Lav's Music Corner

Slowthai is a British rapper who turned heads in 2019 with his explosive debut album Nothing Great About Britain . He crafted provocative and politically charged songs with a unique and hard-hitting take on grime and synonymous British rap genres. In the two years since he has massively expanded the scope of his collaborations appearing on tracks with Flume, Brockhampton, Denzel Curry, Amine and Gorillaz.  Review By Lav: I really enjoyed Slowthai's debut album. While he certainly had a sound he was comfortable with he consistently executed it and made for one explosive track after another. Since then he has shown up across a number of tracks showing off his versatility. Versatility has proven to be the word defining this era of Slowthai's music as the record is split into two halves. The first half is made up of tracks that would mostly fit in with his first record, in your face, hard-hitting bangers. The second half however shows a much more vulnerable and emotional side of Sl...

Rico Nasty is a Maryland based rapper who first rose to prominence in 2018 off of some hard-hitting trap singles fuzed with hard rock and metal music. In the years since she has expanded her profile, sound and range of collaborators specifically with a spot on the XXL Freshman list in 2019 and a collaborative mixtape with beat wiz Kenny Beats . With a number of mixtapes under her belt Rico released a number of singles in the lead up to Nightmare Vacation  which is serving as her debut album. Review By Lav: I expected to have this review out sooner but gathering my thoughts on the record has been surprisingly difficult. I should start by saying that this record is incredibly samey, at least 10 of its 15 tracks run along a nearly identical formula of short trap bangers with explosive beats and a mix of shouted and rapped vocals. There is also a similarly homogenized but smaller collection of tracks on the record that take a more R&B style approach and are rarely successful. What ...

Dominic Fike is a Florida based hip hop & R&B performer whose profile has grown majorly in the past year after featuring on numerous tracks from the Brockhampton camp and being signed to Columbia records. After being featured on a major commercial release earlier this year with Halsey's Manic , he geared up to release his debut record while his hype was at its peak. Review By Lavender: I was pulling for Dominic Fike, after he made some very solid contributions to Kevin Abstract and Brockhampton records last year and I enjoyed his Kenny Beats collaboration Phone Numbers . But when singles started dropping for this record it became very clear to me that Dominic was mainly looking to craft some quirky tik tok anthems with short simple refrains and heavy vocal manipulation. As much as I wished the entire record wasn't going to be like that, it is, and it's one of the worst thing I've heard this year. The lead single should have told me everything I needed to know ab...

Unlocked is the new collaborative EP from Florida rapper Denzel Curry and one of raps hottest producers Kenny Beats. The EP dropped with no singles attached to it and serves as the music behind a backing visual that saw the two downloading themselves into the internet to chase after leaked songs. They also claim that most of the beats and all of Curry's verses were recorded in just a 24 hour span. Review By Lavender: I am typically somebody who doesn't love these types of projects. Artists will take a shotgun approach to recording music and drop the output giving the project a unique story behind it, but the music often suffers as a result. I was more than willing to go into this project with open arms given that Denze and Kenny are both immensely talented and I've enjoyed so much music from them both in the past few years. Despite this Unlocked  suffers from some of the same pitfalls as records of its type tend to, though the two artists talents manage to shine thro...

JPEGMAFIA is a Baltimore rapper, producer and songwriter who emerged with his debut record Black Ben Carson  in 2016. After some collaborations, singles and shorter projects keeping him busy Peggy released his breakout sophomore record Veteran  to massive critical acclaim in 2018 and instantly became one of the most well respected voices in experimental hip hop. After a series of YouTube videos claiming that his next record would be a disappointment and two singles released he dropped Cornballs  just one year after breaking out out with Veteran . Review By Lavender: Veteran  is a great record, and I can hear the audible sigh of relief from Peggy stans who thought I might try and convince otherwise. While I didn't love the record quite as much as it seems like most people did it scored strongly on my year end list and had an incredibly high ceiling of great tracks. Suffering a little bit in its deeper cuts was the main disconnect between myself and the general ...

Rico Nasty is an up and coming voice in rap who has spent the past five years trying to nail down her style and hopping onto some trendy auto crooner beats, before dropping her Nasty mixtape in 2018 after signing to Atlantic records. Nasty  was a big change of pace that saw her taking on some much harder beats and a much more explosive delivery in line with the emerging trend of SoundCloud rap. Kenny Beats is a west coast producer who has been blowing up the past few years making beats for the likes of Vince Staples, Jpegmafia, A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, Travis Scott, Quavo and of course Rico Nasty. The duo has some solid collaborations in their history and chose to drop this album without a ton of promo.  Review By Lavender: Given how little notice I was on before this album actually dropped I didn't really get the time to build up my expectations sky high. But I don't really think I would have either, Kenny Beats is a pretty good producer but one that definitely has ...