Tag Archives: rap

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.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

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.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Heems – Veena

14 Sep

We’re getting more Heems exposure than anyone could have expected. It’s not too surprising that it’s a bit of a mixed bag.

He has some fascinating pieces in this album. Trying NY Drill in “RAKHI” is great. The old school NY rap in “DAME” is fun. That could be a Biggie beat. “MANTO” doesn’t have the best flow but Vijay Iyer is top notch in it and the jazz and rap intermingling is excellent.

However, the interludes are terrible. The rolodex stunting is gauche. “RIGHTEOUS” cannot end fast enough. His Juhi Chawla bit is terrible. Firstly, it’s over-explained for a white audience. Secondly, it’s absolutely baby’s first Bollywood movie. Put it together and it’s painfully shallow.

When an album’s music is largely forgettable, the bits that stand out need to sparkle. There are some songs well worth the listen but there’s too much that grates as well.

Tags: , ,

Ice Spice – Y2K!

11 Aug

Ice Spice appears to be on the way down and Y2K! is not going to change that, even if it is a better album than the moment. It’s just that she doesn’t seem to have enough interest in wanting to stay at the top. The second move is the hardest one, the one that proves that you have legs beyond being a momentary sensation and Ice Spice had clips of her looking bored while twerking and ads at her concert as the run-up. Y2K! is not the album to overcome that.

There’s some stuff here that I really like. “Gimme A Light” has her working well in her comfort zone. Ice Spice was a revelation when she came out. We all feared that New York drill’s crossover moment had died with Pop Smoke and Ice Spice delivering the breakout while evolving the form was huge.

She brings in a couple of interesting evolutions over the album. There’s great storytelling in “Plenty Sun” which is a nice development for her. Even more interesting is “Did It First” where she takes the role that I would expect to see from someone like PinkPantheress even to the extent of a Central Cee feature.

There’s not that much of interest here though and that’s made worse by her softening her music in what may be a misguided pop turn. Her voice just felt deeper in “Munch” and her beats were more submerged. It’s all toned down now and that loses the best part of her music.

Y2K! is not a great album but it’s not a bad one either. It’s just that at this point in her career, Ice Spice needed something more than ambivalence.

Tags: , ,

Lupe Fiasco – Samurai

7 Aug

It feels like one of the big questions of the past few years is how can a rapper age? 3k decided to make a flute album rather than “rap about colonoscopies” and Em continued to fail at any kind of growth. Lupe just seems to have relaxed.

The complaint with Lupe was always that he had great flow but horrible beats. Samurai suits him though. These are airy, jazzy beats and he works well with them. They give him plenty of space to stretch out on his rapping and are never less than pleasant. That’s really all that I’ve ever asked for with his beats; that they don’t distract from his flows.

The flows are still great. His rapping isn’t going to turn heads the way it did in his prime and he doesn’t really have any of the storytelling her that marked his best work but he’s still a pleasure to listen to. Lupe’s old. He doesn’t need to set the world on fire with a new album. He can just relax a bit, have some fun and give us something to spend a little time with.

Tags: , ,

Eminem – The Death of Slim Shady

22 Jul

Slim fooled me again. Over 20 years of substandard music should have taught me better but I fell for it again. “Houdini” was an exciting single and the idea of Em trying a concept album seemed like it might finally be the thing to get him to do something new. Instead, we have the same tired, pointless slop that Eminem has put out since his three classics, just slightly better.

“Houdini” just had him sounding energetic and revitalized. It mines a lot of nostalgia, but it sounds like he’s having fun and putting in effort for the first time in decades. It was the first single in a long time that crossed over from his core audience and deservedly so. Some of this even carries over to the album.

He opens the album with some of that same energy in “Renaissance.” “Brand New Dance” is fun in the way that classic fun Em songs were. There are pieces here that remind you of who Eminem was in his prime.

However, this is a lot of the Eminem problem. I would rather just listen to his old music than his current stuff. He hasn’t added anything of value to his discography in the entirety of The Death of Slim Shady and it has been a long time since the last time he did. With this album, he’s trying to evoke his great music without any of what made that music so great and while the illusion holds up for a song or two, it collapses quickly.

This is at its worst in “Temporary,” where he sings to Hailie about his imagined death. The thing is that Hailie is almost thirty now. She’s married. Audiotapes from her childhood aren’t going to change that. “Like Toy Soldiers” was almost 20 years ago. You can’t sell me on her as an innocent child anymore and trying to do so is dishonest.

He’s out of touch when he tries to recognize her as an adult too. Shilling her nepo-baby podcast on the album is embarrassing in a way that a young Em would have skewered. His references are equally out of touch. I don’t think about South Park anymore. I don’t think about Caitlyn Jenner. I didn’t even think about Christopher Reeves in the year 2000.

This is why the cancel culture conceit doesn’t work. He’s not relevant enough for anyone to care enough to cancel him anymore and he’s not plugged in enough for this album to make waves. His transphobia and whining aren’t transgressive, they’re just tired. I see too much of it and too much that’s much more hateful than Em for this album to do anything. Famous children’s book authors say things more shocking everyday.

Also, notice that Mr. “I say what they don’t want you to hear” doesn’t have a word to say about Gaza through the whole album. Macklemore had a whole song on it. How am I supposed to take any of this seriously when Eminem isn’t even the most controversial white rapper?

When you see someone jump on this bandwagon, it’s almost always a grift and I wish that I could be surprised at Eminem falling like this, but he’s tried to sell NFTs when that was hot and it’s clear now that this is who he is.

The result is that where “Guilty Conscience 2” should have been a synthesis, it’s just exhausting. He’s unconvincing in both voices and it’s because he doesn’t believe in either one. He’s just trying to find a way back into the conversation.

This is an album that desperately needed a real single too. His classic albums had a lot of filler when revisited but the best songs there are still some of the best that rap has ever had to offer. He’s living off technical ability but he’s lost fluidity in his flow and that damages his rap as much as the soullessness. Go back to “Superman” and you can clearly see that he just can’t rap like that anymore.

He litigates his GOAT status frequently here. It’s the entire focus of his second single, “Tobey.” It’s one of the better songs in the album despite an abysmal chorus and another song where you see two guests have decent verses just for Em to show that he is in a different tier altogether.

The thing he misses with this talk though is that he only ever looks at rappers. He should have aimed higher, he should have wanted to be the greatest music artist of all time. He never found the second act that musicians need to sustain. Great musicians reinvent themselves every few years. Em is still taking shots at his mother in his fifties. It’s pretty clear that he’ll never manage anything more.

Tags: , ,

Heems, Lapgan – LAFANDER

20 Mar

It’s been a long time since Das Racist, a fact that I’m a little surprised Heems seems to know so well. LAFANDER has him more mature both as a person and as a musician and the development is excellent.

Right off the bat, “Stupid Dumb Illiterate” is great stuff. “I speak the mother tongue / but I’m illiterate / I’m an idiot / but only just a little bit” is excellent work. He does great work with his heritage throughout. The closing verse to “Sri Lanka” has some tremendous Hinglish and the call of “cricket” behind the line “swing the bat like I’m going for 6” is hilarious.

This is a New York album through and through (shout-out Jalen Brunson, Cubes did you wrong) and Heems stays eclectic throughout. “Bukayo Saka” has both of the coldest one-liners in the album; “Only right wing I acknowledge is Bukayo Saka” and “kill my cousin for the throne like in the Mahabharata.” Look at those references and look at how hard both lines go and you’ll get what this album is.

The heavy references are very reminiscent of Das Racist but they miss a lot less here. “My dough nuts / Ich bin ein berliner” is excellent. Heems’ flow is also better than before. He stays nimble throughout and maintains a relaxed swagger throughout.

It’s really helped by Lapgan’s excellent production throughout. He draws from much more than your average producer and his record collection is immaculate. The lofi, laid back production plays well against Heems throughout, especially in the vocal production in “Kala Tika.”

There are some issues with the album. Some songs drag, some jokes don’t last as long as they need and there’s no really killer song in the album. It’s a good album though and one that only Heems could have made. It’s unique and it’s fun and it’s very New York.

Tags: , ,

Little Simz – Drop 7

29 Feb

Little Simz has long held the niche of literary rap and despite her massive talent, it’s never really served her that well. Her albums are fun and always a little out of left field but too comfortable to be memorable. Drop 7 moves her out of her comfort zone musically but isn’t enough to jump her to the next level.

The instrumentals of “SOS” are just filler and while her Spanish is excellent, “Fever” doesn’t work. There’s some infectiousness but the sound doesn’t work for her. It’s unfortunate that “Mood Swingz” is one of the strongest tracks here given how deep it is in her comfort zone.

I appreciate that this is her trying a whole bunch of new things and I wish that one of them worked better but this is ultimately just a collection of failed experiments.

Tags: , ,

Kanye West & Ty Dolla $ign – VULTURES 1

15 Feb

This album is the pointless animation of a corpse. It’s a grotesque rictus dance with nothing to say, an empty skull unable to do anything but howl. The provocations don’t land at all. “PAID” in uninteresting and the remixing of “Roxanne” is supremely boring. “BACK TO ME” might have been decent but sinks under self-sabotage. I have no idea who would be enough of an apologist to be convinced by Mike Tyson.

There’s the occasional sample or line to spark interest but never enough to carry a full song, let alone an album. In it’s favor, this album has none of the mess of the last few Kanye albums but that’s because it doesn’t even attempt anything novel. This is not polish, this is just laziness.

The only interesting thing about this album is the person who made it and it’s been a long time since he was interesting either.

Tags: , ,

Young Thug – BUSINESS IS BUSINESS

2 Dec

Young Thug is just fun. He makes rap into simple, unabashed fun. It’s such a breath of fresh air to hear him in an industry that’s obsessed with all the trappings around the music. He’s very obviously not oblivious to the peripherals but when you hear him rap, you can be.

His fun extends to his guest stars. He loosens up Drake to great effect in “Oh U Went” and “Parade on Cleveland” and he corrupts poor Lil Uzi Vert on “Hellcat Kenny” for some shockingly funny bars. He’s also infectious as ever in “Gucci Grocery Bag” which brings back all of the best of trap. This is music that sounds like it was a pleasure to make and is a definite pleasure to listen to.

Tags: , ,

← Older Entries