Rolling Stone's 25 Best Hip-Hop Albums of 2022

“You can’t come get this work until it’s dry. I made this album while the streets were closed during the pandemic. Made entirely with the greatest producers of all time—Pharrell and Ye. ONLY I can get the best out of these guys. ENJOY!!” —Pusha T, in an exclusive message provided to Apple Music

Listening to Atlanta MC JID’s third studio album *The Forever Story*, it’s hard to imagine the Dreamville signee pursuing a career in anything other than rap, but according to the man born Destin Choice Route, establishing himself as one of his generation’s most clever wordsmiths was plan B. “I ain\'t always want to be a rapper, artist, or nothing like this,” he told Apple Music’s Ebro Darden ahead of the album’s release. “This wasn\'t my dream. This was just like, ‘I’m really fire at this. I\'m really gifted at this.’ I always wanted to be a football player, you feel me? That was my whole shit.” Though he’s long ago moved on from any delusions of playing the sport professionally, the voicemail tacked on to the end of album intro “Galaxy” reveals a closeness to the sport, and more specifically those who helped him learn it. “That\'s my old football coach,” JID says of the voice we hear chewing him out for not answering the phone. “He was just giving me shit. That was his whole demeanor, but it was always for the better. He was my father away from home. He was just a big part of the whole story.” *The Forever Story*, to be specific, is a deep dive into the MC’s family lore and an exploration of what growing up the youngest of seven meant for his outlook. If JID’s last proper album, *The Never Story*, was an introduction to his lyrical prowess and a declaration that he had a story to tell, *The Forever Story* is an expansion of that universe. “*Never* came from a very humble mindset,” he says. “It was coming from, I *never* had shit. *The Forever Story*\'s just the evolved origin story, really just giving you more of who I am—more family stories, where I\'m from, why I am kind of how I am.” He tells these stories in grave detail on songs like “Raydar,” “Can’t Punk Me,” “Kody Blu 31,” and “Can’t Make U Change” and then includes collaborations with heroes-turned-peers (“Stars” featuring Yasiin Bey, “Just in Time” with Lil Wayne) that acknowledge a reverence for his craft. He raps about his siblings on songs like “Bruddanem” and “Sistanem,” but it’s “Crack Sandwich,” a song where the MC details an encounter in which his family fought together, that seems the most like a story JID will enjoy telling forever. “We were all together like Avengers and shit,” he says. “Back-to-back brawling in New Orleans. It was crazy.”

It can be unwise to play favorites in the music biz, but maybe nobody told that to The Alchemist. “I really made an album with my favorite rapper and it drops tonight at midnight,” the producer tweeted ahead of the release of his and Roc Marciano’s *The Elephant Man’s Bones*. “I’m tripping.” Hempstead, Long Island-originating Marciano is no stranger to peer adulation, however. His time as a recording artist dates at least as far back as a stint with Busta Rhymes’ late-’90s Flipmode Squad collective, but the name he has today was made from the string of gritty and impressive solo projects he released across the 2010s. You do need a specific kind of ear to fully appreciate the MC. Roc Marciano raps in the kind of street code that reveals itself to be genius to those who can grasp its nuances. Take this couplet from *The Elephant Man’s Bones*’ “Daddy Kane”: “I been getting off that soft white long before shorties was rocking Off-White/Water-colored ice, I call it Walter White/Walk with me like a dog might, I got 44 bulldogs, you ain’t got a dog in the fight.” The bars themselves are less complex than they are both slimy and razor-sharp. These are raps to be heeded and, maybe more importantly, enjoyed at a safe distance. Unless, of course, you’re The Alchemist—or album guests Action Bronson, Boldy James, Ice-T, or Knowledge the Pirate—in which case you can’t wait to add some of your own ingredients to Marciano’s cauldron.

“Money made me numb,” Vince Staples repeats over and over again on “THE BLUES,” from his fifth full-length studio album. It’s not the song’s chorus and you can picture him saying it in the mirror, attempting to reckon with a truth he clearly understands but also maybe doesn’t quite know what to do with. At the time of *RAMONA PARK BROKE MY HEART*’s release, the Long Beach, California, MC was more popular and financially successful than he’s ever been. So, he chose—beginning with 2021’s *Vince Staples*—to release some of the most affecting and autobiographical music of his career. The decision sounds, across the album, much less a professional risk than a personal one, Staples utilizing production from Mustard, Cardo, and Coop the Truth, among others, to expose his innermost thoughts about turf politics, romantic relationships, and the ways money may or may not be changing him. More than anything else, he aims to honor those who have in some way contributed to his survival, often calling them out by name, holding especially close the memories of those no longer in his orbit. “Tryna make it to the top, we can’t take everybody with us,” he sings on “THE BEACH.” There are few artists who come off as comfortable as Staples does regarding their contributions to music culture at large, but what *RAMONA PARK BROKE MY HEART* makes abundantly clear is that few things mean as much to Staples’ art as the neighborhood that made him.

For as good as he is at making singles (“Bad and Boujee,” “Mask Off,” Post Malone’s “Congratulations,” and The Weeknd’s “Heartless”), Metro Boomin also knows how to put together an album. 21 Savage’s *Savage Mode* and *SAVAGE MODE II*, the Savage and Offset project *Without Warning*, 2018’s *NOT ALL HEROES WEAR CAPES* and its sequel—and the second installment in a planned trilogy—*HEROES & VILLAINS*: They’re all proof that rap in long form is still as dynamic as its bite-sized counterparts. “I didn\'t want to be doing those things where it\'s like, \'Okay, I just called every artist on my phone,\' or \'Let me just show you and flex everybody I could get on the song,\'” he tells Apple Music. “It’s like a movie, you know what I’m saying? Maybe in this scene we got these two characters, and you might not see this character until two scenes later. And now he’s in here with this guy again. And now all three of them are together. Just mixing up the bags.” Easy enough, or at least sounds it. But the shape of *HEROES & VILLAINS* is a seductive and addictive thing, flowing from punishing to reflective and sleek to classic-sounding with a grace that feels both commanding and natural. And the “characters” he alludes to aren’t just some of the most iconic voices in modern rap, they’re juxtaposed in ways that bring out their essences: the boom of Future (“Superhero”) and deadpan menace of 21 Savage (“Walk Em Down”), the alien croon of Don Toliver (“Too Many Nights”) and the mania of Young Thug (“Metro Spider”). “I mean, no one can really say or guess what\'s in Thug\'s head,” Metro says. “He\'s one in a trillion, man.” And if you think he can only work with rap, listen to the dance-adjacent “Around Me” or The Weeknd feature “Creepin’,” which turns the airy heartache of Mario Winans’ 2004 track “I Don’t Wanna Know” into something haunted and new. And for anyone who already knows *NOT ALL HEROES* and was wondering: Yes, Morgan Freeman’s here, too. “It was like, ‘What\'s the craziest thing we could think of?’ Morgan, he had really liked the script, and what it was saying, and the values, and certain things in it, and he felt like it was important for young people to hear those things.”

When Kendrick Lamar popped up on two tracks from Baby Keem’s *The Melodic Blue* (“range brothers” and “family ties”), it felt like one of hip-hop’s prophets had descended a mountain to deliver scripture. His verses were stellar, to be sure, but it also just felt like way too much time had passed since we’d heard his voice. He’d helmed 2018’s *Black Panther* compilation/soundtrack, but his last proper release was 2017’s *DAMN.* That kind of scarcity in hip-hop can only serve to deify an artist as beloved as Lamar. But if the Compton MC is broadcasting anything across his fifth proper album *Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers*, it’s that he’s only human. The project is split into two parts, each comprising nine songs, all of which serve to illuminate Lamar’s continually evolving worldview. Central to Lamar’s thesis is accountability. The MC has painstakingly itemized his shortcomings, assessing his relationships with money (“United in Grief”), white women (“Worldwide Steppers”), his father (“Father Time”), the limits of his loyalty (“Rich Spirit”), love in the context of heteronormative relationships (“We Cry Together,” “Purple Hearts”), motivation (“Count Me Out”), responsibility (“Crown”), gender (“Auntie Diaries”), and generational trauma (“Mother I Sober”). It’s a dense and heavy listen. But just as sure as Kendrick Lamar is human like the rest of us, he’s also a Pulitzer Prize winner, one of the most thoughtful MCs alive, and someone whose honesty across *Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers* could help us understand why any of us are the way we are.

Megan Thee Stallion wastes no time getting to the heart of the matter on *Traumazine*, the long-awaited follow-up to the Houston MC’s 2020 album, *Good News*. “I ain’t perfect/But anything I did to any of you n\*\*\*\*s, y’all deserved it!” she raps at the outset of album opener “NDA.” Indeed, Thee Stallion, who’s unwittingly made more headlines over the past two years for her role as a victim of a high-profile shooting than she has for the hits she continues to deliver, is not here to apologize. In fact, she’s here to remind both well-wishers and detractors alike that she’s going to win regardless, because that’s just how she’s built. “Fuck it, bitch, I’m not nice/I’m the shit/I’m done with being humble/’Cause I know that I’m that bitch,” she declares on “Not Nice.” Now, that’s “real hot girl shit.” And you’ll find it in abundance across *Traumazine*, Meg making time to address “fake-ass, snake-ass, backstabbing, hating-ass, no-money-getting-ass bitches” (“Ungrateful”), fair-weather friends (“Flip Flop”), and even her own mental health struggles (“Anxiety”). She’s having plenty of fun here, too, mostly in describing what sounds like really amazing sex (“Ms. Nasty,” “Who Me,” “Red Wine”), but also on a four-on-the-floor house jam (“Her”), a high-energy duet with Future (“Pressurelicious”), and an ode to her H-Town roots (“Southside Royalty Freestyle”). Thee Stallion draws power here from surviving fame as she knows it, basking in her own greatness on “Star” as she proclaims, “I’m a motherfuckin’ superstar.”

Stormzy’s third studio album finds the Merky rapper in a whole new headspace. “I started in LA, trying to record the album there, but the pandemic hit, and a few other things,” he tells Apple Music. “Suddenly, I wasn’t feeling the energy of the music I was making—so I came back home with a new plan: to get all of the producers in one place, and record this album there.” Sanctuary was eventually found on Osea Island—an enchanting and secluded haven in Essex—gifting the Londoner fertile ground to plot his third record with handpicked musicians and writers. The result is his most mature—and consciously soulful—offering to date. “This album is also testament to producer Stormz, the kind of Stormzy that people don’t really know,” he says. “One of my skills is being able to produce from an executive view, guiding other musicians towards my vision. I’ve always had the ethos where the best idea wins. So I might want to \[record\] something, but if there’s someone better for it, I’ll always allow them to do it.” In many ways, the gentle, soul-searching sound of this LP should come as no surprise—after all, Stormzy records often attempt to integrate R&B and gospel. But *This Is What I Mean* has a far more explicit through line: a desire to interrogate the experience of losing love. Speaking from the heart—aided by a string of songwriters (Jacob Collier, Tems) and top production talent (P2J, PRGRSHN)—Stormzy finds the words for heartfelt ballads (“Firebabe”) and poignant duets (“Holy Spirit”), while he employs Sampha as an emotional conduit on a spirited intermission (“Sampha’s Plea”). By the time we reach the stunning closer (“Give It to the Water”), it becomes clear the opportunity to reshape and remold himself in the face of such pain was simply too important to pass up. “I think back to what \[co-president of 0207 Def Jam\] Twin B told me before \[headlining\] Glastonbury \[in 2019\]: ‘As much as it’s Glasto, it’s another show in a park, and you’ve done hundreds of them,’” he says. “And it’s true: Once you kill the size, or the magnitude, of the task, that’s when you allow people to be at their most real and honest.” Below, he takes us through the story of *This Is What I Mean*, track by track. **“Fire + Water”** “This track came from my first session with PRGRSHN on my return to London. And it was quite spiritual. The first half is what he made that day—and everything you hear me sing, even the structure of my verse, was put down right at that moment. From here, this song went on a two-year journey. Tendai came along and helped on the transition part, and then we got to Osea Island—where Debbie made ‘Pour Me Water.’ Later I was on tour, listening to the song for ages, and eventually had a lightbulb moment: I realized I needed a transition to get from the beginning of the song to ‘Pour Me Water.’ Even that took six months to figure out the drums and the tempo, but, we got there in the end.” **“This is What I Mean”** “I made this with Knox Brown and P2J, and it started extremely different to how it ended up. The only thing that’s the same, I guess, is the sparse intro—leading to the drop. P2J had this wicked idea to sample Jacob Collier, and make an insane rhythm out of \[layering\] his vocals. I’ve always thought that Ms Banks is one of the coldest rappers, I’ve said this to her, I just love her tone. So she killed her bit, and Amaarae sang the melody on it. There\'s also something in her voice, her style and attitude that’s so sick. Lastly, I wanted a second verse from another rapper, but we went around in circles and it never really moved along. Until Twin went to Ghana and I think he had an idea for Black Sherif to ad-lib me, but Black Sherif heard the riddim, went into the booth, and laid this fucking insane outro.” **“Firebabe”** This is the second song I made with Debbie—and it started out with George Moore playing some chords. They’re currently making a track that’s one of my favorite songs of all time, I heard it and knew I needed to get with them both. After fiddling with the chords, Debbie and I got down to writing and we came up with this.” **“Please”** “During this process, I became fascinated with the word ‘please,’ its many meanings and the sincerity of it. It’s a word we use all the time, but I’d never heard it isolated and repeated before. Please is painful, please is desperate…so many things, and it just made me think of what *my* please would be.” **“Need You”** “This is probably the only song we had the intention to make before the album. Between myself, Twin, \[#Merky A&R\] Jermaine Agyako, and Kassa \[PRGRSHN\], there was this excitement to be making a song that encapsulates the three words we had up on the whiteboard: ‘Afro,’ ‘expensive,’ and ‘royal.’” **“Hide & Seek”** “Yes, that’s \[Nigerian singer\] Teni \[The Entertainer\] on the intro, but it was actually PRGRSHN that came up with that harmony. One of his God-given gifts, as well as being an incredible producer, is he’s an amazing songwriter and melody man.” **“My Presidents Are Black”** “I had the instrumental for maybe a year and a half. And for ages, I only had the first eight bars down. Everyone would ask when I was writing to it, and it just wasn’t the right time. Because of those bars, it started very intentionally, and I knew, ‘This ain’t the time to chat rubbish.’ Not even being purposely profound or deep, but what that piece of music was telling my spirit: ‘Rap your arse off, but say *something*.’” **“Sampha’s Plea”** “In terms of a voice with truth, emotion, and pain—you\'ll be hard-pressed to find one with more *feeling* than Sampha’s. I made ‘Please,’ and every time I heard it, I’d think, ‘How amazing would it be to hear Sampha sing this?’ I feel like it would be interesting to see what the word means to other artists, and Sampha is the first artist that I thought of. ‘Please’ feels like a confession booth, or an altar, that you’re just going to with your version. And Sampha came in and did that. It was just beautiful and breathtaking.” **“Holy Spirit”** “I was in the studio at the time with Dion Wardle \[aka ‘Chord Lord’\], and I was feeling really, really close to God. All my career, I’ve known Dion, he’s been on all of my albums, and has been the foundation on which I’ve built my songwriting and my melodies—I would sit in a room with him and a mic, he would play chords, and I would just sing to them. I’ve got loads of demos with Dion, beautiful, unfinished songs. So ‘Holy Spirit’ was probably a defining moment in my time working with him. The whole track is just one take of his chords and my melodies, and then I came back in and added lyrics.” **“Bad Blood”** “This is the only track we created outside of the bubble we created on Osea Island. It’s probably the song I was the most drawn to in a spiritual way. I saw the vision for this and felt it in my spirit, even if a lot of people on my team felt like it was the one \[track\] that didn’t need to exist on the album.” **“I Got My Smile Back”** “This is the last track I made for this album. So, at the camp, I asked Jacob \[Collier\] for two samples, a beautiful R&B one and a dark rap one, and he came back with this a cappella—so beautifully arranged. I didn’t even know what to do at first. I tried to sing, I tried to rap, but it was such a stunning piece of music that I wanted to tread lightly. For this one, I asked the amazing India.Arie to come and sing it. I’ve never worked with such a respected and phenomenal artist, but she approached it with class, grace, and so much service to the music. It was such a pleasure to work with her.” **“Give It to the Water”** “The only way to end this is by giving it to the water. I’ve bared my whole soul on this album—in terms of doing the work, accountability, forgiving myself and just allowing God to do the rest. I had just returned from Jamaica, which was a very extremely spiritual trip for me. And before we left, we went to the side of the ocean and we gave things away, our fears, our stresses, saying: ‘We’re not taking things back home, we leave those things here.’ In my first session back with Debbie, we got to the hook, trying to figure it out, and I was like, ‘Just give it to the water.’ Debbie asked me what it meant, so I explained that it’s just a beautiful way of saying, ‘Give it to God.’”

An air of confidence has always surrounded Central Cee. On 2021’s debut mixtape, *Wild West*, the Shepherd’s Bush MC rhymed about rejecting offers for his signature, before his rise to award-winning acclaim and viral moments that felt somehow inevitable. On *23*, the West Londoner’s second full-length tape, he walks with an even greater spring in his step. “When I came into rapping, my initial stance was to go for the money,” Central Cee tells Apple Music. “And get as much of it as I could—but it’s funny, because somehow everything’s changed now. It’s less and less about that, and more about making a true impact, getting a positive message out, and hopefully changing some lives in the process.” There’s a lot of positivity here. He reflects on the road from W10 to Beverly Hills on “Cold Shoulder,” heads for private planes on “Terminal 5,” trips the continent with international drill stars on “Eurovision,” and mingles with Puff in LA on “Bunda.” “I locked myself away in the studio for about two weeks,” he says. “I don’t really enjoy spending days in the studio much, but we set up a really good creative space, with all of my guys, a few that make music, too. So there we were: all being productive, and getting it.” Chief among his guys remains Midlands beatmaker Young Chencs—a producer clearly able to amp up Cench’s star wattage on tracks such as the “Wildflower”-sampling “Retail Therapy.” There’s plenty beyond the (admittedly irresistible) bravado, too. “Khabib,” for example, is an ode to boxer and fellow Muslim Khabib Nurmagomedov. It’s the sort of insidiously sleek track that has underscored Cench’s rise, but it\'s also a bold affirmation of his faith. “It’s everything to me,” he says. “I’ve had to overcome some hard times—and there’s been moments that only my belief in Allah, and the power of my own mind, could keep me going.” *23*—his Jordan year, of course—puts up plenty of evidence that real depth underscores these fast-living drill hybrid anthems.

Thebe Kgositsile emerged in 2010 as the most mysterious member of rap’s weirdest new collective, Odd Future—a gifted teen turned anarchist, spitting shock-rap provocations from his exile in a Samoan reform school. In the 12 years since, he’s repaired his famously fraught relationship with his mother, lost his father, and become a father himself, all the while carving out a solo lane as a serious MC, a student of the game. Earl’s fourth album finds the guy who once titled an album *I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside*, well, going outside, and kinda liking it; on opener “Old Friend,” he’s hacking through thickets, camping out in Catskills rainstorms. There’s a sonic clarity here that stands apart from the obscure, sludgy sounds of his recent records, executed in part by Young Guru, JAY-Z’s longtime engineer. Beats from The Alchemist and Black Noi$e snap, crackle, and bounce, buoying Earl’s slippery, open-ended thoughts on family, writing, religion, the pandemic. Is he happy now, the kid we’ve watched become a man? It’s hard to say, but in any case, as he raps on “Fire in the Hole”: “It’s no rewinding/For the umpteenth time, it’s only forward.”

Latto (Alyssa Michelle Stephens) started rapping at 10, won Jermaine Dupri’s *The Rap Game* at 17, and released her debut album, *Queen of Da Souf*, at 21. Now 23, with a new rap moniker (dropping the controversial Mu- at the front of her title), she’s back with her sophomore LP, recorded across two years in Miami, LA, and Atlanta. “I’m reintroducing myself to the world on a clean slate,” she tells Apple Music. “I was adamant about its versatility, standing out as an artist—not just a female, but an artist in general.” And she’s accomplished that, with A-list collaborators (Lil Wayne and Childish Gambino on “Sunshine,” the Pharrell Williams-produced “Real One”), hard-as-hell empowerment bangers (“It’s Givin,” “Trust No Bitch”), and surprising sonic detours (Tom Tom Club’s “Genius of Love” sample on her biggest track to date, “Big Energy”). “I hope people hear the passion,” she says of *777*, which she named as a reference to God and the lottery —“hitting the jackpot” in two different ways. “I’m serious about what I do. My heart is really in the music.” Below, she walks Apple Music through the album, track-by-track. **“777 Pt. 1” and “777 Pt. 2”** “I wanted to set the tone of the album. I knew the intro was going to be something very unique, heavy punch lines, very aggressive—real rapper aesthetic. I actually recorded ‘Pt. 2’ first, and as soon as I did that one, I knew that was the intro. Then, months after, I ended up doing a special \[song\] with Sonny Digital, what is now ‘777 Pt. 1.’ It gave me intro vibes, but I didn’t want to scrap the other intro that I already had.” **“Wheelie” (feat. 21 Savage)** “\[21 Savage and I\] already had a relationship because of my previous album. We had a song called ‘Pull Up.’ When I heard ‘Wheelie,’ after I did the first verse, I’m like, ‘I don’t even want to do the second verse,’ so I’m thinking of people that would be perfect for that sound. It reminded me of ‘Pull Up,’ as far as that sticky, choppy, catchy flow. He put the second verse on there, sent it right back. That’s Atlanta culture, strip-club culture—that’s the ratchet song, the turn-up song on the album.“ **“Big Energy”** “I did this one in LA. When I walked in the session, my A&R were talking about this beat that they wanted to play for me. It felt nostalgic, it felt big and super mainstream, commercial for me. I wanted to really just challenge myself. I was trying to catch the flow and figure out my tone on the beat for a week straight until I got it. And by the time I got it, I was like, ‘I think this is special.’” **“Sunshine” (feat. Lil Wayne and Childish Gambino)** “I still can’t even believe that I got them both on the song. I had originally recorded it as a solo song, but I felt like it was bigger than me. I wanted a feature on it. So, I’m thinking out loud. I’m thinking of very ‘artistic’ artists. I want somebody who has a universal sound and someone who can go more in-depth and play on the word ‘sunshine.’ Who is the clever rapper? I’m thinking of these names and I’m shooting for the stars. And to my surprise, both of them did the song request, which is like huge, huge, huge. I’m still a new artist. I’m from Atlanta, so Childish is extra special, and I just grew up on Wayne.” **“Like a Thug” (feat. Lil Durk)** “‘Like a Thug’ was one of the ones that I had been sleeping on it. I have had it in the vault since 2020. I just never gave up on the song. That’s a different sound for me, but I knew it had some special components to it, too. Come around to this year, and I rerecord it, fix it up, change a bar here and there. It’s so pretty, super radio, and I wanted it to still have edginess—that raw, uncut feel. Lil Durk, in my opinion, kills all the slow songs; he features on these slow R&B songs, girl songs. He eats them up. To my surprise, he did it, no questions asked.\" **“It’s Givin”** “In my opinion, it’s the sassy, girl-power song on the album. It’s so fun. That’s a girl anthem. When you making your videos on Instagram, walking in your heels, and you ready to go to the club—makeup done, hair done, nails done—this is the song. This is the song you going to be playing, adding behind your videos and stuff. It’s just boss bitch, bad bitch energy.” **“Stepper” (feat. Nardo Wick)** “‘Stepper’ was another one of those that I had originally in mind as a solo song. I actually freestyled this song—I was in the booth, just going part to part, punching in; it was just getting more aggressive. I was like, ‘You know what? I feel like I need a male to offset my energy. I feel like I hear Nardo Wick on this.’ I’m a fan of his music. Then I found out we was labelmates, so I’m like, ‘Oh, y’all got to make this happen.’ Nardo jumped on there and when I heard his verse, I fell in love. This song, from jump, I never second-guessed it.” **“Trust No Bitch”** “‘Trust No Bitch’ is my personal favorite. Sitting in the studio one day, it’s close to album wrap-up time. I’m just seeing what else I have left in me. It’s just me and the engineer. I’m going through beats and I’m not finding anything that’s jumping out at me. Soon as I played this beat, I sent it to the engineer, like, ‘Pull it up right now. I’m going in the booth.’ The aggression literally was just flowing out of my mouth. And it’s a buildup of all my experiences—I’m growing up as a woman and an artist at the same time. So, I think it’s just a buildup of all the relationships and friendships that I’ve been through that make people skate on thin ice around me. Everybody can’t be trusted.“ **“Bussdown” (feat. Kodak Black)** “I recorded that song in Miami. One of my A&Rs, they had a relationship with \[Kodak’s\] engineer. I wasn’t mad at the idea at all. So, I gave them the green light to send it over to him, and he sent the verse back the next day. He was super excited to do it. I fell in love with the verse.\" **“Soufside”** “‘Soufside’ came about because I never wanted to go too mainstream or commercial with my music. I never wanted to get away from my roots and the sound that made me who I am. So, after I dropped ‘Big Energy,’ I was very adamant about dropping another song that offset it a little bit, just so people know that I’m not forgetting where I came from. ‘Soufside’ is like, ‘OK, I got all these new eyes on me. “Big Energy” is bubbling and it’s reeling in a new fanbase, so let me tell these people who I am, where I’m from, and how I get down.’” **“Sleep Sleep”** “On the verse, I did a flow that I had never done before. For that one, I just set the lights in the studio to a moody light. There wasn’t any yellow or white lights in the studio or the booth. I’m literally just feeling things about what goes down in the bedroom.” **“Real One”** “Pharrell produced ‘Real One.’ I could not believe that he even wanted to work with me. I pulled up on him for a week straight and we cut five, six songs. This was my favorite out of the songs that we did. I definitely couldn’t *not* put a Pharrell-produced song on my album. I think it’s just one of those songs that girls can relate to. Men make mistakes, and sometimes they don’t really realize what they lost or realize what they had.”

*NO THANK YOU*—the follow-up to 2021’s Mercury Prize-winning *Sometimes I Might Be Introvert*—emphatically deepens Little Simz’s connection with producer Inflo, and provides further confirmation of the Islington rapper’s generational abilities. The initials of the title of her soul-searching fourth LP spelled out her first name, and the name of its surprise follow-up also hints at a purposeful double meaning. Perhaps a kindly expression of gratitude for the flowers given since *SIMBI*’s success? More likely an act of defiance. Either way, within this trademark ambiguity Simz gets her shine on across 10 sumptuous tracks. BRIT Awards Producer Of The Year 2022 Dean Josiah Cover—aka Inflo—taps into the rich, bluesy elements of his enigmatic Sault music for urgent dispatches from Simbi Ajikawo. It’s a rich sonic seam: A returning undercurrent of gospel-rooted R&B reinforces lines with spiritual resonance. From tone-setting opener “Angel” (dedicated to the model Harry Uzoka, who died in January 2018), soft choral flourishes and dreamy Cleo Sol vocals help Simz pick up where she left off in 2021. “Revoke access, I’m running it back, yes/Missing opportunities, I wish I was that pressed.” Building on a deep-rooted synergy, Simz and Inflo go the whole length on the gut feeling that has made their partnership so prolific. For Simz, an artist who’s always operated to her own set of standards, an equally clear-sighted collaborator (Inflo is also across the keys, chords, and strings) finds her at her most compassionate and precise, tackling family trauma and the emotional isolation of success. Within the streams of sharp, self-analyzing rhymes, scattered samples, and prolonged orchestral sections—“Sideways” and “Control”—lies the sound of a winning combo firmly in the groove. As Simz continues to soar, she’s evidently still clearing house. By facing down the dark reaches of the mind and the tests of her daily environment, emotional and soulful highs and lows are wonderfully bared across her tightest lyrical offering to date.

The thing about Freddie Gibbs’ music is that you know it when you hear it but can imagine him almost anywhere: alongside DJ Paul on some throwback Southern trap (“PYS”) or over a lounge-y Alchemist beat (“Blackest in the Room”), next to newcomers like Moneybagg Yo (“Too Much”) or pioneers like Raekwon (“Feel No Pain”). Were his voice weaker or his writing less sharp, his workingman’s kingpin persona might get washed out, but they aren’t. And over the course of 45 minutes, he confirms that his stylistic flexibility isn’t creative indecision so much as proof of his gift for bridging hip-hop’s past with its ever-evolving present. After 2019’s underground-leaning Madlib collaboration *Bandana* and the self-consciously classic sound of 2020’s Alchemist-produced *Alfredo*, *$oul $old $eparately* sounds like Gibbs locking in his niche: the rapper’s rapper that a general audience can understand.

From his formative days associating with Raider Klan through his revealing solo projects *TA13OO* and *ZUU*, Denzel Curry has never been shy about speaking his mind. For *Melt My Eyez See Your Future*, the Florida native tackles some of the toughest topics of his MC career, sharing his existential notes on being Black and male in these volatile times. The album opens on a bold note with “Melt Session #1,” a vulnerable and emotional cut given further weight by jazz giant Robert Glasper’s plaintive piano. That hefty tone leads into a series of deeply personal and mindfully radical songs that explore modern crises and mental health with both thematic gravity and lyrical dexterity, including “Worst Comes to Worst” and the trap subversion “X-Wing.” Systemic violence leaves him reeling and righteous on “John Wayne,” while “The Smell of Death” skillfully mixes metaphors over a phenomenally fat funk groove. He draws overt and subtle parallels to jazz’s sociopolitical history, imagining himself in Freddie Hubbard’s hard-bop era on “Mental” and tapping into boom bap’s affinity for the genre on “The Ills.” Guests like T-Pain, Rico Nasty, and 6LACK help to fill out his vision, yielding some of the album’s highest highs.

Melt My Eyez See Your Future arrives as Denzel Curry’s most mature and ambitious album to date. Recorded over the course of the pandemic, Denzel shows his growth as both an artist and person. Born from a wealth of influences, the tracks highlight his versatility and broad tastes, taking in everything from drum’n’bass to trap. To support this vision and show the breadth of his artistry, Denzel has enlisted a wide range of collaborators and firmly plants his flag in the ground as one of the most groundbreaking rappers in the game.

Chicago rapper/producer Saba’s first full-length since 2018’s critically acclaimed *CARE FOR ME* looks existentially inward instead of projecting outward. Whereas its predecessor was often perceived through the lens of grief, with his cousin John Walt’s tragic death weighing considerably on the proceedings, his third album explodes such listener myopia with a thoughtful and thought-provoking expression of American Blackness. Though its title might suggest scarcity on a surface level, these 14 songs exude richness in their textures and complexity in their themes. “Stop That” imbues its gauzy trap beat with self-motivating logic, while “Come My Way” gets to reminiscing over a laidback R&B groove. His choice of collaborators demonstrates a carefully curated approach, with 6LACK and Smino bringing a sense of community to the funk-infused “Still” and fellow Chicago native G Herbo helping to unravel multigenerational programming on the gripping “Survivor’s Guilt.” The presence of hip-hop elder statesman Black Thought on the title track only serves to further validate Saba’s experiences, the connection implicitly showing solidarity with sentiments and values of the preceding songs.

Call it naivete if you must, but when all three members of Migos unleashed solo projects over the course of a few months beginning in 2018, the idea of the group disbanding was likely the furthest thing from anyone’s mind—they guested on each other’s projects, for goodness sake. But in the timeless words of one Nasir Jones, “a thug changes, and love changes, and best friends become strangers (word up).” If dissension within a crew of three preternaturally talented Atlanta MCs wasn’t inevitable, it was undeniable by summer 2022, when fans discovered that Offset was suing Migos’ label Quality Control Records for exclusive rights to his solo recordings. This may not have had to affect Migos’ members’ relationships with one another—see the continually muddy comings and goings of artists and producers within the Cash Money Records camp at the turn of the century. But it did, which led to Quavo and Takeoff, real life uncle and nephew, affirming the family ties with *Only Built for Infinity Links*. And those guys seem to be getting along fine. “An infinity link, see, that’s the strongest link in the world,” Quavo explains on album opener “Two Infinity Links.” “By far stronger than a Cuban,” Takeoff adds, setting the table for an attempt to push the vision of Raekwon and Ghostface showcase *Only Built 4 Cuban Linx* an iced-out step further. But who, exactly, are Quavo and Takeoff without Offset? To be VVS-quality clear, they are the same MCs they were with him. Across the album, they’ve commissioned beats from longtime Migos collaborators—DJ Durel, Mustard, and Murda Beatz, among others—to talk big money (“HOTEL LOBBY,” “Hell Yeah”), big drip (“Not Out,” “Integration”), and, of course, big jewels (“Chocolate,” “Look @ This,” “Big Stunna”). Life as two-thirds of hip-hop’s favorite trio for roughly a decade running has clearly been good to Quavo and Takeoff, and they have no plans to stop living it to the fullest, whether Offset is in the studio with them or not. Above all, they sound happy, and especially so in the face of doubters still perplexed by their longevity. “We balling on n\*\*\*as they thought it was gon’ be an upset,” Takeoff says on “Tools.” “They look at us like leprechauns, like, ‘Damn, them n\*\*\*as ain’t run out of luck yet’ (No!).”

The New Yorker has finally gotten his flowers as one of the finest MCs in the contemporary underground after a cool couple decades grinding it out with his label, Backwoodz Studioz; 2021’s *Haram*, from Woods’ Armand Hammer duo with E L U C I D, felt like a high watermark for a new NY scene. On *Aethiopes*, Woods’ first solo album since 2019, he recruits producer Preservation, a fellow NY scene veteran known for his work with Yasiin Bey and Ka; his haunted beats set an unsettling scene for Woods’ evocative stories, which span childhood bedrooms and Egyptian deserts. The guest list doubles as a who’s who of underground rap—EL-P, Boldy James, E L U C I D—but Woods holds his own at the center of it all. As he spits on the stunningly skeletal “Remorseless”: “Anything you want on this cursed earth/Probably better off getting it yourself, see what it’s worth.”

DIGITAL VERSION OF THE ALBUM DROPS ON APRIL 8, 2022. Aethiopes is billy woods’ first album since 2019’s double feature of Hiding Places and Terror Management. The project is fully produced by Preservation (Dr Yen Lo, Yasiin Bey), who delivered a suite of tracks on Terror Management, including the riveting single “Blood Thinner”. The two collaborated again on Preservation’s 2020’s LP Eastern Medicine, Western Illness, which featured a memorable billy woods appearance on the song “Lemon Rinds”, as well as the B-side “Snow Globe”.

Mobile, Alabama-hailing MC Flo Milli was here for any and all of the smoke upon release of her 2020 debut mixtape *Ho, why is you here ?*. If the title of that project\'s follow-up—*You Still Here, Ho?*—tells us anything about the MC today, it’s that the two years that passed between those efforts did little to soften her resolve. Milli spends the large majority of *You Still Here, Ho?* reminding other MCs that they cannot compete where they don\'t compare. The whole thing is a collection of anthems of affirmation, songs with titles like “Hottie,” “Conceited,” and “Big Steppa” that allude to the kind of confidence Milli wishes for fans. For her competitors, though, she’s got little more than secondhand embarrassment, a feeling that stems from Milli’s own ability to write hip-pop songs in the vein of admitted influence Nicki Minaj (“Pretty Girls,” “Pay Day”) and then purer rap anthems like “F.N.G.M.,” which contains an interpolation of Junior M.A.F.I.A.\'s golden-era classic “Get Money.”

Drake and 21 Savage’s *Her Loss* is the culmination of a relationship that dates at least as far back as 2016, when the pair linked up for “Sneakin’.” Back then, 21 was a burgeoning Atlanta rapper with a lot of promise (and an association with producer of the moment Metro Boomin), while Drake was arguably the most impactful singer and MC in the world and the guy whose co-sign could be counted on to usher bubbling talents into proper rap stardom. Some eight years and three additional collaborations later, 21 Savage is most assuredly a bona fide rap star and Drake is still arguably the most impactful singer and MC in the world, but the 16 tracks that make up *Her Loss* reveal the pairing as somehow larger than the sum of its parts. It was likely *Honestly, Nevermind* standout “Jimmy Cooks” that inspired, or at the very least prioritized, *Her Loss*. The song was a stylistic outlier from that album’s house and techno-adjacent dance music thread, allowing Drake and Savage the chance to do what they’ve always enjoyed doing together: rail against entitled love interests, revel in the lifestyle they’ve earned, and, for 21 Savage specifically, remind listeners that his guns still do go off. *Her Loss* is much of the same, with the pair leaning into a shared disdain for less-accomplished artists (“On BS,” “Privileged Rappers,” “Broke Boys”), sharing their views on contemporary courtship (“Spin Bout U,” “Hours in Silence”), detailing what life as a superstar rapper entails (“Circo Loco,” “Pussy & Millions”), and, in one instance, rapping about how much they appreciate one another (“Treacherous Twins”). The love they profess for one another might at first play as eyebrow-raising, but to question it would be to willfully ignore the notion that laying down raps, like nearly anything else, is just that much more fun with your bestie in tow.