Lav's Music Corner

Pop Smoke was a New York drill rapper who was tragically murdered last year, and has since proven to be a force of commercial music. Faith  is Pop Smoke's 2nd posthumous album and likely to be his 2nd #1 album, following last years Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon . Just a few days before the record the tracklist and production credits for the album were revealed, showing off a myriad of talented features.  Review By Lav: It's always difficult to review a posthumous record, since it can often have so little creative input from the artist whose name it's released under. In the recent years, hip hop in particular has frequently been criticized for it's posthumous records which either release recordings that are clearly unfinished and shouldn't be heard by the masses, or packing the songs full of trendy features that the original artist would have never worked with. This record does both, but it isn't quite as bad as it seems like at the outset. The biggest pr...

Migos are an Atlanta rap trio consisting of Quavo, Offset and Takeoff whose sound in the middle of the 2010's was extremely influential to the culture and style of mainstream trap rap that still persists to this day. The duo first broke out with a series of hits from their early mixtapes and cemented their status with their universally acclaimed 2017 album Culture . After the follow-up Culture II  along with each of the rappers solo records were all critiqued for the bands routine and omnipresent sound, they took a few years of studio album silence.  Review By Lav: At this point, the Migos are who they are. I wasn't expecting Culture III  to be any kind of major change of style for the trio and it isn't. If you're familiar with the band you pretty much know what you're getting with this record, which can be a blessing and a curse. There are plenty of tracks here particularly on the first half that see Migos executing their formula very well, but when there's a f...

Kid Cudi aka Scott Mescudi is an Ohio born R&B and hip hop artist who first made a name for himself on the druggy and psychedelic Man On The Moon  records in 2009 and 2010. Since then Kid Cudi has released some material that received widespread backlash from critics with 2012's WZRD  and 2013's Indicud  but reached a new peak of critical ire in 2015 when he released Speedin Bullet 2 Heaven an album that many consider to be one of the worst of the entire 2010's. After releasing a better received record in 2016 then collaborating with Kanye West as Kids See Ghosts  Cudi seems to have recouped some of his reputation as hype for Man On The Moon 3  was incredibly high despite it's lack of any singles.  Review By Lav: I certainly wouldn't consider myself a Kid Cudi fan. Speedin Bullet 2 Heaven  is mostly deserving of its reputation but I'm even more willing to pick a fight with one of my least favorite albums of the entire decade Indicud . The first...

Pop Smoke was an up and coming rapper from New York who became one of the most prominent voices of the cities drill scene off of his hit song Welcome To The Party last year. Pop Smoke was tragically murdered in February of this year, a crime for which arrests were just made this week. Shoot For The Stars  is his posthumous debut album which was unfinished at the time of his death and was completed under the guise of executive producer 50 Cent. The record also attracted some controversy directed at designer Virgil Abloh for his original album cover design, which was changed before the records release.  Review By Lavender: Just typing the words posthumous debut album is something I find difficult, especially in the case of an artist like Pop Smoke who had so much creative and artistic potential ahead of him. While I have never outright loved any of his music he was carving out a unique lane for himself with unmistakable vocals and a thirst to push further beyond the mundane soun...