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.”
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.
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).
“We were so inspired last year,” Kevin Abstract told Beats 1 host Julie Adenuga about the making of the sprawling LA mega-group BROCKHAMPTON’s fourth album. “I can’t really explain where the inspiration was coming from. Success messes with the way artists create at times.” So does adversity: Ameer Vann, who was literally the face of the self-styled boy band’s three previous projects, was ousted in 2018 amid allegations of domestic abuse. While he was regarded as one of the group’s best rappers, BROCKHAMPTON has a particularly deep bench; rhyming skill is hardly the only draw. Assembled in part via a Kanye West fan-club message board, the group’s 14 members hail from different corners of the United States, save one from Belfast. The evolving musicality, divergent perspectives and inspirations, and emotional honesty that sent the collective into orbit are all present, if not elevated, on their major-label debut *Iridescence*. An abundance of vocal distortion that sometimes makes it difficult to identify individual contributors lends a sense of cohesion, and underneath it, the album plays as a beautiful hodgepodge of genres. There’s the traditional gangsta rap bounce of “NEW ORLEANS,” the UK grime-inspired charge of “WHERE THE CASH AT,” and an acoustic guitar ballad in “SAN MARCOS,” all emblematic of a group whose ambition is commensurate with its head count. “We’re nowhere near where we wanna be,” said Abstract. “I’m tryna do Travis Scott numbers.”
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”).
*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.
Smino’s debut album, 2017’s *blkswn*, introduced the world to the most original voice out of St. Louis since that of Cornell Haynes, Jr. But aside from rapping and singing, Smino and the aforementioned Nelly have little in common. Yet Smino is able to speak to life in St. Louis—and in a much more ambitious sense, the black American experience—on a level akin to the city’s biggest export to date. Smino’s second album, *NOIR*, is a continuation of the themes of *blkswn*. Through a deluge of flows and varying tenors, he cites touchtones of the proud Midwest culture in which he grew up, and he does it over the rap, jazz, funk, and (most prominently) R&B compositions he chooses to ride. There are allusions to his influences throughout, but none more overt than when he borrows slang from Nelly himself for “LOW DOWN DERRTY BLUES.”
