Top Five Mostly Rap Albums to Get You Started With 2026

16 Feb

A$AP Rocky – Don’t Be Dumb

A$AP’s long-awaited release is overstuffed, bloated with filler and has some very interesting moments in the morass. This is dog-bites-man news; absolutely unsurprising. I do want to tell you about the interesting moments though.

Firstly “STOLE YA FLOW” goes hard. It’s a great song and great swagger. The jazz of “ROBBERY” is fun and I like Doechii’s Esparanza Spalding impression in it. “PUNK ROCKY” continues the dream pop of “Sundress” and I wish the whole album just delved into that instead. Both “SWAT TEAM” and “WHISKEY” have interesting moments but are let down by laziness.

So, we have about a third of the album be interesting and the rest is inoffensive but unnecessary. “PLAYA”, for instance, does nothing and goes on too long. The voiceovers are lazy storytelling and don’t fit the make-your-own-mixtape style of throwing everything in an album.

At its very best, it reminds me of the inventiveness of Yeezus but is too unfocused to hold anything like the same power.

Gabriel Jacoby – gutta child

gutta child is really excellent dirty Southern funk. It clocks in at a quick 20 minutes and doesn’t miss once over the course of it. “bootleg” shows Jacoby in a party mode while songs like “dirty south baby” skews more to funk, where he’s a bit better, but he’s a lot of fun whatever he chooses to do. gutta child showcases Jacoby perfectly and gets out once the job’s done.

KP SKYWALKA – I Tried To Tell You

KP SKYWALKA’s flow is immediate. When you hear “ITTY” or “A DROP OUT”, the breakneck flow over the leisurely flow grabs you hard. Even softened by the beats, even when the beat is Erykah Badu in “HELL OR NOT”, the flow can be punishing.

It’s a rough album though. The flows are interesting but the album is raw and overstuffed. It has plenty of weak cuts and gets repetitive. A mixtap ewould have done better to showcase KP SKYWALKA’s talent but the talent is certainly there.

J. Cole – The Fall-Off

This is J. Cole’s best album and I don’t even like J. Cole. The man has always been able to rap. There are stretches here that remind me of mid-00s Lupe. His flow on “Drum n Bass” is immaculate as he navigates an impressive rhyme scheme over a clean piano line.

There is inevitably too much of J. Cole’s trademark self-indulgence in the album. No matter his protests, you can write the history of rap without mentioning him once. J. Cole lucked into the middle of the biggest rap beef in history and apologized his way out of it.

This makes “I Love Her Again” feel false. It’s tough to make “I Used to Love H.E.R.” at the best of times and J. Cole comes off misogynistic in his version. Additionally, he’s not as central to rap as he thinks he is. His failings undercut “Run A Train” as well. Why lie about your height to make yourself shorter? Why mention Gaza if you have nothing to say about it? J. Cole’s singular focus on narrativizing himself into rap’s pantheon leaves him with nothing of value to say.

And yet, J. Cole can rap. When you put on “SAFETY” or “POOR THANG”, his ability is undeniable. He can make great music and The Fall-Off is the best music that he has ever made. He may not have made a career for the history books but he has made a lot of music well worth listening to.

Jin Dogg – Pain Makes You Better

Jin Dogg has tremendous charisma but like a lot of regional acts, he’s an omnivore for trends but has yet to synthesize them into something his own. “NEED ¥” is very easy to get into the flow of and he’s easy to groove to but the person is currently far more interesting than the rap.

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Dry Cleaning – Secret Love

2 Feb

London-based post-punk band Dry Cleaning first came to our attention during SXSW 2025 at an event featuring tens of British bands. While other acts aimed to create a strong first impression on the stateside audience, Dry Cleaning stood out for their complete nonchalance. Singer Florence Shaw’s vocals were barely what one would call singing; her lyrics and style are closer to a particularly sing-song voicemail message, say, and delivered in a tone that suggests that no one’s going to listen to her message anyway. The other three band members – Nick Buxton on drums, Tom Dowse on guitars, and Lewis Maynard on bass – provided a well-synced backdrop; idiosyncratic as Shaw’s vocals may be, they seem to be enveloped perfectly within the instrumentals.

Secret Love, the band’s third album, keeps this uniqueness intact while tightening up the instrumentals into an even more solid rock sound, along with Shaw’s otherworldly lyrics that get deeper with time. It’s a great outing for the band, and a good first album if you’ve never given this band a spin before.

“Blood” opens with a tinny guitar riff that transitions into a metronomic drumbeat, clashing well with Shaw’s unhurried spoken-word dialog. “Rocks” is a haze of jagged sounds set to a relentless beat from Buxton. The Porcupine Tree-esque title track features beautiful guitarwork (even a mandolin), and Shaw legitimately sings a chorus; after hearing her deadpan voice note-style lyrics for so long, the effect is quite striking.

And maybe we’re overthinking it, but Shaw has a way of making her lyrics just random enough that you see metaphors everywhere. For instance, the second track “Cruise Ship Designer” initially seems to simply describe a ship designer who doesn’t particularly like designing ships but does it anyway. But the more you listen to it, the more you can interchange that specific occupation with any BS corporate job (“I need to serve a useful purpose / I desire very much a place in society”). The lead single “Hit My Head All Day” makes you think about how overwhelming life is as an adult – wasn’t it easier when, like Shaw, you were a child and wanted to be a horse or something silly like that? She goes overboard on “Evil Evil Idiot” describing the way she likes her food deeply burnt, before flipping her stance thirty seconds later to say that heating leeches chemicals into food. Is she really talking about food, or is it perhaps about idiotic and dangerous diet influencers?

What’s immediately apparent, though, is that Dry Cleaning is never trying to be unique; this is just the way they sound. A lot of this relates back to their origins. In their 20s, all the members except Shaw bounced around in various London bands, and then, somewhat atypically, transitioned into fully grown-up jobs in their 30s. Most importantly, Dowse became a visiting arts lecturer and eventually connected Shaw, a fellow arts lecturer, with Buxton and Maynard. These four artistic individuals decided to turn an adult band hobby into the main act – and you can hear that depth and self-assuredness throughout their music.

Dry Cleaning’s Secret Love is an interesting mixture of solid sounds and idiosyncratic vocals that truly sounds like nothing else, in a good way. Give it a spin if you’re looking for something new and effortlessly cool.

Rating: 7.5/10

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Top Five Albums of 2025

2 Jan

5. Amaarae – Black Star

Amaarae takes us to the club with this one and brings all of her friends. Black Star is fun, it’s inventive and it is 100% Amaarae.

4. KATSEYE – BEAUTIFUL CHAOS

The origins of KPop are omnivorous and BEAUTIFUL CHAOS consumes hyperpop and Latin music to bring the genre to places both new and exciting while hitting all of the notes of traditional KPop fun.

3. Sleep Token – Even In Arcadia

By uniting trap and death metal in the common ground of over-the-top emo, Sleep Token have created the modern Linkin Park but untainted by my memories of being a teenager.

2. Infinity Knives + Brian Ennals – A City Drowned In God’s Black Tears

DMV rap is still underground enough for an album as uncompromising as this. Fear is for people without talent.

1. Nourished By Time – The Passionate Ones

The Passionate Ones is somehow superb synth-based soundscapes that submerge you, politically aware and simply beautiful singing all in one incredible album.

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Top Five 2025 Reviews I Didn’t Publish Before

31 Dec

Wet Leg – moisturizer

Wet Leg is fundamentally a band that thrives on absurd, catchy songs. It’s a little awkward for a band as cool as Wet Leg but it is nonetheless the engine that makes the whole project go. moisturizer has plenty of catchy, absurd songs like “pillow talk” and “catch these fists.” The chorus of these songs will sneak up on you when you’re distracted in a day and have you repeat them until you scratch their itch. There is, however, nothing quite as infectious as “Chaise Longue.” It’s an album that once exorcized is unlikely to return. It’s still a fun ride while you’re on it.

Kpop Demon Hunters

I really liked both the movie and the soundtrack. I was honestly surprised by how much I liked the soundtrack outside the container of the film. Andrew Choi’s singing stands out. “Soda Pop” was comfortably the song of the summer and “Your Idol” was the song of the movie. “Free” does really well to strip down the song to just him and EJAE and let them shine.

EJAE herself has crafted the big setpieces of the album very well. “Golden”, “Takedown” and “What It Sounds Like” revel in their maximism and so sell the ritual narrative beats that they punctuate which in turn justifies the traditional KPop in a moment where bands like LE SSERAFIM and KATSEYE are redefining the genre.

The soundtrack is really helped by the movie providing both a narrative backbone and the necessary connective tissue. When Rumi sings “This is what it sounds like”, the movie has already provided the stakes. It also provides a strong visual for each song. “Soda Pop” does better for having the candy colored visuals behind it. Now all I need is for them to do the Gorillaz maneuver and create the fully animated bands.

Tunde Adebimpe – Thee Black Boltz

TV on the Radio is still a must-play whenever it shows up on my YouTube page. They’re an eminently likable band and Tunde Adebimpe’s solo project changes none of that. This is dirty, unapologetic rock. It’s tremendous fun in “Something New,” it’s layered and emotional in “Drop,” it’s clean in “ILY.”

It’s unfortunately also too formulaic. There’s a lot of rock that’s done very well here but there’s little that surprises or sticks. It’s still very likable though.

Blondshell – If You Asked For A Picture

There’s a lot to be said for an album that does its job well. The craft of If You Asked For A Picture is impeccable. Blondshell has razors to spare throughout the album. “23’s a baby / Why’d you have a baby?” needs no ornamentation.

They add spectacular, dreamy indie rock to this. “Strange” has very compelling guitar lines and then shifts into an incredible emotional breakdown that all pays off with “I’m sorry for changing.” The two pieces don’t always come together like this. Sometimes, like in “Event of a Fire” and “Model Rockets”, the lyricism makes up for unimaginative music but it’s much more frequent that both sides click at once like in the excellent “He Wants Me.”

If You Asked For A Picture is beautiful dream pop throughout. It’s excellent music and clever lyrics and an unmissable album.

Nubya Garcia – Odyssey

Odyssey ends up disappointing slightly. There are excellent spots in here. “The Seer” has good solos from both the sax and the keys and the percussion puts down excellent fills. “Water’s Path” is beautiful nature jazz. The album as a whole lacks challenge however and so ends up a little unsatisfactory. Neither the groove in “Triumphant” nor the sonorousness of “We Walk In Gold” are enough to make up for how easy both are to anticipate and so the album’s virtuosity is undercut by its mildness.

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Five Difficult To Classify Albums From 2025

20 Dec

Amaarae – Black Star

There’s no holding Amaarae back. She’s evolved her sound into rave music and kept going. Black Star has a singular, compelling sound and Amaarae is able to integrate a wide range of artists into the album seamlessly. PinkPantheress is a standout in the excellent “Kiss Me Thru The Phone pt. 2.”

At every step in the album, one clear fact stands out; there’s only one Amaarae. This is her at her most club friendly and I hope that her music takes them over. It’s too good to not hear in the streets.

Sleep Token – Even In Arcadia

There’s a lot in Even In Arcadia. “Provider”, for instance, is very interesting. It’s an emo-rap track but Vessel blurs genre well. The song itself changes pace halfway in. Sleep Token at their best make each song the combination of three or four very different ideas and their ability to stitch these ideas together is incredible.

This comes through most in the magnificent “Caramel.” Vessel’s emotional reflections on fame are a great fit for the music and startlingly honest. He wallows in the contradictions and in the self-pity and it fits really well with both the early trap and the pivot into death metal that the song makes midway through. Vessel absolutely sells the emotion of the track.

Some of the other music is less genre-bending. “Gethesemane” is essentially early 00s alt-rock. The lyrics take emo into comical, probably unintentionally and the music is fine. For four minutes , it doesn’t do anything novel. It does have some interesting percussion after that but the song stays pretty standard. It’s still a decent song, it’s just not the most interesting.

“Even In Arcadia” is also not the most interesting song but the maximalism is done very well. “Damocles” is similarly emo alt-rock but it’s willing to thrash a lot more than its forebears and keeps multiple modes running and that makes it much more compelling. The melodicism of “Past Self” is great and showcases what the band does well.

Even In Arcadia is a spectacular album. I wasn’t thinking about the modern evolution of death metal before now but Sleep Token have exceeded anything I could have imagined with this album.

Nourished By Time – The Passionate Ones

The Passionate Ones is spectacular music. Nourished By Time’s first great strength is his fantastic synth work. They’re varied, textured and atmospheric but above all, they are seductive. It’s wonderfully easy to fall into them. His second great strength is how beautifully his voice complements the grooves.

“BABY BABY” would be the best song Tame Impala ever made and simultaneously drops the line “If you can bomb Palestine / You can bomb Mondawmin.” This is spectacular music.

Dijon – Baby

It’s definitely unfair, but I start with Prince when thinking about BABY. Of all the Prince inheritors, Dijon feels the closest here despite very forgivably having less funk and less fire than one of the funkiest and most fiery pop musicians. He does very well with the Prince cuts too. “Yamaha” is quite a good song.

The album is most interesting when he updates the formula to add modern sounds. “FIRE!” Is excellent for this and “(Referee)” has a strong spikiness. “my man” is maybe the most interesting cut in the album though, not for the innovation, but for the heartfelt singing that grounds the whole project.

Rosalia – LUX

A dirty secret about artists across creative fields is that a lot of them really don’t know that much about the artform. There are writers who don’t read that much, directors who don’t watch films and countless video game designers who don’t play games. Rosalia not only knows music well, she knows herself too.

She pulls expertly from a dizzyingly broad range of sounds. It’s no surprise that the opera in “Berghain” and the fado in “Memoria” are good fits but also in the details like the synth pop that ends the wonderful “Reliquia” or the sweeping strings of the excellent “Porclena” playing against industrial notes.

LUX is clever, it is full of interesting pieces and it is spectacular music. Rosalia really can do it all.

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Top Five Flawed Rap Albums from 2025

17 Nov

1. Chance the Rapper – STAR LINE

I didn’t really like Acid Rap and so Chance has never really stuck to me. I just haven’t really tracked his rise and fall beyond giving his albums a few spins each. Despite that, I found STAR LINE to be surprisingly fun.

The atonal rapping that defines him works a lot better when it’s not the only sound in the album. “Ride”, for example, is much more likeable when it’s mixed with other music. He’s not breaking any new ground when he tries contemporary sounds like in “Drapetomania” or “Gun In Yo Purse” but the diversity is welcome and he gets a bit of fusion in fragments of the songs.

So, when he returns to his comfort zone in “Pretty”, it underscores the confessions of the track. It lets us both sit down so that he can talk to us and the maneuver is very effective.

Nevertheless, there’s not enough here for the album to stick but it’s still a pleasant surprise and I’m glad to get an album that makes it so easy to appreciate Chance.

2. Tyler, the Creator – DON’T TAP THE GLASS

I appreciate an album that does something interesting either with the form of music or with the content of the album. Tyler’s trilogy had both. DON’T TAP THE GLASS has neither. His strength used to be how strongly he felt things. Nothing of that comes through with this album

It’s certainly competent music though. There are no weak tracks and plenty of earworms like “Ring Ring Ring.” He has found a space in which he’s very comfortable and he able to mine good music out of it effortlessly. Some sweat would have been nice though.

3. Young Thug — UY SCUTI

What’s left when you take the joy out of Young Thug? More than I expected, given how defined Young Thug is by his joy and energy, but still not enough for an album. There are moments here where he gets a sincere pain in his voice such as the “Do you know how it feel to see your face on the news?” of “On The News.” More interestingly, his flow is good enough by itself to carry you along for much of the album. It’s not as compelling without his usual freedom but it still stands strong as a reason to listen to him. “Whoopty Do” reminds you how interesting he is when he feels like himself but even in his duller tracks, he’s just a very talented rapper.

However, without the fun, the album sinks a bit into the morass of similar rap. It’s padded, like so many contemporaneous albums, and so, for the first time in Young Thug’s career, easily fades into the background.

4. Kid Cudi – Free

Vetinari in The Truth by Terry Pratchett posits that people don’t want the news as much as they want the olds. They want to read “Dog Bites Man” not “Man Bites Dog.” No man bites a dog in Free. Cudi does what he has always done.

As always, sometimes it works. “Submarine” is quite a bit of fun. It’s upbeat and psychedelic and reminds me of The Beatles. “Opiate” and “Salt Water” have sticky sounds. However, “Neverland” is .exhausting, “Past Life” draws from too much rather boring rock.

Kid Cudi is the same loner stoner that he has always been, both in music and in personality. It’s a strong image and one that he always sells well but there’s nothing left to say about it.

5. Earl Sweatshirt – Live Laugh Love

Earl’s music is never far from a drone. It’s so deep underwater and so muted and so sunken that it very easily just becomes murk. Normally, there’s at least a single cut like “Chum” or “Grief” to extract it from the morass and just enough propulsion in the raps and beats to keep it moving. Live Laugh Love misses both those pieces and suffers greatly for it.

HM. SABA – C0FFEE

Saba gets some credit here for trying out a variety of sounds but none of them really work. He brings little care, personality or energy to any of the tracks and the result is entirely forgettable.

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Five Pop Albums from 2025

3 Aug

PinkPantheress – Fancy That

Fame suits PinkPantheress well. Fancy That demonstrates more personality, more experience and more confidence than her earlier work. She’s comfortable now. This fame lets her build on her established sounds and to surprise you with their evolutions, especially in her lead single “Illegal”. It also lets her be much more flirtatious than before and the playfulness is excellent.

It never quite becomes a statement album though. It’s more of a stretch than a flex. It is simply a smart, fun pop album from a very likable artist.

KATSEYE – BEAUTIFUL CHAOS

I come to KATSEYE pretty fresh. I have not watched the reality show that brought them together. I don’t follow any of them on social media. I didn’t track their singles. This album is exciting enough without any of that.

“Gabriela” is the best expression of what makes them so interesting. When your K-pop group is international, it makes possible a section where your Latina member can have a Spanish verse. It’s a natural fit, especially when you consider how much new Latin musics like reggaeton and corridos draw from the same well as K-pop. It’s still a breathtaking innovation and one done perfectly. Le Sserafim delving into afrobeats seemed like the forerunner of a new space in K-Pop and this is a welcome development there.

Having said that, I never see the point of reimagining “Jolene.” The rewrites are always scared of the honesty of the original. I do appreciate the homoeroticism in “Gabriela” though, even as I could have done with much more of it.

I also really like the blending in of hyperpop through the album. “Gnarly” works very well as the aggressive edge to it and “M.I.A” on the other side of the album shows its more dancefloor while remaining dense and layered.

They do well in traditional K-Pop as well. “Gameboy” is fairly standard and it’s done well. It has a great, light tone and a catchy hook. “Mean Girls” is perfectly acceptable slow pop even as they do much better for more energy.

The manufactory is inextricable from KATSEYE, as it should be for a pop group. They are exciting, not despite it, but through it. This is the natural meeting point of the reality TV music group, the emergence of hyperpop and the internationalization of K-pop. This is exactly what all three should be in this moment.

Addison Rae – Addison

I’ll be the first to admit that Addison has some great pop. I really liked “Obsessed” and the narcissism of its hook even as it had the worst music video of all time. Addison starts out strong too. “New York” is glittering modern pop with a good pace and a story that it sells.

It’s a tired story though. The back story of a small town girl longing for a big city was hackneyed in the 1930s and Addison does nothing to update it. Popstars need hooks every bit as badly as pop songs and all of Addison’s hooks are too blunt to snag me.

I have yet to like a single one of her looks. I don’t understand how a TikTok star has such abysmal choreography. I think the grindset philosophy is poorly considered.

So, we get to a song like “In The Rain” that has interesting parts but ones that she repeats rather than develops. There’s neither sophistication nor subtlety in her songcrafting. The constant repetition shows a lack of respect. It positions me as a follower rather than a fan and when I’m treated like this, I find that I’m neither one.

So much of the album falls into filler this way. “High Fashion” and “Diet Pepsi” both could have been quite good had they developed their themes further. “Aquamarine” is better but is overlong and every maneuver in the song is predictable, particularly the boring spoken word interlude. “Times Like These” is too trite to make any impact. “Summer Forever”, like “High Fashion”, are very LDR but without the edge that made Born to Die so interesting. Also, Lana has moved a lot in the past decade. I don’t see a reason to return to 2015.

For all of that, she can still make good pop. None of these songs are music that you would object to hearing at a mall. However, it’s all too serious and too manufactured. Some play and some fun would be undeniable music given her strong ear but it’s clear that’s not why she’s here.

Selena Gomez – I Said I Love You First

I don’t think Selena Gomez gets enough credit as one of the great chameleons of our time. She has done than dabble, she has defining hits in both reggaeton and in afrobeats and her KPop excursion is still infectious.

She tries classic Hollywood for much of I Said I Love You First and it works both visually and musically. “Sunset Blvd” and “You Said You Were Sorry” both work well. “How Does It Feel To Be Forgotten” does well in LDR’s space and “Cowboy” is another standout like this.

Some of her other experiments here don’t do as well. I’m a big fan of the Charli sound but “Bluest Flame” doesn’t do anything interesting with Selena. The Charli chorus is fun but it’s insufficient without Selena adding something of her own. The 80s synths of “Don’t Wanna Cry” are fine but uninteresting. “Do You Wanna Be Perfect” is unbelievably trite and highlights how inchoate the album is.

The stronger vein is what the album promises from the jump; the Selena Gomez / Benny Blanco relationship. It’s easy to feel happy for them and you can feel it in “Scared of Loving You” strongly enough to lift it above the shallow lyrics. “I Can’t Get Enough” is both of them in their comfort zone and so one of the strongest songs in the album

I’m not very well versed in Selena lore myself. I don’t understand anything in “Call Me When You Break Up” for instance. However, their very public engagement has consistently been a very positive spectacle and this album may not be the best pop around but it’s still another successful maneuver in what I hope ends up a total success.

Justin Bieber – SWAG

On the plus side, “YUKON” is an excellent song. There is some interesting R&B in this album. “BUTTERFLIES” also works well as does the opener “ALL I CAN TAKE.”

On the negative side, the album is stuffed with boring music. “GO BABY GO” is a putrid ballad, “DAISIES” is uninteresting throwback pop, “SWEET SPOT” is a paint-by-number Sexyy Red cut.

On the disgusting side, the skits in the album and the social media filth as a rollout campaign.

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Top Five Rap Albums of 2025 That We Want To Talk About

11 Jun

1. Infinity Knives & Brian Ennals – A City Drowned In God’s Black Tears

I have never heard an album go this hard. Infinity Knives and Brian Ennals deserve a lot of credit for smart, unapologetic, fiercely political stances. Too many artists talk a big game when it comes to politics and then choose an anodyne all-is-love stance or try some pathetic anti-woke grifting. This album has the backbone to call a genocide a genocide and does so right from the opening track.

The preaching is clever too. Ennals is surprisingly funny across the album. He uses the weight of the politics to add heft to an already often-punched out flow. He also just stops you cold with lines like “Bambaataa was a pedophile, Russell’s a rapist / So how far can hip-hop really take us?” in “Live at the Chinese Buffet.”

After a while with the album though, it’s the breadth of music here that astonishes. “Sometimes, Papi Chulo” channels Lupe well but has a wonderfully complex beat, something Lupe only managed a handful of times in his career. It’s more modern than a Lupe joint too. The Latin sounds are an interesting wrinkle. “Two Headed Buffalo” could be a strong Neutral Milk Hotel cut. It’s very legitimate indie rock and one of the best songs in the album. “A City Drowning. God’s Black Tears” is powerful metal.

Sometimes across this breadth, the music doesn’t quite match the killer energy of the album as a while. “The Iron Wall” is sometimes musically flat, the flow is flat and disconnected from the beat. The beats are often unexpected though even if they don’t necessarily groove. The same can be said for “Live at the Chinese Buffet”. It’s unfortunate that the most political tracks are the least musical. Even if that’s intentional, it’s not a choice that I agree with. Meanwhile, “BAGGY” is interesting to add and the submerged beat is a good addition but not one of the stronger tracks on the album. Despite some very strong moments though, it’s too slow paced.

Mostly though, they’re a lot of fun. “Everyone I Love Is Depressed” has a great funk and a liveliness that works better with the anti-suicide messaging than the overly serious Kendrick or Logic. “Soft Pack Shorty” is a fun sex rap that finds time to ground itself in material considerations but finds a lot more time to get dirty.

A City Drowned In God’s Black Tears is dizzying and unmissable. There are no rules for talent like this and Infinity Knives and Brian Ennals glory in their ability to do whatever they want.

2. Saba and No I.D. – From the Private Collection of Saba and No I.D.

Cities are bigger than you think. Give a block of land a name and you think that you can abstract it into a single entity. The people of Lisbon are friendly, the food in Rome is great, and so a city of millions of souls boils down to a simple trait. So also can two musicians as disparate as Saba and No I.D. be welded together

The album has a strong Chicago sound. It’s very reminiscent of old-school Kanye or Common. Given how much space No I.D. has to breathe here, it’s no surprise. He runs great beats throughout the album and when he and Saba sync perfectly, as in “Woes of the World,” it’s exceptional.

Interestingly, there’s also a strong strain of Dilla in the album. “Reciprocity” lets No I.D. go deep in his bag and the Dilla comes through strongly in it as in the great “30secchop.” Dilla frequently collaborated with No I.D. but I never understood him as a Chicago sound until this album contextualized him like this.

Chicago doesn’t always work out as well for Saba and No I.D. though. “Acts 1.5” has an interesting beat that Saba wastes. “Westside Bound Pt. 4” feels perfunctory from both of them. “She Called It” tries an early Childish Gambino flow that doesn’t work despite a strong atonal chorus. “Every Painting Has A Price” could have been a filler Chance the Rapper track.

However, they hit more than they miss. “How to Impress God” lets Saba go hard and No I.D. provides the perfect framing for Saba’s choppy work. From the Private Collection may not be the best work from either half but it’s good reason for their hometown to be proud of both of them, as if further reason was necessary.

3. Xang – Watch Over My Body

Watch Over My Body is a dark, viscous sludge. It is at its best when it covers and suffocates you. It is unsurprising then that it is monotonous but perhaps it was avoidable. The punishment of the monotony fits the experience of the album but still caps its quality. There are not enough ideas in here to make the quite good music do more than be another example of how DMV rap is poised to break out but still looking for the final catalyst.

4. Nino Paid – Love Me As I Am

Nino Paid is getting somewhere. Two albums in two years is no small feat and DMV rap is not far from a breakout moment. He has come as far as anyone into working it into something that can explode. Love Me As I Am isn’t all the way there but it’s getting tantalizingly close

Three tracks here highlight DMV rap as DMV rap; “Joey Story”, “Redemption” and “Play This At My Funeral.” If you want a quick taste to see if this is for you, try these three or at least just the last of them. These are cinematic, claustrophobic songs that are served well by Nino Paid’s storytelling and philosophizing. He’s fully engaged in this zone and his breathless rapping is very compelling.

I excerpt from the album because it does have an unfortunate amount of filler for a 5 minute album. “Be Safe” does nothing. “Progress Report” tries a softer beat and gets no energy from it. “Weekend in Paris” flirts with something more sultry but the mixture doesn’t work.

Much more interesting is “Try Me” that takes a pop maneuver that, while not seamless, adds some good variety. His voice is too sunken to really fit the beat and it doesn’t quite find the groove and gets lost against the peppy beat and hook but it nonetheless feels like the blueprint for something more to come.

Love Me As I Am is the same writ large. It’s not quite a full success as an album but it is both a schematic and a promise for great things to come.

5. Drake – $ome $exy $ongs 4U

Despite everything, this album reminds me how talented Drake is. As ever, he wastes it, but the talent is undeniable. Honestly, “CN TOWER” is Drake in great form. The cringe is over-the-top in his lyrics and that always works for him. The groove to “SPIDER-MAN SUPERMAN” that he plays with and denies expertly showcases how skilled a rapper he is.

The album is lazy though. “GIMME A HUG” has the framework of a great song but he doesn’t workshop it enough. He hams too much in “MEET YOUR PADRE.” He’s capable of much more finesse but pandering generates hits and Drake looks for the easiest route. That’s why so much of the album, like “SMALL TOWN FAME” or “DEEPER” is padding.

Overlooked in the memory of the feud is the energy it brought to Drake’s rap after such a long stretch of boredom. It’s a shame that the loss caused him to forget it too.

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Lady Gaga – MAYHEM

16 Mar

New Lady Gaga music is inherently exciting and MAYHEM starts strong. “Disease” and “Abracadabra” open the album with plenty of energy. Maybe fittingly, she delves deeply into nostalgic sounds for the album. Her pastiche goes pleasingly broad as well. She draws from alt-rock in the standout “Perfect Stranger” and from Prince and Bowie in the strong “Killah.”

This nostalgia undercuts the album though. There’s not enough of interest here and so it overstays its welcome. Where other necromancers like Rina Sawayama add new texture to the space, Gaga plays it very straight and so the album’s rewarming of stale sounds loses pace. It’s still overall a fun album but never much more than a diversion.

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Colle – Montalvo

7 Mar

Montalvo has great soundscapes. You can turn on any song here from “The Day You Told Me” to “Winter Garden” and it will give you a textured, vibrant backing to whatever else you might be doing. It cannot however do more. The music blends together too much and the lack of a clear single drastically worsens the problem. For all of its success as a soundtrack to the rest of your life, it still blends together too smoothly and leaves nothing behind.

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