Lav's Music Corner

Drake needs no introduction, come on guys. Review by Lav:  Drake hate is so corny in 2023. Much like every single new album cycle people who probably didn't listen to For All The Dogs  came out of their caves to bash it relentlessly. Thankfully this is so routine at this point that the tactic gets easier and easier to ignore every time. The best I can do to contribute to the discourse is actually try and digest the material he's releasing and give an honest reflection about it. As if it wasn't already the most obvious thing on earth, the truth about the album lies somewhere in between Drake's devoted haters and his biggest fans. I won't break down every single moment of For All The Dogs  as like many Drake albums it is TOO long. Drake is limited artistically and his songwriting lacks the scope and ambition to make an 80-minute album feel fresh throughout. I think he realizes that because this album is absolutely stacked with talented collaborators. Normally that h...

Earthgang are a hip hop duo composed of Doctor Dot and Johnny Venus from Atlanta who originally founded the rap collective Spillage Village, before joining J. Cole's Dreamville label a few years ago. That led to their debut album Mirrorland  in 2019 as well as a prominent spot on Revenge Of The Dreamers III  and the Spillage Village album in 2020. Ghetto Gods  is the highly anticipated sophomore album which the band teased with a trio of singles dating back to last year. Review By Lav: I had the same read that most people did of Earthgang's debut Mirrorland . While it showed immense potential and had some huge highlights it was also decidedly bloated and a little thematically inconsistent. As for those two issues they have fixed the thematic inconsistencies quite a bit on this record with strong song concepts that connect throughout the record and create a dynamic tracklist. As for the bloated tracklist that is less remedied and more pivoted. There are very few songs on t...

J. Cole is a North Carolina based rapper who is now over a decade into his career. He has had a bit of an interesting relationship with the reception of his albums. While each of his projects have been major commercial successes he hasn't necessarily won over critics with the exception of his 2014 Forrest Hills Drive  project. Though he is consistently cited as a lyrically strong and socially conscious rapper, he has never achieved the level of acclaim as some of his contemporaries.  Review By Lav: I think I stand in a pretty similar place to most people, particularly other critics, when it comes to J. Cole. While he reps my home state that still doesn't make up for plenty of his projects being padded out with incredibly mediocre additions and mislead lyrical themes. This sort of came to a head last year when J. Cole was publicly called out for his lack of political awareness by Noname and made a track and statement essentially denying that he was ever trying to be socially co...

Earthgang are an Atlanta based hip hop duo comprised of MC's Johnny Venus and Doctur Dot. They released a number of mixtapes in the first half of this decade building up their profile through features and their association with hip hop and R&B supergroup Spillage Village. After signing to J. Cole's Dreamville label they featured a number of times on the labels compilation record earlier this year and spring-boarded that into their major label debut Mirrorland . Review By Lavender: While Earthgang have been on my radar for a while and I've been stopping in to check on their music routinely I made the choice to skip reviewing the records until they dropped something more substantial or popular and ultimately I do wish I had reviewed them. But retrospectively they were mostly the process of a duo finding themselves musically and evolving up to this moment, where they have signed to J. Cole's Dreamville records and got the spotlight on their compilation project...

Young Thug is an Atlanta hip hop artist who arrived in a wave of trap music in the mid 2000's coming with connections to artists like Gucci Mane, Migos and Travis Scott, eventually dropping a critically acclaimed and commercially successful debut Barter 6 . In 2016 Thugger released what many believe to be his magnum opus record with Jeffery  which was cited by numerous publications as one of the best albums of the year and spawned many fan favorite and cult-classic tunes. Since then he has released one studio album focused on a specific experiment, as well as a number of collaborative albums and EPs with various artists, but So Much Fun  seems to be a more focused and important entry into his ever growing discography. Review by Lavender: Young Thug has long been one of the best personalities in hip hop, both with hilarious and zany lyrics and performances, as well as a killer personality and thirst for experimentation in the genre. He got off to a fantastic start to his...

YBN Cordae is a Maryland raised rapper and member of the YBN Collective trio with YBN Nahmir and YBN Almighty Jay. Last year YBN Nahmir was selected as a XXL freshman and his solid performance brought more attention to the trio and at the end of the year they released their YBN: The Mixtape . On top of this YBN Cordae drew attention to himself with his response track to J. Cole's 1985  track from his KOD album and after being named a XXL Freshman in 2019 and releasing a number of well received singles expectations and hopes were high for his debut record. Review By Lavender: Ever since I first heard the sharply written argument Cordae made to J. Cole in his response track to 1985  I was anticipating what he would do next at every point for over a year. While I was very disappointed by the YBN Mixtape  Cordae has been pretty much undefeated in 2019 thus far. He killed his XXL freshman cover opportunity delivering an excellent freestyle and an even better cypher perf...

Every year this list gets closer and closer to being the "Top 10 Guests SPOTS", as the mainstream catches up with the feature trend that's been in rap as long as there's been rap. Lana Del Rey/The Weeknd, Iglooghost/Mr. Yote and Charli XCX/Carly Rae Jepsen all made solid cases but for likely the last year ever the "Guest" list is limited to rap features. And in a time when there's more rap than ever before it was exciting to know that any day there could be a 200th Young Thug/Travis Scott song or exactly as likely something wildly new like DRAM/Neil Young. This year's list isn't quite as full of surprises as years prior but it's no doubt full of just as good performances. 10. J. Cole - "Legendary" by Joey Bada$$ Who'd have thought that in 2017 J. Cole would be less corny, what a time to be alive. Joey's VERY low key approach made it easy for Cole to hop in and ride along a jazzy, smooth beat and deliver his trad...