Lav's Music Corner

Black Thought & Danger Mouse are a pair of veteran producer and even more veteran MC who have had their hands in dozens of classic records respectfully. After teasing a collaboration for years the pair have finally delivered a proper full length record and brought many high profile friends along with them.  Review by Lav: I love these two. From Danger Mouse's versatile and impressive catalog of production which is nearing two decades of work to Black Thought's time with The Roots and his continued success as a soloist. It's through this lens that the title of this record Cheat Codes  starts to make a lot of sense. The level of professionalism in the delivery and creation of these lo-fi and jazz inspired hip hop tracks really is a cheat code and the pair live up to it.  I was pretty sure this was gonna be good based solely on who made it, but the trio of singles certainly helped. No Gold Teeth  left my rotation at some point in the past few months and I don't know...

This week was light on content for a reason, I'm on vacay <3. But I have found the time to catch-up on a few records I've been meaning to talk about and I'll be back soon to cover Torres, Billie Eilish and a bunch of other new releases I'm excited about.  Afro Pessimist  - Censored Dialogue CENSORED Dialogue is a rapper who I first discovered from their absolute tour de force performance on the Backxwash song Terror Packets  from her album earlier this year. I was so impressed with the verse and the directly personal approach through which Censored Dialogue handled trans issues that I wanted to know what else they had done. I was surprised to find an album that was much more conventionally hip hop than Backxwash, with production that could easily be slotted into many contemporary rap albums that have a classic instrumental flare. The lyrical subject matter here is also much more commentary on race and racial politics than trans issues. Neither of these things are a c...

Your Old Droog is a New York rapper who was once suspected of being a pseudonym of Nas, but has since established himself as one of the most acclaimed and prolific rappers in the rap underground. He kicked off 2021 with a pair of collaborative albums with Tha God Fahim and is keeping his pace up with one of his most fleshed out and thematically conceptual projects he's released in years in Time . Review By Lav: Droog is a fun artist to watch and one of my favorite voices in underground hip hop. He released a trio of studio albums in 2019 highlighted by the excellent Transportation  and followed it up with a busy back half of 2020 and early 2021 which resulted in 3 more projects. I was excited to see Droog returning to solo work, especially with what seemed like one of his most fleshed out and thematically connected projects in a few years. Time  totally lived up to my hype and delivers not only on Droog's classic formula of creative beat choices and lowkey delivery, but also s...

CZARFACE is the collaborative hip hop project of Boston duo 7L and Esoteric alongside New York MC and Wu-Tang member Inspectah Deck. The group had a few records under their belt already before originally collaborating with hip hop legend MF DOOM on 2018's Czarafce Meets Metal Face . Since then they released a handful of other projects including a critically successful team up with fwllow Wu-Tang alum Ghostface Killah in 2019. Super What?  is the first time we have heard new MF DOOM music since it was announced at the tail end of last year that he had passed away, and its unclear how much material he left behind.  Review By Lav: While I've always been a fan of CZARFACE, most of the hype I had going into this record was for hearing MF DOOM again. I have all the respect in the world for DOOM's talent and was incredibly broken up by his passing. On top of my admiration for his work I also enjoyed his previous collaboration with the CZARFACE boys. There was no reason for me to t...

Madlib is one of hip hop's all time great producers whose crate digging underground style became hugely influential in the 2000's. In the 2010's he continued to influence with a pair of massively acclaimed collaborative albums with Freddie Gibbs as well as being credited with production on tracks from a number of the daceded biggest rap records. While this is a record unlike any others Madlib has ever released under hit own name it is also a collaboration of sorts as co-production and mixing credits across the album are given to Kieran Hebden AKA microhouse legend Four Tet.  Review By Lav: I was excited for this record for a couple reasons. Obviously whenever Madlib puts his name to anything there is a quality standard you anticipate given his unmatched pedigree. But I was also excited that there aren't many albums you could consider true solo Madlib records and the prospect of him putting his own artistic vision to this records entirety entice me. Not to mention that I...

Your Old Droog is a New York rapper and predominant old head who rose to popularity across 2014 and 2015 when many believed his early mixtapes were Nas rapping under an alternate persona. After revealing himself to the public Droog dropped his first big breakout album Packs  in 2017 and has released a number of features and a set of looseys since then, as well as one single leading up to this album. Review By Lavender: Droog is truly an old head's rapper, more so now than ever before. Coming from New York he matches stylistically with the conscious and lyrical flavors of rap music that came out of the east coast in the 90's, carrying the torch for artists like Wu-Tang, Mobb Deep and of course Nas. Packs  actually surprised me with its variety in sound and consistently sharp performances, this was the album that proved to me just how capable Droog was of blended the sounds of new and old into sharp and intelligent hip hop for the ages. But on It Wasn't Even Close ...

Czarface Meets Ghostface is a collaborative hip hop album between hip-hop supergroup Czarface, made up of producer 7L, MC Esoteric and former Wu-Tang member Inspectah Deck, with another former Wu-Tang member Ghostface Killah. The project is a spiritual sequel to last years Czarface, Meets Metalface collaboration with MF DOOM. Given the classic rap pedigree of the MCs and the consistent success of all involved in recent years and collaborations there was no reason not to expect high quality performances across the board on this collaboration. Review By Lavender: Both of the Czarface albums are good, the MF DOOM collab album last year was good, Ghostface Killah is good, all of his collab albums are good, Wu-Tang is good. I expected this to be good. It is good. This review is gonna be redundant because I know this is a good album and so do you. Nothing you'll hear on here is new from the oldhead inspired lowkey beats and superhero themes to the tight lyricism and c...

We're back. And what a shitty week to be back. Some real digging had to be done to assemble 10 tracks I can genuinely reccomend to you this week, but I've done it nonetheless so let's get started. 10. "The City" YG Hootie (Ft. Kendrick Lamar) YG Hootie shows his lack of experience as an MC all over this track. Barely stumbling through offbeat meaningless bars the song actually turns out pretty good for what it is. Kendrick is quality as always but nothing special for his status. The chorus really brings it home, it's simple and catchy, which is really what makes this one worth returning to. YG Hootie by himself doesn't seem like an appealing proospect and his next track may not even make enough noise to come across my glance, but this song is just good enough. 9. "Blue Pill" Metro Boomin (Ft. Travis Scott) Blue Pill is exactly what it is. Metro Boomin produces just like he always does  distant, base heavy, and trap flavored. Travis Sc...