James Blake sings the quiet parts loud; now a decade into his career, his arc is best charted through the evolution, and presentation, of his own introversion. Blake’s…
Before the eye paint, the brain-dead political anthems, and their embrace of radio-friendly sensibilities, Green Day was a raggedy assembled trio of stoner misfits with…
Pavement’s debut album, a sui generis cornucopia of fuzz-box riffs and unwonted lyrics, opens with the best song the band ever recorded, maybe the best…
The first of the two albums that Iggy Pop and David Bowie recorded during 1977, The Idiot is, in a sense, a David Bowie album, just…
In a mere two months, L.A. native Blueface has already become more influential and artistically important than 2Pac, the Notorious B.I.G., and Michael Jackson combined.…
Saba is a Westside Chicago rapper who operates within (and often collaborates with) the creative company of Noname, Phoelix, Smino, Mick Jenkins, and Jean Deux…
The first taste of the ever-cocky DaBoii’s latest solo project — outside his group, SOB x RBE — came back in May, with “Onna Gang,” a…
A lot has changed for Noname since the release of her 2016 debut mixtape, Telefone, a release that afforded her a promotion from ‘friend of co-signer Chance the…
Listening to Real Hasta la Muerte has this critic at war with himself — my body appreciates the perfect blend of trap, hip-hop, reggaeton, and…
Famous Dex has penned some of the most insane, exuberant SoundCloud rap to date — tracks like Dex Meets Dexter’s two singles, “Pick It Up” and “Japan.” The former of…
Actually, fuck it: Chief Keef does need that stuntin’ break after all. Almost immediately after releasing one of his most consistent projects in five years (The Cozart,…
“Miami,” the first proper song on what-we’re-I-guess-calling-an-EP, GOOD Job, You Found Me, features Valee finally employing his soft-spoken, rise-and-fall flow popularized by hit single “Womp Womp.”…
The chaos that defined the American political discourse post-Donald Trump’s election produced any number of terribly dead-end narratives, but none were quite as misguided and…
Atlanta’s Lil Baby and College Park’s Gunna are both cut from the same cloth — or, more appropriately, from the drip of the same man: Young…
Most everything one hears on Juice WRLD’s debut, Goodbye & Good Riddance, can be gleaned from its title: a phrase laden with bitterness and condescension,…
Serving as Meek Mill’s triumphant return from a long period of legal battles and L-taking, Championships is the rapper’s first album since his controversial 2017 incarceration — which stemmed from…
J. Cole is, if anything, consistent: He’s dropped an album every two years for his past three projects; he’s constantly tried his damnedest to prove…
Trying to cover every rap album, mixtape, EP, collaborative project, and “selective playlist” released over the past year seems like a fool’s errand; in 2018…
The albums that defined the past year were projects that subverted typical genre norms and traditionalist views, making themselves hard to rigidly categorize in the process.…
Galaxie 500 is often labeled as a “shoegaze” band, which is understandable: their indolent, undeviating style (gently distorted guitars committing to one riff, one obsessive,…