Lav's Music Corner

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: 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 ...

I've had people ask me in the past why some of the biggest rap albums around always get lumped into rapid fire reviews. The main reason is that most of them are supremely boring and trying to conjure full reviews on almost any of them would be impossible. An even better reason is that they are so god damn long it's fucking ridiculous. And unlike some of the good long albums I've covered in recent years so many of these records trail over the same territory over and over. So once again, here are some reviews of big rap albums that I don't have the time or patience to cover in full. INSANO  - Kid Cudi I haven't liked anything Kid Cudi has done in a LONG time. There's a spare track or two off of his 2016 album Passion Pain & Demon Slayin  that I thought were pretty good as well as a few Kids See Ghosts songs I think are okay. But for the most part I haven't come away from a Cudi record with positive feelings since literally the first Man On The Moon . I tho...

Every year there are literally dozens and dozens, maybe even hundreds of trap records that either get reccomended to me or hyped up somewhere significant online. While I do cover major releases or records I anticipate being particularly good I wanted to take some time to play catch up with contemporary raps predominate sound, and it probably won't be the last time this year I do.  Trip At Knight  - Trippie Redd Even though I have reviewed Trippie a few times in the past I decided to skip out on his two most recent major releases. Last years Pegasus  was a bloated and very boring project that I didn't review because I didn't really have anything to say about it. He followed it up with the Travis Barker collaboration Neon Shark  which I was hesitant of because of just how often Travis pops up on terrible trap music these days, but I actually thought it turned out decent. Given that it was really just a deluxe release of Pegasus  I never got around to it but Trip A...

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 ...

21 Savage & Metro Boomin   are a pairing of some of contemporary hip hops most prominent voices and producers in the current game. The two originally connected on a full length project in 2016 when 21 Savage was an up and coming voice in the Atlanta hip hop scene and Metro Boomin was one of the most in demand producers after working with Kanye West and Drake. Since then they have both grown even further in notoriety and achieved commercial and critical success with projects of their own. For many trap fans Savage Mode II  was one of the most anticipated rap records of the year.  Review By Lavender: Balancing the tone of this review is going to be a little bit difficult. Because of how much I've enjoyed 21 Savage's music in recent years Savage Mode II  was one of my most anticipated releases of the year. While ultimately the album lives up the veteran caliber of its primary artists, that is all it does. The lack of many true standout moments here as well as some p...

DaBaby is a Charlotte based rapper who blew up last year with a couple huge singles, and has kept his profile high through 2020 off of a number of successful features. Review By Lavender: If you'll refer to my last review you may remember that DaBaby was an artist I was pulling for initially. He's from my home town and gave Charlotte a chance to get on the map for hip hop and some of his biggest singles are not bad songs, particularly the excellent Intro from his last record and his marquee feature on Camila Cabello's My Oh My . But DaBaby's short time in the spotlight has shown off two things very quickly. Firstly he is quite the problematic character as he is constantly embroiled in new controversy just about everywhere he goes, and secondly and much more importantly for our purposes here he has proven to be a pretty one note artist and Blame It On Baby  shows that even further. The record had two singles that didn't have me very confident in Baby's vers...

Ugly God is a Houston based trap rapper who blew up in 2017 with his hilarious demenor and unique personality on viral tracks like Water  and Fuck Ugly God . After his first mixtape The Booty Tape  was met with critical shrugs he took some time off and even contemplated retiring before dropping two singles earlier this year which serve as bonus tracks for this very record, then dropping the his debut album full of original material. Review By Lavender: Ugly God is somebody I've always placed under the category of "Meme Rapper" so it was easy for me to sing along to great tracks like Water  and Fuck Ugly God  but as he grows it seems he has more and more of a desire to be taken more seriously and on The Booty Tape  I wasn't surprised to hear him try to sound a little bit more conventional, and come up short. Given how long it has been since that record and how little we've heard from him, by trap rapper standards at least I didn't have much anticipation ...

Jaden Smith is an actor, rapper and fashion icon who is the son of another famed multi-talented figure Will Smith. After releasing a number of songs as a child and an increasing output of singles Jaden saw fit to release his commercial debut record SYRE  in 2017.  He followed that very thematic concept album with the looser collection of tracks on the critically panned Sunset Tapes  last year. Now with little notice Jaden is releasing his second true studio album and companion piece to SYRE , ERYS . Review By Lavender: I was worried going into ERYS for a number of reasons and I was kind of hoping Jaden would move on from this approach going forward. SYRE  was a decent album with some high points in it's tracklist but one that ran far, far too long and featured plenty of misguided songs that served no purpose on the records themes or were sonic misses. Pair this with the painfully breezy brevity of Jaden's follow-up The Sunset Tapes  and the fact that...

Smokepurpp is a Florida SoundCloud rapper who blew up on the back of his 2017 single Audi  which would eventually land on 2017 moderately well received Deadstar  mixtape. After a less favorable collaboration with Murda Beatz on Bless Yo Trap  Smokepurpp is prepping to release his proper debut album and dropped two singles along with this EP to help tide fans over until the full album drops. Review By Lavender: Smokepurpp has spent the last two years coming close to sounding special. I've really enjoyed some of his singles and he's gotten really creative on some deep cuts that helped separate him from the field. The problem is that every project Purpp has dropped so far has drowned these great creative tracks with painfully generic and indistinguishable trap tunes. Quite literally like clockwork Lost Planet follows this formula, with two singles one of which I loved and the other I hated and a set of tracks split right down the middle in terms of quality, this w...

Juice WRLD is the stage name for Jarad Higgins the Chicago trap rapper and singer who blew up to stardom last year with his Lucid Dreams  single, debut album and subsequent features including Ski Mask The Slump God's Nuketown , Travis Scott's No Bystanders , and Lil Yachty's Yacht Club . In 2019 he has kept busy dropping two singles in the weeks leading up the the release of his massive 22 track and hour plus length sophomore album Death Race For Love .  Review By Lavender: I'm willing to admit what many more headass critics won't. Juice Wrld's Lucid Dreams  is a fantastic song. It landed near the middle of my top 100 singles of the year last year and for a huge radio hit it is both trendy and fantastically performed. Juice clearly as talent and on his debut album Goodbye & Good Riddance  he desperately needed help channeling his talent into songs that are unique and well formed. In my review for the album, which some personal friends of mine were n...

Lil Skies is yet another in the line of emerging trap stars who had moderate success with two big singles in 2017 Red Roses  and Nowadays  and scored his biggest hit to date with i the lead single to his second studio album Shelby . Riding a similar wave of many of his contemporaries Lil Skies needed to find a way to separate himself and give people a reason to listen while the spotlight was still on him.'' Review By Lavender: My expectations for this album were admittedly not very high, Skies first album Life Of A Dark Rose  was decent but very forgettable and despite being a hit the big single for Shelby which came in the form of i  is one of the least essential hip hop songs I've heard all year and unfortunately Lil Skies proves on this album that he is exactly who we all thought he was.  So let me jump into a handful of the problems that plague this album from start to finish. Starting off with the fact that far too many of these songs are obvi...

2 Chainz aka Tity Boi, aka Tauheed Epps is an Atlanta rapper who blew up in 2012 on the back of his hilarious and timely debut album Based On A T.R.U Story . Finding large scale commercial success with the project led him to release a quick follow-up the next year which became the less successful B.O.A.T.S II Me Time . After some very notable features and a huge gain in name recognition in the industry it all finally led 2 Chainz to release his best album since his debut, 2017's Pretty Girls Like Trap Music . With a sharper and effectively trendy sound 2 Chainz was thrust back into the spotlight and has been there ever sense as a short release cycle and some notable celebrity endorsements helped Rap Or Go To The League become one of the most anticipated releases of 2019 so far. Review By Lavender: 2 Chainz 2012 debut album Based On A T.R.U Story is a flawed album but one of the most hilarious and charming hip hop releases of this entire decade. His personality, hilarious lyr...