Lav's Music Corner

King's Disease III  - Nas Unlike the bar on the opening track where Nas says he "doesn't drop often", this is the third album in the KD series in as many years. The combination of Nas and Hit-Boy has been pumping out songs recently and while I thought the first King's Disease  was just okay, the second one really did impress me . So if Nas took another step forward on the third edition it has the potential to be one of his best albums since Illmatic . At the very least Nas pulls off the level of lyrical proficiency you'd expect, as does Hit-Boy with the beats. Even when this record isn't operating at its best it does at least sound good. One of the primary issues I have with the album gets back to the recent over-exposure of Nas as this record sounds extremely familiar. From the beats to the hooks to the subject matter Nas is rapping about there's just a lot here that feels closer to routine. Thankfully, I still find the music here pretty exciting, and...

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...