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| Little Simz |
Little Simz - Boss from Grey Area
British rapper Little Simz has been a prominent figure on the scene for several years; even so, she is often sidelined by the rise of grime and U.K. drill in spite of her introspective, prescient wordplay and desire to explore interesting and diverse styles. On her third full-length album, Grey Area, Simz has reached a new peak, with an honest record that isn't afraid to take shots at the world at large...
Sampa the Great - Mwana from The Return
Arriving two years after Birds and the BEE9, a mixtape strong enough to win the Australian Music Prize, The Return is the long-awaited debut album by rapper, songwriter, and poet Sampa the Great. The vast, ambitious full-length reflects several years of constant, intense soul-searching, and its songs and interludes revolve around themes of identity, homecoming, and self-empowerment...
G&D - Where I'm From from Black Love & War
Indivisible even when they're devoted to solo recordings -- Young Spirit, Overload, and Vweto II account for the artists' full-length dispatches from the previous two years alone -- and featured together on synchronous output from keen collaborators like Dabrye and the Mixtapers, Georgia Anne Muldrow and Dudley Perkins return with their third album as G&D. The two don't reconvene musically so much as they simply keep boogieing from project to project. On Black Love & War, they channel love for one another and their people, vexation in the face of escalating tyranny, and seemingly inextinguishable positivity into some of their most determined and stimulating funk...
Homeboy Sandman - Far Out from Dusty
On the Mello Music Group-issued 2019 full-length Dusty, Homeboy Sandman reunites with producer Mono en Stereo (previously known as RTNC), who provided beats for some of the rapper's earlier releases for Stones Throw, such as First of a Living Breed and Kool Herc: Fertile Crescent. Constructed from laid-back, ambling jazz and funk grooves, the tracks provide warm, lived-in backdrops for Sandman's distinctive brand of conversational, matter-of-fact rhymes...
slowthai - Nothing Great About Britain from Nothing Great About Britain
The first singles by slowthai were raw bursts of energy, blending grime and drill with a punk attitude, and delivering scathing lyrics addressing the struggles of British youth. His debut album far surpasses the promise of those early tracks, tackling similar topics but with a much sharper focus. The direct, concise album's songs reflect the state of Brexit-era England, particularly the issues faced by those living in poverty, such as broken homes, drug addiction, and the widening wage gap. The MC openly mocks Queen Elizabeth at the end of the title track...
Kate Tempest - Keep Moving Don't Move from The Book of Traps and Lessons
Stark, intimate, and crammed with difficult truths, Kate Tempest's third album holds up a mirror to reveal our most vulnerable reflections. Like a beat reporter to the soul, the London native investigates with uncanny intuition the interior dialogues, self-destructive habits, and beautiful follies of human nature and spits them back at us in gut-punch moments of warning, recognition, and clarity...
Apollo Brown - God Help Me from Sincerely, Detroit
...Simply put, he knows exactly the right people to work with, and how to channel their energies into deeply inspired, powerful work. Brown's productions are heavy on vintage soul -- several tracks begin with a slow, weepy sample seemingly grabbed from a scratchy old 45 or a late-night radio broadcast. He then flips them into meticulously crafted beats, with some edits approaching microhouse-level precision, yet it never sounds cluttered or random, and there's always plenty of room for the emcees to shine...
Rapsody - Cleo from Eve
When L. Lamar Wilson interviewed Rapsody for Oxford American in 2018, the writer and filmmaker asked the rapper -- coming off two Grammy nominations, her profile still on the rise -- if she felt part of the same cultural lineage as Nina Simone and Roberta Flack... For the album's title, Rapsody refers to the Book of Genesis, thereby uniting and honoring black womanhood, herself included. The concept doesn't overshadow the content...
Boogie - Silent Ride from Everything's for Sale
Now co-signed by Eminem and added to the Shady Records roster, Compton's dreary emcee Boogie followed several years of mixtapes that established his bummed-out rap style with Everything's for Sale, a studio debut that polishes both his melancholic expressions and technical abilities. Dark, emotional, and even somewhat self-conscious, Boogie reflects on insecurities and general weariness over richly produced beats. Nowhere does his bright glumness come through as well as on the restlessly beautiful "Silent Ride," a beautifully loping track in which flute samples and a hooky chorus underpin the rapper's frustrated verses...
BROCKHAMPTON - No Halo from Ginger
After their swift rise from the Saturation series to the top of the charts with 2018's iridescence, hip-hop boy band Brockhampton returned a year later with their fifth set, Ginger. Less rascally and rambunctious than their prior output, Ginger found the crew delving deeper into heavy emotional territory, tackling mental health, depression, betrayal, and struggles with love, faith, identity, and substance abuse...
Quelle Chris - Spray and Pray from Guns
The topic of Quelle Chris' album Guns couldn't be much clearer. The Brooklyn-based rapper addresses gun violence in today's society, discussing the motives behind such violence and its effect on individuals...
clipping. - Nothing is Safe from There Existed an Addiction to Blood
Having explored dystopian science fiction with their astonishing 2016 release Splendor & Misery, experimental rap trio clipping. tackle the hip-hop subgenre known as horrorcore on their third Sub Pop full-length. Taking influence from the 1973 vampire-themed cult classic Ganja & Hess as well as the Geto Boys and early Three 6 Mafia, the group paint portraits of harrowing scenes filled with stalkers on the prowl and ruthless carnage. Daveed Diggs' rapid-fire verses are precise and unflinching, detailing gruesome scenes with pinpoint accuracy. Much of the album, particularly the interludes, is filled with field recordings, giving the sensation of being on the run and uncertain of one's fate. "Nothing Is Safe" features suspenseful, repetitive piano clearly inspired by John Carpenter, but sidestepping the tropes of synthwave, and while the bombastic synths and skittering beats are closer to trap, this is far from that style's druggy, hedonistic tendencies....
Polo G - Lost Files from Die a Legend
Polo G is one of several late-2010s Chicago rappers to combine influences from their city's drill scene with more melodic hooks. While many of his peers got by on charisma and high-impact production, Polo G's lyricism sets him apart. Early single "Finer Things" announced his nuanced style as he switched gears from vulnerable uncertainty about his direction in life to bragging about his wealth in the same breath. The song's sentimental, piano-heavy beat served as a perfect instrumental for Polo G's introspective writing, and it connected with millions to become his first viral hit. Debut album Die a Legend delivers on the promise of early singles with 14 tracks of nonstop lyrical highlights and a production style equal shares hard-trap beats and melodic catchiness...
Whether judged strictly by his work with Wu-Tang Clan or as a solo artist, Ghostface Killah is an indisputable giant.
Czarface / Ghostface Killah - Face Off from Czarface Meets Ghostface
Comic-inspired hip-hop supergroup Czarface's 2018 collaboration with MF Doom was cool, but it was ultimately somewhat underwhelming, as the masked one just didn't seem to be fully committing to the project, and his presence felt phoned-in. Fortunately, the same cannot be said of Czarface Meets Ghostface. Everyone brings their A-game here, and it feels more like the type of intergalactic battle worthy of the Marvel-style cover art. 7L and Jeremy Page, billed as the Czar-Keys, construct inventive beats which are heavy, strong, and detailed, yet don't distract from the rhymes...
Danny Brown - Change Up from uknowhatimsayin¿
Danny Brown took his grotesquerie to its highest level yet with Atrocity Exhibition. Concurrent with his divergent pursuits and evolving public image -- he's now done a sitcom theme, dipped into acting, hosted a talk show, and has spoken about living less recklessly -- the rapper dials back a bit with his follow-up and second Warp LP, executive produced by Q-Tip...
A continuation of Justin Broadrick and Kevin Martin's groundbreaking industrial dub/hip-hop project Techno Animal.
Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Justin Broadrick and Kevin Martin collaborated as Techno Animal, producing bleak industrial soundscapes influenced by dub and hip-hop. The groundbreaking project was an influence on the illbient scene as well as numerous post-rock and experimental electronic musicians, and predated dubstep as well as noise-rap acts like Death Grips and clipping... The two reunited for a one-off Techno Animal performance at a festival in 2017, then revived the name Zonal, which they used for a limited release in 2000, for their subsequent work, meant as a continuation of Techno Animal. On the first half of their 2019 full-length Wrecked, the duo are joined by Moor Mother (Camae Ayewa), who performed on-stage with them at the Unsound and Roadburn festivals, and it's hard to think of a more appropriate pairing...
Tyler, The Creator - EARFQUAKE from IGOR
IGOR starts with a crackling, hyped-up overture that paints a scene of Tyler, The Creator at the wheel, reacting beside his singing passengers to the positive results they're receiving from the all-important car test: "Ridin' round town/They gon' feel this one." Tyler and a motorcade's worth of supporting vocalists fulfill the promise and threat with what plays out, a creatively vital and emotionally heartsick set with as much pain, vulnerability, and compulsion as a classic soul LP...
Young Thug - Just How It Is from So Much Fun
Atlanta's Young Thug rose to iconic levels of rap prestige with a nonstop flow of quality mixtapes, each one shining a different light on his eccentricities, one-of-a-kind charisma, and raw skill. By the time of his official studio debut, 2019's So Much Fun, Young Thug had already released over a dozen mixtapes that influenced a new wave of rappers and trap producers. His wild, sometimes garbled flows, playful spirit, and appealing weirdness had all been well established as calling cards of his style by the time of So Much Fun
YBN Cordae - Wintertime from The Lost Boy
When a trio of young rappers began gaining traction under the collaborative moniker YBN, astute listeners were quick to point out comparisons with the young rappers and star-powered rap groups who came before them. In particular, YBN Nahmir's cockiness and big personality were foiled by YBN Cordae's whip-smart lyricism in a way that mirrored the roles of Tyler, the Creator and Earl Sweatshirt in Odd Future. YBN were more of a collective than they were collaborators, and Cordae's singles and mixtape contributions were marked by complexly constructed rhymes delivered with a style that nodded more and more to hip-hop's golden era as he went. On his debut studio album, The Lost Boy, Cordae emerges in bold, colorful strides, joined by some of rap's key players on an album as adventurous as it is thoughtful...
Kevin Gates - Icebox from I'm Him
Building on a lengthy back catalog of powerful mixtapes, Louisiana rapper Kevin Gates' 2016 debut studio album Islah was a stellar breakthrough. Gates' blunt lyrical style grew into a more personal account of his trials and successes, and his no-nonsense bars were often described as confessional. Second album I'm Him is an even more direct reading of Gates' sound, finding the rapper ferociously attacking each of the album's 17 tracks with tireless energy. His multi-faceted approach finds different voicings on different tracks...
Tech N9ne - Lord of Weird from N9NA
After a relatively quiet stretch, the usually prolific Tech N9ne returned in 2019 with his 13th solo album, N9NA. Celebrating 20 years of his label Strange Music, the Kansas City emcee spends the bulk of the album ruminating on his decades in the game as one of the most successful independent rappers of all time, taking time to boast, brag, and pour out gratitude to everyone who got him here. Another packed value-for-money bounty, N9NA features a handful of familiar faces (Krizz Kaliko, Jelly Roll, King Iso) but maintains the focus on Tech's ever-tight bars, head-spinning chopper delivery, and irrepressibly confident attitude...
Higher Brothers - 16 Hours from Five Stars
Delivering on the promise of their full-length debut, Chinese rap crew Higher Brothers made a critical breakthrough with their sophomore effort, Five Stars. Whether referencing the perceived quality of this release or the number of stars on their homeland's flag, the album built a barrier-busting bridge between China and the West with its thrilling, cross-cultural hype music. Spitting speedy rhymes in Sichuanese, Mandarin, and their steadily improving English, the quartet -- MaSiWei, Psy.P, Melo, and DZKnow -- combined their lyrical skills with their explosive personalities, putting China first without pandering to a Western audience with diluted material. Here, Higher Brothers offer fans a crash course in cultural exposure on their own uncompromised terms -- all while absorbing U.S. culture and relating their experiences -- whipping from China-centric references to Internet restrictions, chopsticks, and tofu to shout-outs to American exports...
