Lav's Music Corner

These are reviews of 5 records that I was pretty sure weren't going to top my albums of the year list, but I nonetheless wanted to talk about because of the significance of the artists behind them.  AM I THE DRAMA?  - Cardi B Cardi B's story is something I've always been very interested in. After years of teasing the release of a sophomore record, I really thought she might have waited too long to capitalize on any of the meteoric hype she generated from 2017 to 2020. Now that the record is out and being digested by fans, the verdict is very much still out. One person who thinks about Cardi's place in popular culture even more than I do is Cardi herself. Her debatably triumphant return is the subject of the first two tracks on the record, the pretty good "Dead" and the mediocre "Hello." While Cardi does a lot of flexing on the record, the results are pretty inconsistent, and the best victory lap she takes on the song "Check Please" outclass...

Earl Sweatshirt really needs no introduction for hip-hop fans at this point. The Odd Future alum has transitioned his edgier, more provocative rap style into a much more earnest and human darkness as the years pass and collected heaps of critical acclaim every step of the way. I'll tip my hand and say that I got to catch the record early at a listening party Earl threw in LA. Because of that I went into my first proper listen already knowing that Earl recently became a father. As a result, both the sonic and thematic palettes have taken a turn for the brighter, but none of his unmistakable talent has faded in the transition.  That's how the album starts, with "gsw vs sac." It has this vibrant psychedelic instrumental that sets up the record's woozier sonic palette. It also concludes with a spoken word passage about introspecting and facing problems rather than running away from them, which feels perfectly aligned with the album's themes of fatherhood and matur...

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...

Editors Note: Hello angels, Lavender here. I'm about to tell you the full story of this Nav review. I've been hard at work on this review of the new Jane Remover album Revengeseekerz   for Ringtone Magazine , something that took quite a bit of time and attention away from this blog, but was worth it because I'm REALLY happy with the final piece. In the meantime, I started to speak to some friends about contributing guest reviews for projects I didn't get the chance to cover while I was busy. Surprisingly, the first to come through was from a 100% unserious joke request for one of my girlfriends to review the new Nav record. Transparently, I find the record exhaustingly boring and hadn't considered covering it myself at all. To my surprise, she leaped at the opportunity to suffer through its 36-minute runtime and collect her thoughts into a review. It's my honor to present to you the debut album review from my girlfriend Megan, in its entirety, below.  Review by ...

Review by Lavender: Backxwash is a rapper who garnered tons of attention and acclaim for a trilogy of albums she released between 2020 and 2022. The projects combined a thunderous style of hip-hop crossed with an embrace for classical metal stylings and screamed vocals. In combination with her vulnerability and willingness to discuss harrowing subject matter, the resulting music was extremely intense and extremely unique. The trilogy ended with my favorite release of the bunch HIS HAPPINESS SHALL COME FIRST EVEN THOUGH WE ARE SUFFERING  which is among my favorite rap albums of this entire decade so far. So needless to say I was pretty excited for her return.  The two singles this album led with had my expectations as high as ever. "Wake Up" is a thunderous epic of a song that really blew me away last year and I still absolutely love it. It's a multi-faceted composition that slips in and out of its different passages flawlessly and the way it always circles back around to ...

Review by Lavender: Clipping  is a rap trio that in certain circles needs absolutely no introduction. One of those circles being my long-time readers as I've always been a huge fan of the band. I dished out a lot of retrospective acclaim to their progressive rap masterpiece from 2014 and their highly conceptual follow-up a few years later. I was also a big fan of their multi-album indulgence into horror-core which resulted in the excellent 2020 album Visions Of Bodies Being Burned , their best record yet and one I called my album of the year for 2020. But it's been a long 5 years since then and what the group returned with is a shift in style to the equally conceptual world of cyberpunk. While they tackle the new sound and style with just as much commitment, it's far and away the dorkiest thing I've ever heard them do, which is an issue at points.  Dead Channel Sky  isn't precisely a tale of two halves but a majority of the highlights pop up on the first half, which...

Review by Lavender: Playboi Carti is a rapper who rose rapidly to popularity around 2016 on the back of a few viral hits on his self-titled debut mixtape. That was followed by two records that played with unique sounds in the highly-populated world of trap music and both garnered substantial critical acclaim. 2018's Die Lit remains a personal favorite of mine whose woozy psychedelic beats remain undeniable to this day. That was followed in late 2020 by Whole Lotta Red  which substantially switched up Carti's sound and became highly influential in the worlds of vamp and rage. After several release dates were announced and never followed up on and a series of singles were uploaded to YouTube last year, we've finally arrived at Carti's follow-up. Music , by comparison, is even more all over the place than its predecessor though it delivers a comparable energy. What it doesn't deliver is anywhere near as dramatic a progression in his style or ethos as I was hoping for. ...

Lil Baby Lil Baby is an Atlanta rapper whose music I've never particularly cared for. I have stuck my neck out twice to at least pay him a little bit of love on a pair of collaborative projects. That included his breakthrough Drip Harder  alongside Gunna in 2018 and his album The Voice Of The Heroes  alongside Lil Durk a few years later. But as far as his own studio albums go I can't say I've enjoyed any of them a bit. Hit completely flavorless style and AI-generated lyricism almost do enough to mask just how unpleasant his voice is to listen to, almost. But on WHAM  he takes a risk or two that pays off, not enough to make the album good but enough to make it marginally more enjoyable than some of his others.  This is gonna be a quick review, because if you've ever heard any Lil Baby music before you already know exactly what most of this album sounds like. Let me bring up some of the highlights though. "Dum, Dumb, And Dumber" has been one of the breakthrough ...

Bad Bunny is one of the singular biggest stars in all of music and when he drops, a substantial portion of the world pays attention. That became the case more than ever before in 2022 when his album Un Verano Sin Ti  took the world by storm and also won over critics with some of his most compelling and beloved songs to date. That was less the case with last year's nadie sabe  a record that I along with most fans and critics felt was a bit of a letdown as a follow-up. But now right at the dawn of 2025 Bad Bunny is back, with what very well could be his best crop of tracks to date.  If you're surprised to hear me say that it's probably because I didn't love the album's lead single El Club  last year. The track is all about Bad Bunny being in the club but still stuck thinking about whatever his ex is doing. My biggest problem is that neither of its two distinct instrumental styles really do much for me and the dime switch it makes between them definitely needed another...

Rap is one of those genres where I'll never be able to keep up with all the relevant releases. I do my best and there are still way more than just these 5 records that slipped through the cracks, so let's try and catch up.  The Thief Next To Jesus  - Ka This one hurts. I wanted to cover this record but it came out in a busy week and slipped past me when I took vacation but I certainly would have prioritized it if I could go back in time in the wake of the news of Ka's tragic death. Through that lens it's worth looking at this record with a closer gaze than what I'm able to here. In fact, it's probably worth pouring over his entire excellent discography to pull out highlights. His finale album The Thief Next To Jesus  is fittingly soaked in Christian themes, something he's indulged in before on records like 2020's Descendents Of Cain . But in particular on this record through both his own lyrics and several perfectly selected samples, he examines the hist...