Lav's Music Corner

Reviews by Lavender: For this week's rapid fire reviews, I'm taking a look at some rap albums I missed from earlier this year, with the underlying theme of artists who I absolutely adored at one point in their career. That's pretty much it, glad I finally got to talk about a lot of these. Enjoy! 13 Months Of Summer  - Amine My soft spot for Amine has been around for basically his entire career. Since the moment I first heard his song “Caroline,” overflowing with Amine's own charm and charisma, I was hooked on his catchy flows and sense of humor. On the flip side of that, I think most of his projects tend to be on the inconsistent side, including the last time we heard from him on a collaborative record with Kaytranada that seemed like a slam dunk, but didn't quite live up to it. In fact, 2020’s Limbo remains the only time in Amine's career that he's put it all together and made a truly great album.  13 Months Of Sunshine led off with a pair of vibey single...

Review by Lavender:  McKinley Dixon is a Virginia rapper who has spent this decade rising higher and higher as a critical darling of hip-hop. That began in 2021 with his album For My Mama And Anyone Who Look Like Her , which I liked a lot. That trek continued onto 2023's Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!?  which I was equally fond of. I got the chance to interview McKinley at the end of 2023, and he sounded like someone who knew their work wasn't done yet. which is why I was so excited to hear from him again. On Magic, Alive! , he delivered everything I could ask for and more.  After a short intro, the album begins with its lead single “Sugar Water,” whose jazzy instrumental with wandering sax lines and bouncy piano kick-starts the record immediately. McKinley pops up three times on the song, and he's pretty much flawless with each and every appearance. Guest rapper Quelle Chris can't nearly match that energy, and as a result, the vibrant instrumental kind of floods him out, wh...

Moor Mother is the musical project of Camae Ayewa a Philly based artist who has dabbled in numerous experimental takes on hip hop, jazz and spoken word across 4 studio albums. In 2020 she ramped up her output with a pair of collaborative records, first teaming up with Mental Jewelry for the Moor Jewelry record True Opera . Then followed it up with the billy woods pairing BRASS . Her experimental sound and sonic fusions have made her a critical darling across the last few years.  Review By Lav: I was late on Moor Mother I'm willing to admit that. 2016's Fetish Bones  slid by me and I didn't hear it until 2018 at which point I still didn't fully get it. Last years Moor Jewelry project was what really made it click for me and revisiting some of Moor Mother's older records at which point I really came around to her discography. That plus a couple of singles that I really dug got me excited for Black Encyclopedia Of The Air  and that proved to be for good reason. The rec...

Hopefully this is the first of a lot more rapid fire reviews in the coming weeks as I've got a lot of catching up to do. First things first. There have been a number of high profile records coming from the experimental and alternative realms of hip hop that I'm putting under the "outsider hip hop" umbrella even though the sounds don't necessarily have a ton of similarity.  Long Term Effects Of SUFFERING  - $uicideboy$ Any $uicideboy$ fan that's ever interacted with me on Twitter can tell you that I have a shaky relationship with Ruby and $crim as of recent. Even though I enjoyed their I Want To Die In New Orleans  album since then they've released a Travis Barker collaboration that missed me completely , as well as a mixtape that didn't leave much of an impact . If there is a silver lining to Long Term  when viewed from a big picture lens it's that the band clearly put more effort into this release. At the very least this collection of short songs ...

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 ...