Lav's Music Corner

Review by Lavender: billy woods is simultaneously one of the most prolific and most acclaimed voices in the rap underground. Releasing multiple projects a year, pretty much every year, with a variety of collaborators, he seemingly never runs out of clever turns of phrase and stories to tell. While his talent is obvious, I've often expressed my issues with his prolific output, which often creates multiple solid records when one great record could have easily sufficed. That's not the case with GOLLIWOG , an album whose conceptual ambitions and frequent highlights feel like they come from another world than even some of the more acclaimed billy projects in recent years. It's why I can recommend the record full stop, even to those who haven't been as in love with billy woods as some critics, as I think it's his best album of this decade so far.  I went into GOLLIWOG already more excited than I would be for any old billy woods record. Much of that was because of the lea...

Noname is a Chicago rapper whose blend of political wordplay and reserved demeanor made her a critical darling in the 2010s. Her two studio albums Telefone  and Room 25  were both met with massive acclaim and now her third album Sundial  is arriving 5 years after her previous. Review by Lav: This one took some time. I've been a huge fan of Noname for a long time which makes things complicated for me as a critic. Her relationship with her fans, particularly her white fans, has always been turbulent. That turbulence became even more difficult to process when Noname found herself in quite a bit of controversy for including Jay Electronica on the album, let's go right ahead to there.  balloons  is one of the best songs on this album. Both Noname and Jay Electronica crush their verses and the hook is absolutely wonderful too. The issue, is the content of Jay Elec's verse on both this song and almost all of his performances. His signature anti-semitism is of course on...

I think it would be funny if this piece just included me reviewing all THREE of the projects Youngboy has dropped in the first half of the year but I already ruined it by covering the first one back in January, RIP.  WON'T HE DO IT  - Conway The Machine Griselda rapper Conway The Machine is on a hot streak. The first of his projects I formally covered was 2020s From A King To A God  which I thought was just okay but it didn't take long for him to one-up himself on the next year's mixtape La Maquina . He then turned around the very next year and dropped by far his best project to date and one of the best Griselda projects period God Don't Make Mistakes , so despite his prolific release schedule there was plenty of reason to be excited for this. Unfortunately, it becomes pretty clear on this record that Conway is serving up some form of leftovers with this tracklist as the songs feel consistently undercooked. The easiest place to tell is on the instrumental side of things...

5.  Portraits  - Panchiko There's been at least something to admire about pretty much all of the new Panchiko singles so far and this one is the best so far at pinning down the crackling nostalgia and lo-fi textures of their surprise classic material. The glitchiness of the song impugns a character that's entirely unique from their other songs while also feeling physically aged as you listen to it.  Listen 4.  FaceTime  - billy woods & kenny segal (feat. Samuel T. Herring) If you're familiar with the names involved in this song then it sounds exactly what you're imagining it will. There are no surprises here just a successful blending of styles with kenny's often poignant and jazzy production serving as a perfect middle man for the vocals. The high contrast of billy's gritty vocal delivery on the verses and Sam's subtle hook sounds great.  Listen 3.  Back In Office  - Saba & No I.D. Saba and No I.D are teaming up for a mixtape coming soon ...

I'm pretty sure there's more rap music out there than I could possibly critique in a single calendar year, much less alongside all the other stuff I'd like to review. Once again I'm doing my best to cover some of the more critically acclaimed and relevant hip-hop records of the underground this year. Nothing To Declare  - 700 Bliss 700 Bliss is a collaborative project between queen of the underground Moor Mother and DJ Haram. The project's first release was the Spa 700  EP all the way back in 2018 and they're now adding on to a very prolific streak for Moor Mother in the past few years with a full length debut. Like many Moor Mother projects, this one is particularly hard to define with conventional genre labels and even across the record's first run you'll get tracks with stuttering electronic beats that are more dance than hip hop and features singing muddled but easily identifiable pop melodies. The relatively short song lengths and 16 tracks that mak...

As we round the corner towards the end of the year it's time to start catching up on records that I didn't get a chance to review earlier before it's time to write my end of year lists. In this first set of more concise reviews we will cover a collection of hip hop records from 2020 by artists who made noise in their respective niches. Shrines - Armand Hammer On the newest collaboration from rapper Billy Woods and producer Elucid you really know what you're in for. The beats here work with a jazz rap fundamental but consistently push it into other worlds crafting some harsher and more abstract beats across the album than you may typically hear on a conscious rap project of the like. Billy Woods intoxicating and confrontational voice adds grit to some of the more narrative driven or politically charged moments on the album and guests like R.A.P Ferreira and Earl Sweatshirt make notable appearances. The only major problem I have with the record is Billy's constant sl...