into the Latin drill fray for “THUNDER Y LIGHTNING,” with lyrics that demand a rewind, before indulging in some Voltio y Notch nostalgia with the triumphant “ACHO PR.” Both of those songs, and several others, include some rather stellar vocal guests, but Bad Bunny would rather his listeners experience those features in real time. To borrow a sentiment from the album’s title, nobody knows what tomorrow brings, so we might as well live—and listen—in the moment.

The question of whether you want an MC like Earl Sweatshirt and a producer like The Alchemist to test each other’s limits is on some level an existential one: Like, isn’t the fact that the dreamlike flights of *VOIR DIRE* feel like comfort food a testament to how much they’ve already stretched our conception of hip-hop? Ten years out from his first “real” album (2013’s *Doris*), Earl sounds grateful, fulfilled, and yet no less enigmatic than when he was a kid, holding space for a history of Black diasporic art from Martinican poet Aimé Césaire to the Swazi-Xhosa South African pop legend Miriam Makeba without sacrificing the hermetic quality that made him so appealing in the first place. In Vince Staples, he continues to find the straight-talking foil he needs (“The Caliphate,” “Mancala”), and in Al a producer who can nudge him just a little closer to the hallelujahs he’s either too cool or evasive to embrace (“Mancala”). And at 26 minutes, the whole thing easily asks to be played again.

For a time, Kid Cudi was bracing for the worst. Back in 2022, the renowned artist—whose discography touches everything from hip-hop and R&B to alt-rock and beyond—made some statements suggesting a retirement from music. The award-winning animated feature *Entergalactic* and its corresponding soundtrack didn’t quite seem like the last we’d hear from The Chosen One, yet its success indicated that his creative pursuits were ever-expanding. While there’s no definitive statement indicating that this, his ninth album, would close out his catalog, its scope and sound certainly make it feel like the end of an era for one of the most compelling musical artists of our time. On the cusp of his 40th birthday—some 16 years after breakout single “Day ’n’ Nite” first dropped—*INSANO* proves that nothing about Cudi has diminished with age. Spanning just over an hour, the 21-track effort kicks off with a characteristically boisterous DJ Drama introduction, “OFTEN, I HAVE THESE DREAMZ,” that transitions into the gnarly, distorted maximalism of “KEEP BOUNCIN’.” His distinct vocal range and rubbery cadences add buoyancy to “GETCHA GONE” and the pugnacious “A TALE OF A KNIGHT.” On tracks like “PORSCHE TOPLESS” and the Ace of Base-interpolating “ELECTROWAVEBABY,” it’s hard not to hear how much fun he’s having. Beyond Drama’s repeat drop-ins, the short yet significant guest list here reflects Cudi’s tenure as much as his influences. A$AP Rocky, who featured opposite him over a decade ago on *Indicud*, reunites with his “Brothers” cohort for the larger than life “WOW.” Frequent collaborator Travis Scott remains his finest foil, evident on their shared “GET OFF ME.” Elsewhere, Lil Wayne lends his veteran voice and punchline prowess to “SEVEN,” while Pharrell Williams takes the mic to start the booming “AT THE PARTY.” A younger generation gets a few nods as well, with Lil Yachty’s playful “TOO DAMN HIGH” verse and a posthumous appearance from XXXTENTACION on the “X & CUD.”

Nas’ career boasts so many peaks that it’s futile even trying to spot valleys. Even so, the Queensbridge-bred rap luminary’s run with producer Hit-Boy in the 2020s rivals, if not outright tops, many of those prior high points. Timed to release on his 50th birthday—and in hip-hop’s 50th anniversary year, no less—*Magic 3* seeks to close out this particular chapter in his vast and storied rhyme book. Though one naturally hopes these two artists will one day reunite, the sixth project from this fan-friendly team-up makes for one thrilling finale. From the emboldened opening bars of “Fever” to the closing victory lap “1-800-Nas&Hit,” Hit-Boy provides Nas with a supreme soundtrack for the cinematic sonic franchise, with standouts like “I Love This Feeling” and “Superhero Status” exemplifying the potency of their fortuitous collaboration. As a lyricist and performer, Nas remains righteously in the GOAT debate, a fact reinforced by several of these 15 tracks via showing more than telling. That knack for compelling, street-level storytelling continues on the two-part “Based on True Events,” while the ironically titled “Speechless, Pt. 2” confirms his effortlessly ruthless approach to rapping for the love of rapping. On the lighter side, he’s still out here playing the field, as “Pretty Young Girl” romantically lays out a mature proposal befitting his status and refined interests. Given the luxe flexes he exhibits on “Blue Bentley,” it’s an offer definitely worth considering. Though he has nothing left to prove, Nas insists on setting the record straight for anyone unclear or misinformed. On “TSK,” he scolds disingenuous critics and keyboard warriors while staking his rightful claim to hip-hop’s living history. On the aforementioned “I Love This Feeling,” he casually mentions that he’s quietly retired from the game more than once, making *Magic 3* an even more auspicious affair. And though Nas could’ve invited just about anyone to this wrap party, the sole credited feature belongs to Lil Wayne, who brings his own cocksure, veteran flows to “Never Die.”

On his Mercury Prize-winning debut album, 2017’s *Process*, Sampha Sisay often cut an isolated figure. As the Londoner’s songs contended with loss—particularly the passing of his parents—and anxieties about his health and relationships, a sense of insularity and detachment haunted his poignant, experimental electro-soul. Arriving six years later, this follow-up presents a man reestablishing and strengthening connections. Lifted by warm synths and strings, songs are energized by the busy rhythms of jungle, broken beat, and West African Wassoulou music. Images of flight dominate as Sampha zooms out from everyday preoccupations to take a bird’s-eye view of the world and his place in it as a father, a friend, a brother, a son. “I feel sometimes making an album is like a manifesto for how I should be living, or that all the answers are in what I’m saying,” he tells Apple Music. “I don’t necessarily *live* by what I’m saying but there’s times where I recognize that I need to reconnect to family and friends—times where I can really lose connection by being too busy with my own things.” So where *Process* ended with Sampha ruefully noting, “I should visit my brother/But I haven’t been there in months/I’ve lost connection, signal/To how we were” on “What Shouldn’t I Be?” *Lahai* concludes in the fireside glow of “Rose Tint,” a song celebrating the salve of good company: “I’m needy, don’t you know?/But the fam beside me/Is what I needed most.” Before then, *Lahai* examines Sampha’s sense of self and his relationships through his interests in science, time, therapy, spirituality, and philosophy. “I became more confident with being OK with what I’m interested in, and not feeling like I have to be an expert,” he says. “So even if it comes off as pretentious at times, I was more comfortable with putting things out there. That’s an important process: Even in the political sphere, a lot of people don’t speak about things because they’re worried about how people will react or that they’re not expert enough to talk on certain things. I’m into my science, my sci-fi, my philosophy. Even if I’m not an expert, I could still share my feelings and thoughts and let that become a source of dialogue that will hopefully improve my understanding of those things.” Started in 2019 and gradually brought together as Sampha negotiated the restrictions of the pandemic and the demands and joys of fatherhood, the songs, he says, present “a photograph of my mental, spiritual, physical state.” Read on for his track-by-track guide. **“Stereo Colour Cloud (Shaman’s Dream)”** “I wanted to make something that felt like animation and so the instrumentation is quite colorful. What started it off was me experimenting with new kinds of production. I was using a mechanical, MIDI-controlled acoustic piano and playing over it. Same thing with the drums—I built a robotic acoustic drummer to build these jungle breaks. So, it’s all these acoustic instruments that I programmed via MIDI, and also playing over them with humans, with myself.” **“Spirit 2.0”** “It’s a song I started in my bedroom, a song I wrote walking through parks in solitude, a song I wrote at a time I felt I needed to hear for myself. It took probably a year from start to finish for that song to come together. I had the chords and the modular synths going for a while and then eventually I wrote a melody. Then I had an idea for the drums and I recorded the drums. It was also influenced by West African folk music, Wassoulou music. I guess that isn’t maybe quite obvious to everyone, but I’ve made quite a thing of talking about it—it’s influenced the way I write rhythmically.” **“Dancing Circles”** “This also came from this kind of acoustic/MIDI jamming. I wrote this pulsing, slightly clash-y metronomic piano and wrote over and jammed over it. I put the song together with a producer called Pablo Díaz-Reixa \[Spanish artist/producer El Guincho\], who helped arrange the song. I sort of freestyled some lyrics and came up with the dancing refrain, and then had this idea of someone having a conversation with someone they hadn’t seen in a long time, and just remembering how good it is, how good it felt to dance with them.” **“Suspended”** “I feel like a lot of what I’ve written goes between this dreamlike state and me drawing on real-life scenarios. This is a song about someone who’s reminiscing again, but also feeling like they’re kind of going in and out of different time periods. I guess it was inspired by thinking about all the people, and all the women especially, in my life that I’ve been lifted up by, even though I frame it as if I’m speaking about one person. The feeling behind it is me recognizing how supported I’ve been by people, even if it’s not been always an easy or straightforward journey.” **“Satellite Business”** “This feels like the midpoint of the record. I guess in this record I was interrogating spirituality and recognizing I hadn’t really codified, or been able to put my finger on, any sort of metaphysical experience, per se—me somewhat trying to connect to life via a different view. The song is about me recognizing my own finitude and thinking about the people I’ve lost and recognizing, through becoming a father myself, that not all is done and I’m part of a journey and I can see my parents or even my brothers, my daughter. \[It’s\] about connection—to the past and to the future and to the present. Any existential crisis I was having about myself has now been offloaded to me thinking about how long I’m going to be around to see and protect and help guide someone else.” **“Jonathan L. Seagull”** “I speak a lot about flying \[on the album\] and I actually mention \[Richard Bach’s novella\] *Jonathan Livingston Seagull* in ‘Spirit 2.0.’ For me, the question was sometimes thinking about limits, the search for perfection. I don’t agree with everything in *Jonathan Livingston Seagull* as a book, it was more a bit of a memory to me \[Sampha’s brother read the story to him when he was a child\], the feeling of memory as opposed to the actual details of the book. I guess throughout the record, I talk about relationships in my own slightly zoomed-out way. I had this question in my mind, ‘Oh, how high can you actually go?’ Just thinking about limits and thinking sometimes that can be comforting and sometimes it can be scary.” **“Inclination Compass (Tenderness)”** “Birds, like butterflies, use the Earth’s magnetic field to migrate, to be able to navigate themselves to where they need to get to \[this internal compass is known as an inclination compass\]. I feel that there’s times where love can be simpler than I let it be. As you grow up, sometimes you might get into an argument with someone and you’re really stubborn, you might just need to hug it out and then everything is fine—say something nice or let something go. Anger’s a complicated emotion, and there’s lots of different thoughts and theories about how you should deal with it. For me personally, this is leaning into the fact that sometimes it’s OK to switch to a bit more of an understanding or empathetic stance—and I can sometimes tend to not do that.” **“Only”** “It’s probably the song that sticks out the most in the record in terms of the sonic aesthetic. It’s probably less impressionistic than the rest of the record. I think because of that it felt like it was something to share \[as the second single\]. Thematically as well, it just felt relevant to me in terms of trying to follow the beat of my own drum or finding a place where you’re confident in yourself—recognizing that other people are important but that I can also help myself. It’s a bit of a juxtaposition because there’s times where it feels like it’s only you who can really change yourself, but at the same time, you’re not alone.” **“Time Piece”** “Time is just an interesting concept because there’s so many different theories. And does it even exist? \[The lyrics translate as ‘Time does not exist/A time machine.’\] But we’re really tied to it, it’s such an important facet of our lives, how we measure things. It was just an interesting tie into the next song.” **“Can’t Go Back”** “I feel like there’s a lot of times I just step over my clothes instead of pick them up. I’m so preoccupied with thinking about something else or thinking about the future, there’s times where I could have actually just been a bit more present at certain moments or just, ‘It’s OK to just do simple things, doing the dishes.’ The amount \[of\] my life \[in\] which I’m just so preoccupied in my mind…Not to say that there isn’t space for that, there’s space for all of it, but this is just a reminder that there’s times where I could just take a moment out, five to 10 minutes to do something. And it can feel so difficult to spend such short periods of time without a device or without thinking about what you’re going to do tomorrow. This is just a reminder of that kind of practice.” **“Evidence”** “I think there’s times where it just feels like I have ‘sliding door’ moments or glimpses or feelings. This is hinting \[at\] that. Again, the feeling of maybe not having that metaphysical connection, but then feeling some sort of connection to the physical world, whatever that might be.” **“Wave Therapy”** “I recorded a bit of extra strings for ‘Spirit 2.0,’ which I wanted to use as an interlude after that, but then I ended up reversing the strings that \[Canadian composer and violinist\] Owen Pallett helped arrange. I called it ‘Wave Therapy’ because, for some of the record, I went out to Miami for a week to work with El Guincho and before each session, I’d go to the beach and listen to what we had done the day before and that was therapeutic.” **“What if You Hypnotise Me?” (feat. Léa Sen)** “I was having a conversation with someone about therapy and then they were like, ‘Oh, I don’t even do talking therapy, I just get hypnotized, I haven’t got time for that.’ I thought that was an interesting perspective, so I wrote a song about hypnotizing, just to get over some of these things that I’m preoccupied with. I guess it’s about being in that place, recognizing I need something. Therapy can be part of that. As I say, nothing has a 100 percent success rate. You need a bit of everything.” **“Rose Tint”** “Sometimes I get preoccupied with my own hurt, my own emotions, and sometimes connecting to love is so complicated, yet so simple. It’s easy to call someone up really and truly, but there’s all these psychological barriers that you put up and this kind of headspace you feel like you don’t have. Family and friends or just people—I feel like there’s just connection to people. You can be more supported than you think at times, because there’s times where it feels like a problem shared can feel like a problem doubled, so you can kind of keep things in. But I do think it can be the other way round.”

“I needed my audience to see that Killer Mike is something that this nine-year-old kid created to be fierce and badass and protect him from any ill,” the artist born Michael Render tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “This is my come-home moment musically. It is gospel, it is soul, it is funk, it is hip-hop. And from a moral standpoint, I was taught morality through the Black Southern Christian church, which gave us the civil rights movement, the abolitionist movement, which gave us some of the most beautiful music ever. And I feel like I\'m honoring that and I finally figured out my place.” Released 10 years after Run The Jewels transformed Killer Mike from a workaday regional rapper to the kind of guy holding public court with national politicians, *MICHAEL* is, on some level, a celebration of just how far he has come. But it’s also an exploration of the complex personality that got him there: the son of a drug dealer who needs to mourn his childhood but struggles to let his guard down (“MOTHERLESS”), the community leader trying to elevate youth while snapping back at the perceived narrowness of their politics (“TALK’N THAT SHIT!”), the middle-aged man finally reckoning with the collateral PTSD of Black life in America (“RUN”). “My mother and grandmother left me,” he says. “‘MOTHERLESS’ is about that and about the emptiness you feel, and as a human I feel like I\'ve lost something. But if all the electricity left tomorrow, there\'d still be trees moving, there\'d still be wind grooving, and that\'s all we return to. When you close your eyes, you listen to this record, this device ain\'t how you are hearing this song. These vibrations are how you\'re hearing this song.” There’s also “SCIENTISTS & ENGINEERS,” which features fellow Atlanta legends Future and André 3000. “Artists love and respect one another,” he says. “The what, who\'s done what, it\'s literally the style. You just waiting to hear your partner\'s next style.” And on a production level, the sustained mix of slow-and-steady trap beats with gospel choirs and soaking-wet organs evokes both the humidity of his Atlanta summers and the blend of sacred and profane that has characterized Black pop from Sam Cooke to Kanye West. If he weren’t so smart and soulful, you might call him a crank. But he’s both.

The Chicago MC isn’t afraid to go deep, and his raps often center on the hard work required to become a better, more self-aware man. Jenkins has given earlier releases titles like *The Anxious* and *The Frustration*, and he devotes his fourth studio album to a virtue he finds similarly vexing. Patience, he suggests, is the part of your journey where you are no longer in control. Over beats that are jazzy, unhurried, and slightly unsettled, Jenkins plays tricky word games as he ruminates on outgrowing old friends (“Show & Tell”) and cracks wry half-jokes about peers who only talk about money (“Guapanese”). He’s joined by a few thoughtfully selected guests (Freddie Gibbs, Benny the Butcher, JID), but on album highlight “007” he holds it down alone, flipping a catchphrase to his advantage: “We fucked around and found a way out.”

“I have a hard time talking to people about shit—that\'s why music is so cathartic and so special,” Post Malone tells Apple Music. The genre-bending, soul-baring hitmaker\'s fifth album is the first he\'s recorded since the May 2022 birth of his daughter, and it expands on his emotion-heavy sound in surprising ways, whether through power-pop hooks or sparse sonics. “Having a baby really put a lot into perspective, and it\'s really slowed me down a lot party-wise, going out and being crazy,” he said. “But it\'s the most beautiful thing.” He and his family have relocated to Salt Lake City, which has allowed Post to more fully appreciate the wild ride he\'s been on since the 2015 release of his debut single “White Iverson.” “I never really got to stop and smell the roses,” he says. “I never really got time or had the bandwidth to experience the journey to its fullest, so I guess that\'s what I\'m trying to do now.” Post, who largely worked on *AUSTIN* with pop tunesmith Andrew Watt and his frequent collaborator Louis Bell, wrote songs in a more organic way this time out, “sit\[ting\] there cross-legged with the cans on and so much reverb” while working out chord progressions with his collaborators. “It was a really eye-opening experience for me in how I could write music, and how I could make music,” he says. “There are so many different ways. A song is there; you just got to find it.” “Green Thumb” might reach a new frontier—not just in his songwriting, but in pop songwriting as a whole. “I think it\'s the only breakup song where you talk to plants,” Post says of the spare guitar ballad, in which he despairs over an ex who\'s left her garden behind for greener romantic pastures. Songs that describe those moments where partying gets out of control—like the anthemic “Enough Is Enough”—were written from a place of after-the-fact self-reflection. “Writing that song was not about current experiences; it\'s not like I can\'t go to Vegas,” he says. “It\'s super cathartic to be able to tell your story and then reach out to people who maybe have gone or are going through it, \[to\] at least bring joy through music.”

It’s understandable if Gunna feels a bit isolated these days. For some two years now, the Georgia-bred rapper has been on the defensive—first, when he was indicted in a sweeping YSL Records RICO case and, subsequently, in the time since his release by the feds. “I’m still fighting,” he tells Apple Music. “I still got friends incarcerated, and I’m still growing, too and getting massive.” Indeed, amid the sly whispers and outright accusations levied against him in hip-hop’s court of public opinion, he nonetheless managed to maintain both his commercial viability and star status with 2023’s *a Gift & a Curse*. That earned him one of the biggest singles of his career in “fukumean,” which, like the rest of the album, eschewed features and put the spotlight squarely upon himself. “It’s a bittersweet moment for me,” he admits. Nearly one year later, he returns with *One of Wun*, another defiant and largely solo testament to his endurance in the face of genuine adversity. Opener “collage” seems to take stock of his current situation, dismissing those who wish he’d retire or otherwise quit the rap game. From there, Gunna faces down opposition with impeccable drip while reveling in the lifestyle he’s become accustomed to, conflating matters on “whatsapp (wassam)” and the title track. From his perspective, professional jealousy and rumor-mongering are no match for his swag. “I’m wearing clothes differently now,” he says of his sartorial aesthetic, which comes up not infrequently throughout the project. “It’s not just about the name. It’s more like really where it come from or the cut of it.” Unlike on *a Gift & a Curse*, a few guests do stop by to show support. Gunna and Offset go way back to the *Drip Season 2* days, making their reunion on “prada dem” all the more momentous. Another repeat collaborator, Roddy Ricch comes through for “let it breathe,” a sleek and moody rebuttal to the haters.

The partnership between the pair of rap veterans predates even the name “2 Chainz.” In 2007, when the Georgia native still rapped as Tity Boi, his duo Playaz Circle released their debut single “Duffle Bag Boy”—a great song made even better by a guest verse from Wayne in his prime. Since then, the rappers’ paths have remained entwined: the 2010s are littered with joint tracks from the two, including *ColleGrove*, the 2016 collaborative album that mashed together their hometowns. (That’s College Park, Georgia, for 2 Chainz and Hollygrove, Louisiana, for Wayne.) Seven years later, the forty-something rappers still sound inspired by one another, trading scene-stealing moments for 21 tracks. (It isn’t a contest, but let’s say it is: 2 Chainz excels on minimalist productions like Bangladesh’s “Presha,” whereas Wayne dominates “Shame” in spite of Chainz’ pitch-perfect Ol’ Dirty Bastard impression.) The project is also loaded with more Easter eggs than a Marvel movie; the pair’s verses are riddled with nods to Southern rap greats: Wayne shouts out Fabo on “Long Story Short,” a track that samples Project Pat and channels UGK’s “International Players Anthem (I Choose You).” And on “Big Diamonds,” they take it back to 2000 with a classic Mannie Fresh beat, over which Wayne proclaims: “Me and 2 Chainz, bitch, we’re the new Big Tymers.”

“No, I\'m not the same/I think I done changed,” Janelle Monáe raps with a swagger on “Float,” the opener for her fourth LP, *The Age of Pleasure*. Over powerful brass—courtesy of Seun Kuti and Egypt 80—and heavy-lidded 808s, the singer-songwriter introduces listeners to another side of herself where she embraces the present. “Those lyrics for \'Float,\' I was like, I have to put this out now,” she tells Apple Music. “This is exactly, how do I honor how I\'m feeling and who I am now. I\'m not thinking about the future, but right now, because this is all we have right now.” Where Monáe\'s previous records were character-driven—set in a complex futuristic world filled with androids—and explored themes about power, race, and humanity, *The Age of Pleasure* highlights a new era of liberation that sheds her Afrofuturist persona in favor of an unmasked exploration of her own sensuality and deservedness to feel good above all else. Monáe creates a safe space within the album\'s 14 tracks where people can relax into themselves and express their queer identities, sexuality, and unapologetic Blackness. “We had an Everyday People Wondaland party, and I was like, *Oh, this is who I want to make music for*,” she says. “This moment right here, I want to make the soundtrack to this lifestyle. They get it. This is what we fight to protect. All of my work that centers around protecting my communities that I\'m a part of, from the LGBTQIA+ communities to being Black to all of that.” *The Age of Pleasure* is a love letter to the Pan-African diaspora. Monáe trades in her previous albums\' New Wave indie-electronic beats for an effortless fusion of jazz, dancehall, reggae, trap, and Afrobeats. The first half features tightly produced jazz- and funk-inspired tempos and rhythms over which she flexes her accomplishments (“Champagne Shit”) and proudly celebrates herself (“Float,” “Phenomenal,” “Haute”). The album\'s second half switches gears with midtempo, reggae-influenced sounds and Monáe indulging her carnal desires. “I like lipstick on my neck/Hands around my waist so you know what\'s coming next/I wanna feel your lips on mine/I just wanna feel/A little tongue, we don\'t have a long time,” she sings on “Lipstick Lover,” a seductive, summery groove that is a joyous celebration of queer Black sexual liberation. She uses water metaphors to underscore her euphoric pleasure-seeking on “The Rush” and “Water Slide,” while “Only Have Eyes 42” is an ode to polyamory, with more than one lover at the center of Monáe\'s affections. Ultimately, on *The Age of Pleasure*, Monáe taps into her “free-ass motherfucking spirit,” as she calls it, and delivers an album that honors the space that she\'s currently in—unabashed and proud of who she is. “My friends have gotten an opportunity to see a different side of me that nobody gets to see, and this album, this moment that I\'m having, I\'m allowing myself to show that version of Janelle that friends get to see all the time,” she says. “I want to own all of me and be all of me.”

For a certain kind of rap fan, the sound of an Australian woman giggling, “What is this? I like this Maybach Music…” is like hearing from an old friend. In the early 2010s, Rick Ross’ MMG label was a serious contender for the hottest squad in hip-hop. While the Teflon Don barked about Big Meech over earth-shaking Lex Luger beats, Meek Mill was bellowing fire-and-brimstone missives in all caps. In the decade since, the two have traded the occasional guest verse, but when they hinted at a full-length collaboration in the fall of 2023, it seemed, well, too good to be true. (To be fair, the project was written in the stars, Meek’s real name being Robert Williams and Rozay’s William Roberts II.) There are a few hints across *Too Good to Be True* signaling that the year is not, in fact, 2012: “This bandemic infectious,” the Jamaican singer BEAM warbles on the Tears for Fears-sampling “Go to Hell,” a sentiment that might be lost on early-2010s time travelers. But for the most part, it’s a glorious return to peak form. Meek sounds as hungry as ever, though these days the former Philly battle rapper is power-lunching with Tom Brady. (“Talking ’bout his girl problems—I can’t lie, I related.”) As for Rozay, he’s as iconically ostentatious as he was in his prime, sailing over grown-and-sexy beats like a mega-yacht on Biscayne Bay and boasting about his pet buffaloes. (No, seriously, look it up.) Thunderous anthems like the French Montana-featuring “Millionaire Row” and Future collab “In Luv With the Money” are direct portals to the strip club circa 2012. But the bosses’ biggest coup is the remix of lead single “SHAQ & KOBE,” which tags in Dame D.O.L.L.A., the rap alter ego of the Bucks’ Damian Lillard, and snags a verse from fellow NBA rap G.O.A.T. Shaq Diesel where he promises to “bring the drama ’til he’s with the Mamba.”

For decades Wayne’s made a habit of dropping mixtapes to tide over fans while they wait for the latest installment of his beloved *Tha Carter* album series, from his free *Da Drought* downloads throughout the 2000s to the *Sorry 4 the Wait* tapes in the 2010s. There’s no telling when he might drop the long-awaited *Tha Carter VI*, but 10 new tracks from the Louisiana legend are a small consolation in the meantime. With Wayne the highs are always high (like “Kat Food,” an interpolation of Missy Elliott’s “Work It” that finds dozens of new ways to express his favorite subject, the joy of cunnilingus), and the not-so-highs are fascinating: His “Tity Boi” bars rise and fall like arpeggios before exploding into an absurdly horny EDM rager. Then again, it sometimes takes a few years for the rest of us to catch up to Wayne’s vision: People thought he was crazy for *Rebirth*, his 2010 rock record that predicted the emo-rap renaissance to come. Following guest spots on pop-punk blockbusters from the likes of Machine Gun Kelly in recent years, the rap-rock hybrid “Tuxedo” has Wayne sounding vindicated, dropping trademark zingers like “Don’t know who these rappers are, that shit sound like salad bars.”

The initial plan, according to a tweet posted by Offset in September 2022, was for his second solo album to drop in November of that year. But on November 1, his fellow Migo and brother-in-arms Takeoff was murdered outside of a Houston bowling alley. The tragedy hit Offset hard; the trio of Takeoff, Offset, and Quavo had become the preeminent rap group of the 2010s through the sheer force of their chemistry, lifelong friends and relatives whose respective talents kept each other on their toes. If Quavo was the showman and Takeoff the glue, Offset was the wild card of the bunch, introduced to the world by the “Free Offset” T-shirts his partners wore in early videos while he served time in Georgia’s DeKalb County Jail for a probation violation. He could also be a scene-stealer, the lyrical force behind the group’s first and only No. 1 hit, “Bad and Boujee.” Four years after his debut solo album, 2019’s *FATHER OF 4*, *SET IT OFF* is a portrait of a rapper who has challenged himself to evolve rather than rest on his laurels. “My whole mission for this album was to not get caught up in ‘I’m that guy,’” Offset told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “I feel like sometimes when you get caught up in that, you create the same thing because you’re comfortable in that element.” By now he’s a father of five, healing from the loss of his friend and bandmate while navigating a solo career and the stressors that come with his high-profile marriage to Cardi B. (She appears twice on the album, stealing the show on the Three 6 Mafia-sampling “JEALOUSY” to spit, “Bitches don’t wanna go Birkin for Birkin/Bitches ain’t got enough hits for a Verzuz.”) There’s the requisite odes to exorbitant flexing with help from Future, Latto, and Chlöe, where Offset’s voice is as sharp and percussive as ever over beats from Boi-1da and Vinylz—producers he’d yet to work with before now—alongside the usual suspects like Southside and Metro Boomin. “I use the A&Rs to \[my\] advantage,” he told Lowe. “I feel like a lot of people talk down on the A&Rs, like you don’t need them. But they bring you another element that you wouldn’t have thought of.” The album’s standout moments happen when the rapper lets his guard down. “Keeping all of this to myself ain’t healthy,” he warbles on the understated “HEALTHY,” and on “SAY MY GRACE” he wonders: “Ask God why I didn’t get an answer/Why I lose my brother to bullets?/Why I lose my grandma to cancer?” Much ink has been spilled over what appears to be the end of the Migos in the aftermath of Takeoff’s death, a subject Offset addressed poignantly. “It can’t be a group, because our main member is missing,” he said to Lowe. “It’s just like, for us, we can’t continue that way. But even on my own journey, I still feel his presence and his energy, like, ‘Bro, we got to go hard. This ain’t the end of it.’ I just keep that in my mind and just keep pushing.”

“I never learned to superstar from a textbook,” Doja Cat snarls towards the end of “Attention,” a song that’s all at once a boom-bap showcase, an R&B slow-burner, and a canny summary of her against-the-odds success. Those who remember Doja’s breakthrough (a viral 2018 joke song, “Mooo!”, whose DIY video had her shoving french fries in her nose in front of a homemade green screen) probably wouldn’t have predicted that a few years later, the girl in the cow suit would be a household name. But for Doja, being an internet goofball and a multiplatinum pop star aren’t just compatible, they’re complementary—a duality attuned to her audience’s craving for realness. With her fourth album, *Scarlet*, the maverick adds “formidable rapper” to her growing list of distinctions. In since-deleted tweets from April 2023, Doja made a pledge: “no more pop,” she wrote, following up with a vow to prove wrong the naysayers doubting her rap skills. *Scarlet* makes good on that promise, particularly its first half, a far cry from the sugary bops on 2021’s star-making *Planet Her*. Instead she hops between hard-edged beats that evoke NYC in ’94 or Chicago in 2012, crowing over the spoils of her mainstream success while playfully rejecting its terms. “I’m a puppet, I’m a sheep, I’m a cash cow/I’m the fastest-growing bitch on all your apps now,” she deadpans on “Demons,” thumbing her nose at anyone who conflates glowing up with selling out. And on “97,” the album’s best pure rap performance, she embraces the troll’s mantra that all clicks are good clicks, spitting, “That’s a comment, that’s a view, and that’s a rating/That’s some hating, and that’s engagement I could use.” Behind the provocations, though, is an artist with the idiosyncratic chops to back them up. That’s as true in *Scarlet*’s lusty midsection as it is on its gulliest rap tracks: No one else would interrupt a dreamy love song (“Agora Hills”) to giggle in Valley Girl vocal fry, “Sorry, just taking a sip of my root beer!” (No one, that is, but Nicki Minaj, Doja’s clearest influence, who paved the way for women who juggle art-pop with hip-hop bona fides.) As catchy as it is contrarian, *Scarlet* offers a suggestion: Maybe it’s Doja’s willingness to reject the premise of being a pop star that makes her such a compelling one. On the album’s sweetest track, “Love Life,” she takes in her view from the top—still the weirdo her fans met in a cow suit but more confident in her contradictions. “They love when I embrace my flaws/I love it when they doin’ the same,” she raps softly. “I love it when my fans love change/That’s how we change the game.”

*Hall & Nash 2* plays sequel to the rare early release that diehards everywhere associate with the beginnings of Westside Gunn and Conway the Machine’s Griselda Records. On its follow-up, the Buffalo-bred brothers show just how much they’ve leveled up by recruiting legendary producer The Alchemist to handle all the beats. The surprise drop once again finds the duo paying homage to WWF wrestlers Razor Ramon and Diesel, who together called themselves The Outsiders and were celebrated for their unwavering loyalty. Westside and Conway mirror this devotion, showcasing their almost telepathic abilities on cuts like the dusty, soul-sampling “Ray Mysterio” and the ScHoolboy Q-assisted “Fork in the Pot.” Throughout the project, the duo recount the highs and lows that come with making it out of the streets and onto the charts, like on the aptly titled “Judas,” where Conway the Machine raps, “They just wanna squeeze and leave you deceased, at least a paraplegic/Hit in my head and walked out of the hospital, please believe it.”

Anyone thinking Benny the Butcher signing to Def Jam would inspire him to be more “mainstream” or “pop” is underestimating his intelligence. Steady, talented, 39 years old and relatively unknown until he was in his early thirties, he’s already a voice of reason and maturity for his fans in a world of hype. He doesn’t have to crack the mainstream; signing to Def Jam is proof that all this gritty, soul-sampling, old-school stuff might still have a place in the mainstream after all. Highlights on this Alchemist- and Hit-Boy-produced album include “TMVTL” (threatening), “Pillow Talk & Slander” (celebratory), and a title track where he admittedly does open a little space for something like a “commercial” hook, courtesy of Kyle Banks. He’s safer and more up-the-middle than his Griselda affiliate Westside Gunn (note the passing reference to watching MSNBC), but in that quiet confidence lie the fruits of his fabled grind. And while he might be telling the truth when he says he’s thinking of leaving Buffalo for somewhere warm (“BRON”), you know what they say—you can take the boy out of Buffalo, but…

Bryson Tiller exploded onto the scene in 2015 with the release of his viral, atmospheric track “Don’t” from his debut album, *T R A P S O U L*. Since then, the Louisville crooner has established himself as an R&B hitmaker and go-to collaborator with his 2017 sophomore LP True to Self and 2020’s *A N N I V E R S A R Y*, as well as linking up on tracks with Rihanna, DJ Khaled, Kiana Ledé, and many more. Although Tiller tends to take a bit of a hiatus between projects, he’s ready to reintroduce himself and show the world what he’s capable of. Tiller has always been known to toe the blurry line between singing and rapping. Here, the Grammy-nominated star blends elements of R&B, dancehall, pop, drill, hip-hop, and more throughout the album’s 19 tracks. Executive produced by Tiller and Charlie Heat, *Bryson Tiller* invites listeners into a world where genre boundaries are not only crossed but reimagined in vignettes of his love life—whether he’s saying goodbye to an ungrateful lover (“Ciao!”), dealing with the heartache from a failed relationship (“Random Access Memory \[RAM\]),” “Peace Interlude”), or enjoying the bliss of a newfound relationship (“Find My Way,” “No Thank You,” “Prize”).

More than a decade removed from his 2013 self-titled debut, Jahron Anthony Brathwaite—aka PARTYNEXTDOOR—remains an enigma in the OVO ecosystem: He takes several years between album releases and makes few live appearances, while his elusive reputation is intensified by the fact that some of the biggest moments of his career have come as a behind-the-scenes writer for artists like Rihanna. But his first album in four years represents the purest statement of purpose we’ve heard from the Toronto R&B auteur. If *PARTYNEXTDOOR 4*’s NSFW cover art doesn’t make his intentions clear, then the album’s very first lyric—“Take off your clothes”—instantly thrusts you into the boudoir where many of these songs play out, with foggy keyboard tones wafting in like incense and trap beats flickering like candlelight. But PARTYNEXTDOOR is a certified lover boy keenly attuned to the destabilizing dynamics inherent to desire: After making the aforementioned request for disrobing on the opening “C o n t r o l,” he asks, “Who is in control?”—reframing his bedroom conquest as an act of surrender. Even his most salacious admissions project a certain ecstatic innocence: The Auto-Tuned devotional “L o s e M y M i n d” is possibly the most rapturous song ever written about enjoying a threesome on molly, while the dreamy “M a k e I t T o T h e M o r n i n g” renders mutual oral sex as a near-religious experience. But *PARTYNEXTDOOR 4* does more than merely celebrate his X-rated exploits: The awestruck “R e a l W o m a n” suggests he’s looking for a relationship that goes beyond sunrise, while the downcast closing duo of “F a m i l y” and “R e s e n t m e n t” tap a deeper emotional vein to reveal the hang-ups that come with the hookups.

After nearly two decades in the game, Rapsody’s left no room for doubt when it comes to her formidable pen. But it wasn’t until 2020, when she began piecing together her fourth studio album, *Please Don’t Cry*, that Marlanna Evans realized that she’d shared very little of herself beyond her mic skills. “People had to put up a mirror for me,” she admitted to Apple Music’s Ebro Darden, recalling a pivotal conversation with the producer No ID. “He was like, ‘Everybody knows you can rap, but I can’t tell you five things that I know about you.’” Thus began the North Carolina native’s journey inward: Before she could reintroduce herself to her fans, she’d have to know herself first. The result of that journey, *Please Don’t Cry*, is Rapsody’s deepest and boldest work yet. “Who are you in your rawest state?” asks the gentle voice of the album’s narrator, Phylicia Rashad. Making the record, Rapsody found her mind wandering towards *The Matrix*, in particular the relationship between Neo and the Oracle. “He’s trying to find his way, trying to find himself…and she’s kind of his guiding voice,” she tells Darden. “I was like, ‘That’s kind of what this journey has been for me, but who would be my Oracle?’” Rashad was the first name that came to mind. Through interludes, the Tony Award winner nudges Rapsody further down the path of vulnerability: “Who are you when you’re joyful? What makes you sad? Why do you cry?” Rapsody doesn’t hold back her answers on tracks like “Diary of a Mad Bitch,” a cathartic shit-talking session, or the bittersweet “Loose Rocks,” where she grapples with a loved one’s dementia diagnosis with backup vocals from Alex Isley (yes, that Isley). Intense emotions are countered with airy, meditative beats on the gorgeous “3:AM,” a late-night love song with a hook from Erykah Badu, and the balmy reggae jam “Never Enough.” By the closing track “Forget Me Not,” her fear of vulnerability feels like a distant memory as she raps: “I want to know everything/I want to feel, I want to be alive/It’s too good.”

Since dropping *WON’T HE DO IT* in 2023, Conway the Machine began teasing that the album was merely one-half of a hip-hop diptych. Though the Buffalo-bred rapper abandoned the austere working title *Side B* for the more definitive *Slant Face Killah*, the auspicious arrival of this hour-long set fulfills his promise to further its predecessor’s high-caliber, highly diversified vibes. It does that, to be sure, with the Griselda vet turned Drumwork don laying waste to beats as unconventional as “Raw!” or as comfortably familiar as “Milano Nights.” Beyond his now undeniable, possibly innate ability to convincingly convey his unique voice and learned perspective, the cunning spitter brings along an impressive roster of guests like Ab-Soul, Key Glock, and Larry June that showcases both his reach and his taste. Method Man may never have truly left rap, but “Meth Back!” has him sounding downright exuberant on the mic, heading up a tight posse cut that also includes SK Da King and Flee Lord. Conway did that, as he did before with the esteemed Wu-Tang clansman on 2020’s *From King to A GOD*. The feature flexes continue almost unabated, tapping Pro Era’s Joey Bada\$$ for “Vertino” and the notorious Swizz Beatz for the Jamaican beat-switcher “Ninja Man.” While the Griselda’s core trio was represented on the other side of *WON’T HE DO IT*, he brings a couple of its more recent cohorts in for the back half. Jay Worthy sips freely from his pimp cup for the boastful “Surf & Turf,” while coke-rap dynamo Stove God Cooks emerges from the kitchen for the far grittier “Mutty,” both tracks produced by Conductor Williams himself.

Eighteen months before *a Gift & a Curse*, Gunna was in a very different position. The Georgia native ushered in 2022 with the chart-topping success of *DRIP SEASON 4EVER* and its lexicon-altering hit “pushin P” with Young Thug. In May of that year, both he and his YSL label boss found themselves under indictment in a sweeping RICO case. By December, he was free, only to be faced with wild speculation over the terms of his release. Caught up in the fallout, he clapped back over the rumors and narratives that formed about and around him with the single “bread & butter.” Scarred and singed by some of the most damaging accusations one could face in the rap game or the streets, he unloads his lyrical clip in spectacular fashion on his first album since his arrest. Throughout *a Gift & a Curse*, Gunna makes it a point to address his predicament head-on, offering a perspective as unique as the circumstances. A defiant superstar, he reintroduces himself to his fans and haters alike on the simmering “back at it,” following it swiftly with the confident and confrontational “back to the moon.” He shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders over what’s changed with “idk nomore” while returning to the lavish normalcy of his pre-arrest lifestyle via “rodeo dr” and “p angels.” For the grand finale, “alright,” he sees the path forward clearer than ever, shouting out YSL amid a hopeful chorus.

If the words “Damn, son, where’d you find this?” set off your brain’s Pavlovian pleasure centers, the first full-length collaboration between the influential Chicago rapper and the Atlanta superproducer will take you back to the era when rap tapes fell from the sky, hastily compiled and laden with gratuitous DJ drops. The wily energy and plentiful “REAL TRAP SHIT” cues on *Dirty Nachos* harken back to the early 2010s, back when both Chief Keef and Mike WiLL were emerging as bold new stylists in a saturated trap landscape. Today the two veterans have earned their icon status, which frees them up to keep it wild and loose across the album’s 18 tracks. Blustering beats abound, as do Sosa’s often imitated, never duplicated lyrical obscurities. (“I told my daughter stop breaking off her Barbie heads!” he crows on “Harley Quinn.”) It’s an insular affair but for two well-chosen guest spots: 2 Chainz on “PULL UP GHOST-CLAN,” and on “DAMN SHORTY,” Sexyy Red, a Keef scholar in her own right.

Whether you caught on during his days with Prodigy and Havoc or you caught up in just the past few years, The Alchemist’s arc towards a certain type of hip-hop stardom has as much to do with an awestruck respect for his craft as it does his rapper collaborators. With his ever inventive instrumentals, the producer draws in some of rap’s most elite and ascendent independent emcees, some of whom appear on this brief yet dope EP. *Flying High* takes off with “RIP Tracy,” reuniting the well-matched lyrical duo of Earl Sweatshirt and Armand Hammer’s billy woods. Longtime associate Boldy James follows T.F’s aggressive bars on the subdued “Trouble Man” with far eerier ones, while MIKE and Sideshow cruise above the jazzy fray of “Bless.” Alchemist jumps on the mic too as frequent fliers Larry June and Jay Worthy take the pimp game to the skies on “Midnight Oil,” a musical mille-feuille fit for first-class passengers. Aspiring spitters and ALC devotees are gifted here with a reprise of the beats for all four tracks.