Matthew Ramirez

For all of Stoney’s faults, its most damning one poisons the record at the source: This thing is completely soulless.

Self Restraint, the latest album from rapper Gods Wisdom of the New England-based Dark World collective, arrives feeling strangely dated, as if it’s an artifact from 2011 or 2012.

No matter what's going on with the music, Brown’s acute emotional writing is once again on full display. Where XXX seemed to promise a way out, Old reflected (and sometimes reveled in) the lifestyle afforded him through his breakout success. This record, as dark, dingy, and uncomfortable as it is, continues to suggest something deeper is haunting Brown.

The divisive Atlanta rapper sounds best when chasing fresher, weirder, spacier styles instead of trying to live up to hip-hop’s storied traditions.

untitled unmastered. can feel like the clearing of a table, rather than a feast. But in this lies its power and greatest asset: With the stakes low, Lamar can air out his demons, have some fun, bask in the afterglow of the Grammys.

While it has slightly more misses than hits, the highs are high—arguably higher than Purple Reign's—and ultimately, the lows don't matter.

While Purple Reign is not a masterpiece, it is a thoughtful, if slight adjustment on the lens of where Future stands, at a crucial moment in his career.

Long Live the Pimp is the worst of Pimp C's posthumous output. The production hews too closely to modern trends for Pimp's voice, and the posthumous verses here sound uncharacteristically sleepy and subdued. Maybe it's time to leave well enough alone.

Is Kid Cudi serious? This is the first thing I asked myself listening to Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven, and it's not as snide a question as it sounds; it's genuinely hard to tell.

Puff Daddy released this themed mixtape in advance of his upcoming No Way Out 2, but this project has enough weight to serve as a follow-up to his enduring 2010 album Diddy Dirty Money.

These are creative guys bouncing off a group of similar ideas and seeing where the muse takes them. It isn’t always pretty. It isn’t really innovative.

For its alleged vision and production, Rodeo has its moments, but digging them out is as challenging as attempting to ride a bull for eight seconds.

After four years of lackluster releases, The Free Weezy Album, billed as a "Tidal exclusive," doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. But it raises the question: What do you want from Lil Wayne in 2015?

His greatest strength has always been world-building, using a synth-heavy blitz of candy-colored jazz chords taken straight (sometimes blatantly so) from the Pharrell handbook. Cherry Bomb isn’t exactly a hard left turn from this lane, but it is a quick swerve.