Released in 2018, J. Cole’s fifth studio album came together in just two weeks, after Cole shared the stage with fellow voice-of-a-generation rapper Kendrick Lamar during his *DAMN.* tour, and decided he was ready for another anthemic body of work. The result, *KOD*, is riddled with social messages and symbolism, starting with the title itself, which is an acronym for many things: Kids on Drugs, Kill our Demons, and King Overdosed. The colorful album art, meanwhile, displays children taking pills, snorting cocaine, smoking weed, and sipping lean (when you look closer, the children can be seen morphing into morbid figures, under the cloak of a jewel-encrusted king). The lyrics on *KOD* are even more provocative, and find Cole leaning inward, unpacking his own traumas, demons, and vices, warning about unhealthy dependencies to materialism and drugs. On “Once an Addict,” the platinum-selling rapper uses his mother’s story to ruminate on the intergenerational effects of alcoholism, while “Kevin’s Heart” finds him using comedian Kevin Hart’s publicized infidelities as a vehicle to discuss Cole’s own internal struggles with monogamy. These are weighty topics. But listeners didn’t mind: *KOD* not only topped the album charts, it broke numerous streaming records on its first day of release.
Travis Scott sent a message to Apple Music about his third album, playfully attributed to Stormi, his infant daughter: “Just BUCKLE UP.” Stormi can’t speak yet, presumably, but the sentiment still rings true for a record named after a closed amusement park in his native Houston. *ASTROWORLD* delivers its twists and turns via some of Scott’s most personal lyrics yet, unexpected musical arrangements, and a diverse guest list. “SICKO MODE” features multiple beat changes and Drake halted midverse, playing like some kind of funhouse trip. Other sideshows include Stevie Wonder playing harmonica, James Blake crooning, The Weeknd emoting, and Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker shredding — but the main attraction is still Scott\'s life. On album closer “COFFEE BEAN,” Scott tells an unnamed lover, \"Your family told you I\'m a bad move...plus I\'m already a black dude.\" At 17 tracks, *ASTROWORLD* is like any great theme park: There’s just so much to see.
Despite his presence at the forefront of South Florida’s lo-fi rap explosion—due in part to his meme-generating “Ultimate” single—Denzel Curry remains one of his state’s more under-heralded talents. Not unlike his standout *Planet Shrooms/32 Zel* project, *TA13OO* indulges the MC’s continuously shifting moods, this time separated into three acts Curry calls “Light,” “Gray,” and “Dark.” “I was in a dark space when I was working on the dark part,” he told Beats 1 host Zane Lowe. “I was trynna work on the light part when I was working toward my happiness.” The result—from the balmy funk of the Light act’s “CASH MANIAC” (featuring a standout chorus from newcomer Nyyjerya) to the lyrical pummeling of “BLACK METAL TERRORIST”—is an album that highlights Curry\'s uncanny ability to match mosh-pit-inciting energy with complex and flowery bars.
Back when he was still one-half of Clipse, Pusha-T dazzled listeners of the Virginia duo\'s mixtape series *We Got It 4 Cheap* by annihilating popular beats of the day. The project\'s sole criticism was that the production was already so good, it could carry anyone. *DAYTONA*, copiloted by hip-hop production genius Kanye West, upends that conceit, with contemporary boom-bap built from luscious soul samples that would swallow a lesser MC. With Pusha at the absolute top of his game, *DAYTONA* is somehow more than the sum of its parts, a fact the rapper acknowledges proudly on “The Games We Play”: “To all of my young n\*\*\*\*s/I am your Ghost and your Rae/This is my Purple Tape.”
On “Hurt Feelings,” the second song from his fifth studio album, *Swimming*, Mac Miller raps, “I paid the cost to see apostrophes, that means it’s mine/Keep to myself, taking my time.” The Pittsburgh-born MC has always been clever; on *Swimming*, he\'s also direct—particularly about the distance he’s kept from the public eye following a high-profile breakup and other troubles. But this isn\'t a breakup album; Miller says *Swimming* is a more complete picture of his life. “I\'m just talking about things that I\'m proud of myself for, things I\'m afraid of, or things that are just thoughts and emotions,” he told Beats 1 host Zane Lowe. “And I\'m like, \'Why is this interesting?\'” That same curiosity is freeing for Miller, who leans further into the singing he displayed on *The Divine Feminine*. Production-wise, he’s riding ultra-funky basslines courtesy of Thundercat and an altogether jazzy and danceable set overseen by producer Jon Brion (Kanye West, Fiona Apple).
In the age of overnight virality, JID’s about craftsmanship and good old-fashioned hard work; on *DiCaprio 2*, it pays off—and then some. On his second album, the East Atlanta native raps circles around just about everybody (including his label boss, J. Cole, who impressively stepped his game up on his “Off Deez” verse) in a dense, breathless drawl that’s bound to draw comparisons to a down-South Kendrick Lamar. The guy’s got bars for days—check “Slick Talk,” a clinic in double-time wordplay that careens from fourth-grade memories to absurdist *Maury* impressions. But he knows how to set a mood, too, recruiting some of 2018’s best producers (Kenny Beats, ChaseTheMoney) and occasionally veering into slick, upbeat R&B. Partial credit is due to the late Mac Miller, who helped post-produce and arrange nearly every song before his tragic death; but it’s JID’s masterful rapping that makes *DiCaprio 2* great.
One listen to *Harder Than Ever*, the third full-length project from Lil Baby, and the Atlanta rapper’s legend becomes even more unbelievable. Lil Baby, a high-school classmate of Young Thug, allegedly grew up with no interest in rap whatsoever, only trying his hand at the insistence of people like Gucci Mane and Quality Control label head Pee, whom Baby gambled with as a teenager. *Harder Than Ever*, released just two years into Lil Baby’s recording career, is a portrait of a young artist secure in his voice, someone whose flows and song concepts come off leagues ahead of his actual experience. The project’s first three songs are lyrical showcases, with Baby eager to differentiate himself from countless MCs of his generation who’ve found success with no real dedication to technical ability. Baby is one of a handful of younger artists to have a Drake feature but not be eclipsed by it (“Yes Indeed”). Other tracks boast personalities the likes of Lil Uzi Vert and fellow Atlanta native Offset, who both play as supporting cast members for Lil Baby’s first proper star turn.
Noname releases her highly anticipated debut album, Room 25. The 11-track album was executive produced by fellow Chicago native Phoelix and sees Noname return as a more mature and experienced artist. Room 25 has received early praise from The New York Times, calling her a "Full-Fledged Maverick" in their Critic's Pick review yesterday. Noname also recently opened up in The FADER's Fall Fashion issue about her life since the release of her 2016 mixtape Telefone. Rather than cash in on the hype around her extremely well-received 2016 debut mixtape Telefone, Noname took two years to play shows backed by a full band and refine her craft before releasing her follow up project. Over the last few months anticipation for her new album steadily built with Nonamedropping a stream of hints that its release was approaching. Telefone established Noname as one of the most promising and unique voices in hip hop, and with Room 25 she stakes out her place as one of the best lyricists in the genre and comes into her own as a fully realized artist as she achieves mastery over the style she developed with her first tape. Room 25 arrives a little over two years after Noname released her breakout mixtape Telefone. Upon its release, Telefone received nearly universal acclaim and propelled Noname to become one of the most exciting new voices in music. The intimate mixtape cut through the noise of an oversaturated musical landscape like few other releases have in the last several years. Since the release of Telefone, Noname has built an international presence, successfully touring the world and playing the top festivals. In 2017, she also touched the Saturday Night Live stage alongside collaborator and childhood friend Chance the Rapper to perform a song of his Colouring Book album. The New York Times called her SNL performance "a master class in poise, delivery, and self-assuredness." Noname (AKA Fatimah Warner) grew up in Bronzeville, a historic neighborhood on the Southside of Chicago that famously attracted accomplished black artists and intellectuals of all types. Fatimah first discovered her love for wordplay while taking a creative writing class as a sophomore in high school. She became enamored with poetry and spoken word - pouring over Def Poetry Jam clips on YouTube and attending open mics around the city. After impressive appearances as Noname Gypsy on early Chance the Rapper and Mick Jenkins mixtapes, she gained a cult-like following online that helped set the stage for the life-changing release of Telefone. Coinciding with the album's release, Noname is also announcing her Fall tour, beginning next year in Detroit on January 2nd, she will play 19 shows across North America before concluding at Oakland's historic Fox Theater on March 15. Tickets for the tour will go on sale 9/21 at 10:00 AM local time and will be available at nonamehiding.com.
From the time he broke in 2008, Nipsey Hussle was one of the West Coast’s brightest hopes for a post-Snoop Dogg superstar. Though he\'d go on to deliver numerous classic street-level projects in the time since, *Victory Lap* is officially billed as Hussle’s debut. The album is rife with the neo-G-funk sound that made his name (“Last Time That I Checc’d,” “Dedication”) as well as the platforms he\'s most proud of: turf-life activism and black business advocacy (“Young N\*\*\*a,” “Million While You Young”). The clout of guests like Puff Daddy, Kendrick Lamar, and Cee-Lo Green is not to be understated, but Hussle’s collaborators, no matter their own fame, understand his importance.
In the pantheon of Atlanta trap warblers whose rapping might be more accurately described as singing, Gunna’s personal style is practically meditative. The third installment of his Drip Season series is full of sing-song odes to stunting with the soothing effect of mantras; where his mentor Young Thug is an experimentalist, Gunna prefers to ooze into lush, moody productions from heavy hitters like Metro Boomin and Wheezy. It’s essentially a how-to guide for living lavish: On Hoodrich Pablo Juan collaboration “Almighty,” Gunna turns up his nose at chain restaurants and makes it rain in the strip club to a degree that throws local meteorologists for a loop.
If *ye*, Kanye West’s solo album released one week prior, was him proudly shouting about his superpower—bipolar disorder—from the peak of a snowcapped mountain, *KIDS SEE GHOSTS* is the fireside therapy session occurring at its base. Both Kid Cudi and West have dealt with controversy and mental illness throughout their intertwined careers. It’s all addressed here, on their long-awaited first joint album, with honesty and innate chemistry. Kanye’s production pulsates and rumbles beneath his signature confessional bars and religious affirmations, but, centered by Cudi’s gift for melodic depth and understated humility, his contributions, and the project overall, feel cathartic rather than bombastic and headline-grabbing. On “Freeee (Ghost Town, Pt. 2),” the sequel to *ye* highlight “Ghost Town,” both men bellow, “Nothing hurts me anymore…I feel free” with such tangible, full-bodied energy, it feels as though this very recording was, in itself, a moment of great healing.
Future delivered *BEASTMODE 2*, the sequel to his 2015 mixtape, to Apple Music with a short, sweet message: “Luv, Pluto.” The greeting-card sign-off harks back to his 2012 debut album, *Pluto*, and while the prolific rapper has since released five solo albums and many collaborations, *BEASTMODE 2* indeed feels like a reward to those who’ve been following along since the start. Like its predecessor, the melodic, piano-filled, nine-track mixtape is entirely produced by fellow Atlantan Zaytoven. But while both mixtapes celebrate his successes, they also share an underlying darkness, detailing addiction and despondency. “Damn, I hate the real me,” he sings on the solemn final track.
A$AP Rocky has always lived in an elaborate world of his own creation. His dedication to avant-garde fashion would tell you that his world is bigger than his native Harlem, but on *Testing*, it\'s frequently even bigger than hip-hop itself. The project is his most experimental to date, with extended bouts of singing (“Calldrops,” “Kids Turned Out Fine”) and spoken word (“Brotha Man”), and Rocky utilizing guests in new ways, including a BlocBoy JB feature consisting solely of ad libs and an artfully placed Kodak Black phone call. Vintage Rocky touchstones are still present—the charming sense of invincibility, the dark and plodding production (including a reunion with key early collaborator Clams Casino), and the extended tours of his closet—but *Testing* is proof positive that the rapper fits in no box.
Literally a collection of songs that speaks to; generally, black manhood and the realities of existing in certain spaces. And personally, Mick’s perspective or “lesson learned” interpretations of some of those same ideas. This is exhibited perfectly with the transition of songs like ‘soft porn’ and ‘consensual seduction’ being next to each other in track listing. These are snapshots, accompanied and contextualized by the small excerpts of male conversation you will hear at the ends of songs and twice as interludes on the project. Similar to the healing component. But drawn back a bit after considering the critiques of its presence on the last album. I hope to start discussions much like the one we will record for this album.
Maybe more than any other rapper in history, Lil Wayne’s output is defined by franchises. An artist should be so lucky to sustain the kind of longevity that would allow for multi-volume phases the likes of Wayne’s *Dedication*, and *Da Drought* mixtapes, let alone the series that made him into a superstar, *Tha Carter*. Though Wayne was not without projects in between, some seven years were allowed to pass between the release of the fourth and fifth installments of the lattermost. Fortunately, Wayne has rewarded his fans’ patience with 23 tracks that speak to a number of his most storied eras. “Mixtape Weezy,” as Jay-Z famously coined, is alive and well on songs like the Swizz Beatz-produced “Uproar,” Wayne blacking out over a reinterpretation of G-Dep’s 2001 hit “Special Delivery.” The nostalgia doesn’t stop (or peak) there, as Wayne and Snoop Dogg share space over a flip of Dr. Dre’s “Xxplosive” on “Dope N\*ggaz,” while Mannie Fresh revisits the Cash Money golden-era bounce of Juvenile’s “Ghetto Children” for “Start This Shit Off Right.” There are nods to the experimental Wayne of the *I Am Not A Human Being* projects (“Don’t Cry,” “Mess”) and also the rapper’s under-heralded pop wizardry (“Famous,” which features his daughter Reginae as hook singer), and even a love song built on a gospel sample, “Dope New Gospel.” In all, *Tha Carter V* is an album for anyone who’s missed Wayne—no matter which Wayne they’d missed.
*FM!* plays like a radio station takeover with Vince Staples at the controls. Over a tight and tidy 11 tracks, three of them skits, the LBC rapper enlists producers Kenny Beats and Hagler for some top-down West Coast perspectives. The mood is especially lifted on Bay Area-style slaps like “Outside!,” reaching maximum hyphy levels on “No Bleedin” and “FUN!” with (naturally) E-40. Other guests chop it up: Picture Ty Dolla $ign in neon jams wielding a Super Soaker (“Feels Like Summer”), Jay Rock and Staples defending their corner (“Don’t Get Chipped”), and Kehlani searching for peace of mind (“Tweakin’”). From the artwork that draws on Green Day’s *Dookie* to the station-break interludes featuring LA radio personality Big Boy, *FM!* presents an anarchic sense of creativity, warmed by the California sun.
Cardi B’s “Bodak Yellow,” the most chantable song of 2017, introduced the Bronx MC’s lively around-the-way-girl persona to the world. Her debut album, *Invasion of Privacy*, reveals more of Cardi\'s layers, the MC leaning forcefully into her many influences. “I Like It,” featuring Bad Bunny and J Balvin, is a nod to her Afro-Caribbean roots, while “Bickenhead” reimagines Project Pat’s battle-of-the-sexes classic “Chickenhead” as a hustler’s anthem. There are lyrical winks at NYC culture (“Flexing on b\*tches as hard as I can/Eating halal, driving a Lam”), but Cardi also hits on universal moments, like going back and forth with a lover (“Ring”) and reckoning with infidelity (“Thru Your Phone”).
He’s been labeled a hip–hop artist, but as the song says, Post Malone is a rockstar too. His second album regales fans with tales of the hedonism and excess that 2016’s astoundingly popular *Stoney* afforded him. The *beerbongs & bentleys* universe is one of partying, girls, money, and Saint Laurent clothes, but he makes no secret of the downsides to success. Money is everything—except true happiness, and this tenderness adds a dark depth to his addictive songs. This album, like his previous releases, proves that Post holds the recipe for the perfect chart-topper: a wild lifestyle, exceptionally catchy melodies, and the ability to fit Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee and heartfelt acoustic ballads alongside fiery features from Nicki Minaj, YG, and 21 Savage.
Baton Rouge rapper Kevin Gates has been comparing himself to Luca Brasi, the devoted and doomed henchman of *The Godfather* since at least 2013’s *The Luca Brasi Story*. But *Luca Brasi 3*, released by Gates after an extended stint in prison, is much more an extension of the persona (and catalog) he has built as a rapper than a parallel to a fictional gangster. “I\'ve been gone a year and a half, so it\'s a lot of things that I didn\'t really speak on that I get to speak on,” Gates told Beats 1’s Zane Lowe. “And there\'s a lot of things on ‘Luca Brasi 1’ \[*The Luca Brasi Story*\] and Luca Brasi 2 I couldn\'t speak about because I was dealing with it at the time.” Topically, at least, the third installment doesn’t veer far from the previous two, with Gates using his unique, warbly croon to sing about his success (“Money Long”), the invincibility he feels as a man of faith (“In God I Trust”), and also to deliver a message to the women who\'ve missed their chance with him (“Shoulda”). “Luca Brasi Freestyle” is a lyrical showcase, while “Me Too” (very much no relation to #MeToo) is Gates as smooth-talking lothario, a well-established and adored role within the MC’s repertoire. The rapper also offers a little more insight into his immediate worldview with the project’s closer, timely entitled “M.A.T.A.,” or “Make America Trap Again.” “This is my first time truly being free,” Gates said. “I always had something over my head, I always was fighting the court case, I always had a warrant or something pending. This is my first time truly enjoying life.\"
Years after his death, there\'s a tendency to think of XXXTENTACION in metaphorical terms. His fatalistic lyrics feel designed for social media ubiquity, and his lithe, emotive vocals emit the longing and exasperation of a teenage outcast. His untimely demise made him a martyr of emo rap—a talented but tragic antihero who died before he could find catharsis. But X\'s legacy is best explored through his work itself, namely his sophomore album, *?*. Released three months before he was shot and killed, the LP sees the 20-year-old stepping into his power as a virtuosic songwriter. What once felt like incomplete sketches become fully realized portraits of a damaged soul. Over the course of 37 minutes, X swerves between emo synth-pop, soul-baring R&B, and boom bap, wielding the varied colors to paint different shades of his emotions. For \"Pain = BESTFRIEND,\" he teams up with Travis Barker for an explosive meditation on the type of sorrow that becomes your roommate; what begins as a sullen murmur crescendos with forceful shouts. Meanwhile, for \"infinity (888),\" he laces a golden-age soundscape with nimble rhyme schemes that match the technical precision of collaborator Joey Bada\$$. It\'s a sonic about-face that only the best stylistic shapeshifters can pull off, and that\'s really just the beginning. Whether it\'s industrial screamo (\"Floor 555\") or twinkling R&B (\"changes\" with PnB Rock), he operates with nuance and surprising adaptability. As a writer, he peaks with \"SAD!,\" a song that eventually became the biggest single of his brief career. Coasting over fluttering banjo, he fuses irony, glib humor, and subtext for a pop song that camouflages emotional sadism in Top 40 infectiousness. It\'s twisted and brilliant—descriptors reserved for artists who find ephemeral serenity at the edge of madness.
I HATE WHEN DRAKE RAPS DRAKE SINGS TOO MUCH DRAKE IS A POP ARTIST DRAKE DOESN’T EVEN WRITE HIS OWN SONGS DRAKE TOOK AN L DRAKE DIDN’T START FROM THE BOTTOM DRAKE IS FINISHED I LIKE DRAKE\'S OLDER STUFF DRAKE MAKES MUSIC FOR GIRLS DRAKE THINKS HE’S JAMAICAN DRAKE IS AN ACTOR DRAKE CHANGED ANYBODY ELSE > DRAKE … YEAH YEAH WE KNOW