Bas delivers "Milky Way" effortlessly. Two years after his sophomore album Too High To Riot Bas returns, smoothly sailing on Milky Way. The Queens-based Dreamville signee has spent much of the summer on the 26-city "Too High To Riot Tour" with fellow Dreamville members Cozz and EarthGang. The Milky Way, in contrast, is significantly more upbeat than his previous work, finding Bas rather celebratory, as he welcomes the highest point in his career thus far. Bas approaches all the tracks with the attitude of someone at total ease with their environment. Barring a few hiccups, there’s an almost nonchalance with how Bas raps that pervades the entire work and makes for an easy listening experience. Roughly half of the tracks have featured artists, and Bas works well with each of them, at no point is he explicitly overshadowed by those assisting him. His collaborations with A$AP Ferg, J. Cole, and Ari Lennox make for some of the best songs on the album. The prod...

Unstoppable energy from King Push. There’s something about those small venues that create the perfect intimate experience. Of course, being in a stadium packed with fans yelling the lyrics like a massive living thunderstorm is an adrenaline rush. But being up close to the artist you came to see just feels more rewarding. There is no space between the stage and the audience, and those who arrived at the Belasco Theater in Downtown Los Angeles were able to stand within inches of Pusha T. Opened in 1926, the Belasco is a historic theater that has been renovated for the modern crowd but still holds that old-fashioned aesthetic. The crowd that filled the theater ranged from young to old, and varying skin tones and cultures squeezed together to hear Pusha’s tales from the hood. Hustling and drug dealing meant something more when Pusha was on stage. Yes, many rappers are lauded by hip-hop fans for their braggadocious and violent stories while being attacked by those who don’t understa...

SahBabii continues to forge his own cannon on "Squidtastic". When SahBabii’s “Pull Up Wit Ah Stick” first went viral, a few tried to write off the Chicago-born rapper as a Young Thug clone. It didn’t help that his strongest tracks at the time - “King Of The Jungle”; “Only Knew 1 Way”; “Purple Ape”  - were often mislabeled as “rare” Thugger leaks on Youtube. It was his flow, more than anything, that had people shook; everyone had believed Thug’s elusive crooning to be irreplicable, yet here was Sah, firmly latched onto a few specific idiosyncrasies that made Slime Season Thugger such a thrill. Sure, he wasn’t operating at the same level as his inspiration, but he was doing something much more important - he was building his own world. In that sense, it’s hard to knock Sah for the influences he wears so openly (Thug himself flew Sah out to London the minute “Pull Up Wit Ah Stick” got on his radar). Raised by his mother in Chicago before eventually joining his older brother...

Eminem's "Kamikaze" provides fans and haters alike with ample fodder for their respective causes. “Every CD critics gave it a 3, Then three years later they go back and re-rate it Then called The Slim Shady LP the greatest The Marshall Mathers was a classic The Eminem Show was fantastic But Encore just didn't have the caliber to match it I guess enough time just ain't passed yet A couple more years, that shit'll be Illmatic" - Eminem, “Careful What You Wish For" Eminem has never played nice with critics. A simple journey through his discography provides ample proof. In truth, Em has toyed with rappers and pop stars alike, making short work of them across a variety of storied diss tracks. “The Sauce.” “Nail In The Coffin.” “Quitter.” “The Warning.” “Can-i-Bitch.” All share a similar pattern, in which Eminem embodies an apex predator of his choosing. Few dare go against him, and those that do throw stones have come to expect a boulder in ...

Drake was polite, methodical, and very Canadian during his "Aubrey & The Three Amigos" tour stop last night. Drake returned to Canada last night. (One of the) crowning glories of the Great White North, the actor-turned-rapper-turned-generally-super-famous-person, brought his tour, “Aubrey & The Three Amigos,” for the first of a two-night stint in Montreal on a warm Tuesday evening. The tour already visited Canada at its outset, with back-to-back shows in Drake’s native Toronto, followed by more back-to-back-to-back shows in New York. If we’ve learned one thing from this, it’s that literally where ever Drake goes, he can sell out back-to-back. While tour dates were delayed and rescheduled multiple times, the shows are now running smoothly in each city, whatever production kinks initially hindering the schedule seem to be fully resolved, at least judging from last night’s event. ---- Everyone loves Drake. A Drake show, which filled an arena of 20,000 people las...

Ghost vs. Tommy - you knew it was coming. What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? The collision course of Ghost and Tommy's actions have officially placed them on opposite sides of the fence. There was a moment in Power that occurred earlier in the season that heavily foreshadowed where their friendship was heading. At the time, Kanan was rescuing Jason from the hit Ghost put on him. When Jason asks Kanan to kill off Tommy and Ghost in the midst of a double cross, Kanan blatantly replies that the two friends will tear each other apart on their own. He was right. At the conclusion of this week’s season finale, Ghost and Tommy take the epic leap from deteriorating friendship to enraged enemies. Aptly titled “When This Is Over,” the season finale of Power is bringing Starz’s hit series to a close. Show creator Courtney Kemp sat down with Deadline to speak about the fallout between Ghost and Tommy, and she also hinted at the show’s overall conclusion. “So...

NBA Youngboy continues to shield himself from judgement. Over the past year, NBA Youngboy has been blatantly using his domestic abuse allegations to bolster his artistic output. The allegations have become the focal point of many loose tracks, with titles like “Can’t Be Saved” and “My Happiness Took Away For Life”, that paint the 18-year old Baton Rouge native as a conflicted, but ultimately innocent, product of his environment. Until Death Call My Name, his studio debut, offered no redemptive arc for his falling out with ex-girlfriend, Jania, the future mother of his fifth child. Rather, Youngboy used the majority of the runtime to unapologetically justify his violent nature. Having been raised in grim conditions where he’s repeatedly encountered death, his affronts feel preemptive, as if he’s playing out a self-fulfilling prophecy. Youngboy often meditates on his soul before dismissing any potential consequence and on Decided, his latest mixtape, he continues to gleefully displace...

"Room 25" firmly establishes Noname as one of the best rappers alive. A little over a year ago, I saw Noname absolutely kill her set at a summer music festival. Her band was tight, presence charming, and reception surprisingly warm from an audience who didn't seem all that familiar with her. Later that day, Nas performed. As most of the crowd rapped along to "NY State of Mind," I began to overhear a particularly enthusiastic recitation of the hook directly behind me. I turned around, and was face-to-face with Noname and her entire four-piece band, acting like regular-ass people at a festival, dancing and signing and smiling. This wasn't the first artist I'd seen leave the comfort of backstage to mingle with the common folk at a festival— two that stand out off top are Danny Brown walking around and dapping up anyone that approached him, and John C. Reilly watching an indie rock set from a distance— but rather the first who could've passed for your...

6LACK's dullen powers strike harder this time around. I'll begin by saying, I do see a method to his madness; 6LACK is mastering the lexical changes of his voice. The message he leaves behind is interminable. The biggest issue with East Atlanta Love Letter isn't really a problem of subject material, but what lies outside its bracketology. A far more expressive world exists outside the imagined boundaries of 6LACK's sophomore album, much to his detriment. The repetitive strain of 6LACK's "reactionary logic" wears thin as a musical idea; it’s a classic scenario that persists within the specter of "Alt-R&B." A well-meaning individual like 6LACK could very well spend the rest of eternity chasing static energy for no definable reason. Suddenly he'll realize that the clamless shell he picked up on the beachfront does not actually consist of "love." On East Atlanta Love Letter, the frenetic chase almost becomes too difficult to ...

After a turbulent 2017, the historically independent Young Dolph signs his first partnership with Empire Distribution and delivers his fourth studio album. Young Dolph has scoffed at many lucrative record deals throughout his decade-long career, choosing instead to self-release mixtapes and albums under his own label, Paper Route Empire. With the proposed offers nearly doubling in the wake of his highly-publicized beef with fellow Memphis rapper Yo Gotti - one that has resulted in multiple attempts on Dolph’s life - even his most staunch supporters began to accept that the aging rapper would soon bow out of the good indie fight. And yet, “Fuck the 22 million!” was the prominent rallying cry leading up to the release of Dolph’s fourth studio album, Role Model. In lieu of the staggering offers being thrown his way, it seems as if Dolph ultimately settled on a partnership with Empire Distribution, one that allows him greater access to resources while still maintaining his hard-fought...

“On The Rvn,” Young Thug’s latest in a string of relatively minor releases, is his best solo offering of 2018. Recently, Young Thug’s career has existed in an odd limbo of sorts; after 2016’s Jeffery failed to deliver the sales becoming of Thug’s talent, the historically prolific artist became increasingly guarded with his output. On the Rvn, which was supposedly conceptualized earlier this month after a warrant was issued for his arrest in DeKalb County, Georgia, comes on the heels of last month’s compilation tape, Slime Language. Comprised of six tightly-constructed songs, half of which are produced by Thug’s fan-favorite producer, London On Da Track, this EP is being applauded as a return to form. However, this isn’t merely Thug going back to the basics. Rather, it’s a stark reminder of Thug’s versatility and the chameleon-like way in which he embodies and subsequently sheds his influences. Wherelast year’s Beautiful Thugger Girls sat comfortably ahead of the curve, blending ac...

Brockhampton's eclecticism is less jarring, but no less present on "Iridescence." Merlyn Wood's got a line on Iridescence opener "New Orleans" that pretty accurately sums up Brockhampton's approach thus far: "Fuck you and the bubble that you livin' in." A couple years into their discography, the group has expended a good deal of effort actively trying to burst free from conventions, whether those be identity or sound-based. You like alt-rap and hate "pop music"? These quirky rappers are huge Harry Styles and Shawn Mendes fans. You only listen to pop music? Well this "boyband" has quite a few abrasive aggro-rap cuts. You want to mosh to those tracks? Sorry, there's a guitar ballad in between them. You don't usually like white rappers? You might like these ones. You're racist or homophobic? This is the last place you want to be. This refusal to conform is the ethos by which Brockhampton live and die. At th...

Lupe drops his strongest effort since "The Cool," enough to erase our memories of "DROGAS Light." Lupe Fiasco’s DROGAS Wave is not an album you can listen to in a few days. That’s why when reviews for Fiasco’s seventh album started pouring online after just 48 hours, his fans were confused. The Chicago veteran is known for writing some of the densest yet compact verses in the game. A seven-song effort from Lupe may take months to break down. DROGAS Wave is more than three times that length, sitting at a lofty 24 tracks. There are still pieces of this project that are floating above the consciousness of everyone who listened to this album, including me. Some pieces of the puzzle feel obscure, while others stand out and are connected flawlessly. The sprawling album is one of Lupe’s best, although it does have its pitfalls. The basic concept being explained within this album was birthed from Lupe’s obsession with The Cool. Michael Young History played an integr...

Upon escaping Purgatory, Lil Wayne's "Tha Carter V" is enjoying the simple pleasures of Earth. Upon releasing 4:44, stalwart veteran Jay-Z provided a blueprint for his peers. It’s not uncommon to hear the album cited as a benchmark in modern discourse; it’s almost as if everybody wants hip-hop’s elder states-people to follow the Jigga Man’s example. For some, anything less than forty minutes of concise self-analysis is unacceptable. Wrongs must be righted, childhood haunts revisited. Recent releases from Kanye West, Eminem, and Nas found themselves on the receiving end of a motherly type of scorn: why can’t you be more like Jay-Z? Yet we can discern plenty about the aforementioned three through their previously released music. Lil Wayne, in keeping with his "Martian" persona, has largely remained enigmatic. Songs like “I Feel Like Dying” and “Shoot Me Down” toyed with Weezy’s inner anguish to varying degrees. Yet Wayne always seems to brush off deeper analy...