Meek Mill knows how to make an entrance. “Dreams and Nightmares,” the opening track from his 2012 debut, became one of the most chantable rap songs of the era. “Intro,” the opener from the rapper’s fourth studio album, *Championships*, revisits the same energy, this time with the dramatic flair provided by a sample of Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight.” *Championships* serves as a reintroduction, of sorts, for the rapper. Its title refers to a feeling of accomplishment that Meek is finally comfortable embracing after a tumultuous few years in the limelight, including a bitter rap feud with onetime friend Drake (who officially closes out the beef with an appearance on *Championships*’ “Going Bad”), a high-profile breakup, and a stint in jail stemming from a probation violation related to a charge he caught roughly 10 years prior. “I feel like I’m at a championship stage in my life,” Meek told Beats 1’s Ebro Darden. “I call it beating poverty, beating racism, beating the system, beating gun violence, beating the streets. Once I made it through all that, I got to a point in my life where I’ve been living good and balling, doing what I do.” The album is plenty celebratory, with the Philly rapper partying in New York City’s Washington Heights on “Uptown Vibes” and then showing off with the neighborhood’s queen, Cardi B, on “On Me.” “Splash Warning,” “Tic Tac Toe,” and “Stuck in My Ways” are all classic Meek-flexing (lest we forget that Meek gets money, that money buys nice cars, and that the women he courts love both money and nice cars). But the MC breaks new ground on “What’s Free,” a song built on the Notorious B.I.G. classic “What’s Beef?,” where, alongside Rick Ross and JAY-Z, Meek breaks down the hurdles he must leap over to capitalize on the opportunities he’s created for himself. “Trauma,” too, is Meek rapping with conviction about prison’s parallels to slavery, as well as the plight of former NFL player-turned-activist Colin Kaepernick. *Championships*, then, is the many sides of Meek—a rapper who speaks to the streets of Philadelphia as one of its biggest success stories and also a man compelled to talk about his country’s injustices as someone who has dealt with them head-on. “I don’t want to be an activist,” Meek told Ebro. “That’s not my goal. God put this on my lap where my situation brought attention to it. I want to address it and I want to do some real things, take action, do some real things that make change, but through my music.”
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.
“Boo’d Up” had been in the world for more than a year before it became an out-of-the-blue smash, and no one was more taken aback than the person who made it. But Ella Mai didn\'t rush into a studio to capitalize on the success by immediately coughing up an album—the British singer and DJ Mustard protégé had already been at work on her full-length debut for a year. “When ‘Boo’d Up’ really did start to take off, we already were prepared, because I already had stuff in the vault ready to go,” she told Beats 1 host Julie Adenuga. “I didn’t feel like I had to just put something together or be like, ‘Aw, this might not be good, but we need to put it out.’ And I never wanna feel like that.” Indeed, Mai arrives fully formed, as at ease with the upbeat (“Dangerous”) as she is with slow and sultry (“Run My Mouth”), and holding her own with both fellow up-and-comer H.E.R. on “Gut Feeling” and R&B royalty John Legend on “Everything.” And she makes stepping into pop stardom look effortless. “Luckily,” she told Beats 1, “everything\'s gone to plan so far.”
“It wasn’t just verses, it wasn’t just appearances,” 6LACK told Beats 1 host Zane Lowe about the collaborators on his sophomore album. “It was people stepping into my world and saying what they might not say on their track.” Part of the Atlanta native’s launch to stardom was “Ex Calling,” a biting yet conspicuously turnt-down reinterpretation of a song called “Perkys Calling” by fellow Atlantan Future. The revamp clearly was taken as flattery because Future appears on *East Atlanta Love Letter*’s title track, their voices layered together to sing about how their words “hit like a Draco,” the pair likening their pillow talk to the firing of a handgun. “I’m an R&B n\*gga wit a hip-hop core,” 6LACK confesses on “Scripture.” It’s as accurate a definition of the artist’s genre-toeing music as you’ll find. *East Atlanta Love Letter* is another collection of 6LACK’s street sensibility delivered as an R&B confessional, even if the features (J. Cole and Offset among them) skew toward rap’s top spitters.
For an artist only halfway through his twenties, Masego seems to be an old soul. The full-length debut from the Virginia-based singer and producer is a startlingly mature work, drawing from quiet-storm R&B and Stevie Wonder soul alongside hints of trap (see “Shawty Fishin’,” where a wistful sax solo snakes around 808 knocks). Masego’s a hopeless romantic but also a total flirt, falling in love one moment and purring come-ons to older women the next. Ultimately, though, *Lady Lady* is thoroughly devoted to women, both real and imagined—on “Black Love,” Masego channels “Careless Whisper” for a ballad to his future wife, even though he hasn’t met her yet.
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.
“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.”
Estelle was born during the height of lovers rock—the London-centered subgenre that smoothed out the rhythms of reggae and rocksteady into something more soulful and woman-dominated in the ’70s and ’80s. Her fifth album is a heartfelt homage to those roots, updated for 2018. Beyond reggae, the husky-voiced Brit draws from diasporic sounds like dancehall and Afrobeats and welcomes a worldy array of guests, from Jamaica’s Kranium to British-Nigerian singer Maleek Berry. At the heart of *Lovers Rock*, though, is the true story of her parents’ reconciliation after being separated for two decades; “Sweetly,” somewhere between reggae and doo-wop, is the wistful breakup song they never got to have. It’s an imaginary soundtrack for their expectations-defying journey, through which Estelle learns her own lessons about romantic love, and self-love, too.
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).
All five projects to come from Kanye West’s summer 2018 creative spurt have appeared to be equal collaborations between West and his G.O.O.D. Music colleagues, but that balance manifests itself most clearly on Harlem singer Teyana Taylor’s *K.T.S.E.*. The project—eight songs, one more than its four predecessors—owes as much to Taylor’s airy melodies as it does to Kanye’s studied production ear; the producer utilizes vocal samples as choruses, as bookends to her verses, and as the backbone of beats. For her part, Taylor is the embodiment of the formidable, around-the-way-girl persona fans have adored since her debut in the late aughts. Addressing a one-time elephant in the room on “A Rose In Harlem,” Taylor sings, “N\*ggas like, ‘You ain’t hot, you ain’t pop/Yet, sup with you and Ye?’” And in *K.T.S.E.*, they have their answer.
Some couples repair rifts in their relationships with expensive therapy. Beyoncé and JAY-Z tour stadiums together and surprise-release collaborative albums that mine their self-mythologized personal drama for big-ticket entertainment. Sonically closer to Beyoncé’s 2016 high-art airing of dirty laundry *Lemonade* than Jay’s 2017 response *4:44*, this isn’t just rubbernecking at the doings inside America’s royal family—it’s a challenging, tense, and thoroughly catchy summertime romp in its own right. When Beyoncé sings, “I can’t believe we made it,” in the appropriately aggressive “APES\*\*T,” she might be referring to the détente in their high-profile marriage; she might mean this very album. The fun is in decoding—but it’s hardly the only fun.
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.
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.”
Having sprung from L.A.’s Odd Future collective, Matt Martians and Syd innately understand the dynamics of collaboration and ego management. So when The Internet’s third album, *Ego Death*, was nominated for a Grammy in 2016, all five members of the alt-R&B band dove into solo projects rather than crank out a follow-up. “I had a lot of music I needed to get out of my system that wouldn’t have made sense coming out under The Internet,” Syd told Beats 1 host Zane Lowe. “It just made us all feel a lot more free and open to each other’s ideas.” The result is a more sonically inventive and personally assured record, and the cohesiveness is evident in everything from the lyrics to the title. “Going out on our own got us battle wounds that we can all relate to,” said Syd. “We all move in a unit now.”
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.
YG’s 2016 sophomore album *Still Brazy* was released in the wake of an attempt on the rapper’s life—and it contained all of the venom and paranoia one might expect. It also boasted the most prominent, brash musical protest of the Trump era, “FDT.” If *Still Brazy* was a man hardened after a life-threatening experience, *Stay Dangerous* finds the rapper’s resolve ossified to the point of god complex. “I\'m the man, bitch I walk \'round like I’m bulletproof,” he spits on the menacing, bass-heavy “Bulletproof.” The tough talk and gang affiliation is front and center throughout, but, tucked deep into the album’s back end on “Deeper Than Rap,” there\'s also a self-awareness YG has reserved for past album’s most honest moments: “I got a daughter now/I’m barely around/That shit fuck with me/She gon\' understand, cause I’m getting money.”
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.
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
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”).
After two concept albums and a string of roles in Hollywood blockbusters, one of music’s fiercest visionaries sheds her alter egos and steps out as herself. Buckle up: Human Monáe wields twice the power of any sci-fi character. In this confessional, far-reaching triumph, she dreams of a world in which love wins (“Pynk\") and women of color have agency (“Django Jane”). Featuring guest appearances from Brian Wilson, Grimes, and Pharrell—and bearing the clear influence of Prince, Monae’s late mentor—*Dirty Computer* is as uncompromising and mighty as it is graceful and fun. “I’m the venom and the antidote,” she wails in “I Like That,” a song about embracing these very contradictions. “Take a different type of girl to keep the whole world afloat.”
SiR shares a boutique label with Kendrick Lamar and has worked with everyone from Jill Scott from Stevie Wonder, but none of that offers a clue to what occupies *November*. His second LP bears a hazy, heady vibe, brooding over relationship issues that seem set somewhere between the middle of the night and the morning after. Whether he\'s second-guessing himself in retrospect on the dreamy \"Better\" or putting up a tough front on the sultry, sinuous \"That\'s Alright,\" SiR offers up a kind of alternate-universe slow-jam album full of intoxicating atmosphere.
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.
