Gary Suarez
The Puerto Rican rapper's latest is full of on-brand swagger while also displaying a new maturity.
4y
The new album is like watching the eighth season of a sitcom and growing hyper-aware of all the recycled jokes and actors' laugh lines.
4y
The Caribbean superstars' collaborative LP doesn't have the magic of their previous hits.
5y
After dabbling in arena-pop, the Colombian reggaetonero returns to his self-consciously smutty safety zone.
5y
His capacity for career reinvention should be boundless, but the familiarity and fan-friendliness of High Off Life put such big creative decisions off for another time.
6y
While some persnickety audiophiles might bristle at the unmixed and unmastered nature of the project, Las Que No Iban a Salir sounds more than acceptable by today’s home-streaming standards.
6y
With 21 Savage maturing personally and musically since he first gained notoriety, I Am > I Was is a varied attempt at reconciling both sides of the face-tatted spitter’s vexing world.
7y
If there are levels to this shit, some secret series of redemptive insider nods and brainy puzzles worth solving, West’s stans can keep them to themselves to nibble on like so much mousetrap cheese. For the rest of us, a millionaire’s stream-of-consciousness string of mental disorder admissions and rehashed rap lechery doesn’t suit West’s maturing genius.
8y
Only seven tracks long, coke rap’s poet laureate continues to amaze with age as he pontificates on the hustle and grind.
8y
Decidedly less commercial than its immediate predecessor, Paranoia 2 returns to the Kairi Chanel mixtape vibe that initially endeared him to lyrically minded hip-hop heads.
8y
Presented with a new generation of SoundCloud sensations accused, and in some cases even convicted, of the sort of misogynistic behaviour glorified on his early full-lengths, Mathers squanders a prime opportunity to atone or at least to mature. It was perhaps foolish to expect otherwise, to expect rap’s most entitled brat to shed his lucrative problem child persona for any reason.
8y
These gratifying moments on Dedication just aren’t enough to restore Keef’s viability at a time when it is so obvious that others are benefitting from his archetype. If anything, his is a cautionary tale for today’s young SoundCloud sensations to heed, lest they end up squandering their time in the spotlight.
8y
While Converge thankfully haven’t veered towards the pop metal of their erstwhile tourmates in Mastodon, their vital growth as a creative unit has nonetheless padded their cudgel.
8y
Where the Super Slimey too often felt like a requisite Xanax-blasted victory lap, one notably soft on hooks despite the successful street chemistry of Beautiful Thugger Girls’ hit single “Relationship”, Without Warning exudes vitality and menace.
8y
The infotainment of 4:44 finds him delivering messages of black empowerment through the lens of commerce, with seminar-quality lessons about credit, spending and generational wealth straight outta the hotel near the airport.
8y
Here, Young Thug is on his Taylor Swift, not his Johnny Cash.
8y
Teenage Emotions is a bold and distinctive artistic statement, but the excessive 21-song tracklist is overwhelming.
9y
The strongest Migos full length release to date ... Bangers like Call Casting and the Gucci Mane-featuring Slippery call back to the strongest material on their many mixtapes.
9y
If not for YG’s morbidly mordant sense of humor, Still Brazy would amount to little more than a latter-day outing from The Game. There’s no shortage of triumphalism in hip-hop, but when it’s presented in such an engaging storytelling style it’s easier to embrace.
9y
The Road falters in that it exposes Lewis’ glaringly limited vocal range. Formerly hidden behind post-grunge squalls of sound, the singer’s low-register comfort zone discomfits out here in the great wide open.
9y
Undeniably one of my favorite albums of the year, METZ shines brightly, like a Molotov cocktail at the moment of impact.
13y
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