Lav's Music Corner

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...

Boldy James & The Alchemist are a pairing of Detroit and California rapper and producer who first met up last year on the critically acclaimed The Price Of Tea In China . Both artists have proven to be quite prolific recently with Alchemist scoring critical successes last year alongside Freddie Gibbs and this year with Armand Hammer. Boldy dropped a number of projects in 2020 headlined by China  and the Sterling Toles collaboration Manger On McNichols .  Review By Lav: In the past 16 months Boldy James has gone from a rapper I had only ever heard mentioned in passing, to somebody whose every move I am anticipating in 2021. His brand of storytelling and lethal vocal delivery made for effective and often conceptual hip hop tracks and has already been attracting the attention of some legendary producers. Boldy and Alchemist's second collaboration in as many years has massive potential and while the record is quite good, neither of them does anything we haven't heard them do b...

The Alchemist is a legendary hip hop producer whose discography really speaks for itself at this point. He is a veteran of the craft but has maintained a pretty prolific output both of solo material, collaborations and one off production credits pretty much every year. In 2020 The Alchemist wowed alongside Freddie Gibbs with Alfredo  and even earlier this year saw another collaboration released with New York underground hip hop duo Armand Hammer.  Review By Lav: The Alchemist's discography really does speak for itself, and any hip hop fan will likely tell you the same thing. He puts out so much music that not every single thing he touches necessarily turns to gold but when he is on, there is almost nobody better. Historically his solo material hasn't always provided necessarily the best of the best Alchemist work but with this short EP recruiting a stacked feature list there was no reason to believe it wouldn't be another hit, and for the most part he delivers Nobles  is ...