Brandon Soderberg

Young Thugga Mane La Flare is best used to see Gucci Mane and Young Thug, two very talented and rarefied rappers, lacking almost all of their interesting qualities.

Breezy in its boldness (12 tracks, under 50 minutes), this is a heavily considered album from the only reasonable rap star around. 

Oxymoron, the rapper's third full-length and first for Interscope, is powered by the sturdy widescreen hedonism of Dr. Dre's The Chronic, full of well-rapped and witty lyrics about doing dirtbaggy things over top-shelf, endlessly fascinating, forever-morphing beats. 

Kanye and all the production cosigns he can bring to this thing make this record too ambitious to fail; Pusha T, forever an outlier even when he had clubby crack-rap hits, has finally made a solo project that isn't totally beneath him, even if parts of it still are.

Old is XXX without that fun first half. It isn't traditionally enjoyable, and it isn't supposed to be. But for Danny Brown, the pill-popping, pussy-eating squawk-box, it's the most daring record he could've made.

At just 19, aspiring to compete with such ambitious rap visionaries, and mostly succeeding, is an impressive feat.

You're better off soaking in the good choices here and resigning yourself to enduring the bad ones. 

Echoes is a profound listen that, despite its veneer of cynicism, oozes pain and crisis.

The tracks here feel endless, like uninspired, snarky parodies of rap instrumentals, roving along for too long, filled with too many recycled ideas and yet, not one worth considering.

With Take Care, Drake has his accelerated Kanye West moment — when a little too much ambition and all the asshole feelings he's got inside coalesce into an insular, indulgent, sad-sack hip-hop epic.

What Herbert has put together is a witty, difficult, touching testament to making something lasting out of one of the world's many cruel inevitabilities.

Though there's less breathing space on Thursday, and fewer melodic hooks, it still feels of a piece with House of Balloons.

Within and Without is a declaration to snarky ironists that there is nothing to be ashamed of with this sound.

Memphis rapper proves himself a conflicted thinker, with an outsider/insider perspective that merges the personal and the political.

Lasers works best ...when the grabby hooks, electro beats, and conscious rap rants are all turned down a notch.