Lav's Music Corner

This was a ROUGH week for new singles, jesus. 5.  Starburned And Unkissed  - Caroline Polachek Leave it to this, an all time bad week for new singles, for a soundtrack cut from Caroline Polachek to make the cut. While everyone probably should rush out and see I Saw The TV Glow  immediately this song is also worth a crack even if the grinding distortion A.G. Cook laces into the chorus can occasionally be a tad overbearing. Caroline has always been interesting in her sonic experiments and this is no different.  Listen 4.  Buried Alive  - Chance The Rapper This is closer to a two-minute freestyle or cypher verse than a full song but I can't deny I appreciate the mission statement. Chance's 2019 album The Big Day  seemingly erased every bit of momentum he had off of his first the, largely quite solid mixtapes. So him taking a few minutes to remind fans he can still spit some bars and work to start defending himself is something I'll take.  Listen 3....

Your Old Droog & Tha God Fahim are a pair of prolific New York rappers who have managed to stand out in the already extremely prolific world of underground hip hop. On top of their own solo material they dropped a pair of collaborative tapes last year the first of which was the predecessor in the Wolf On Wall St.  series and the second of which was a tribute to one of hip hops favorite lyrical subjects, basketball. Review By Lav: I haven't made my enjoyment of either of these artists a secret particularly in recent years. Droog had a fantastic 2021 dropping two of my favorite projects of his to date in Tha Wolf  and Time . Even given that, I did come away from the pairs second collaboration of 2021, The YOD Fahim  thinking it was one of the least impressive and most scrapped together projects I heard that year. So getting a sequel and a third collaboration in just over a year had me a bit skeptical of whether this thing would be getting the treatment it deserves, even...

Your Old Droog is a New York rapper who was once suspected of being a pseudonym of Nas, but has since established himself as one of the most acclaimed and prolific rappers in the rap underground. He kicked off 2021 with a pair of collaborative albums with Tha God Fahim and is keeping his pace up with one of his most fleshed out and thematically conceptual projects he's released in years in Time . Review By Lav: Droog is a fun artist to watch and one of my favorite voices in underground hip hop. He released a trio of studio albums in 2019 highlighted by the excellent Transportation  and followed it up with a busy back half of 2020 and early 2021 which resulted in 3 more projects. I was excited to see Droog returning to solo work, especially with what seemed like one of his most fleshed out and thematically connected projects in a few years. Time  totally lived up to my hype and delivers not only on Droog's classic formula of creative beat choices and lowkey delivery, but also s...

The first collection of rapid fire review of 2021 comes from a collection of hip hop collaborations that unfortunately I didn't get around to reviewing earlier in the year. Some of the projects are short and some are from very prolific release series but they all were worth commenting on before the year got too far along. Your Old Droog/Tha God Fahim - Tha Wolf On Wall St While this is a short outing from the pair of underground MC's at just 27 minutes I like it quite a bit. The beats are interesting some of them are more conventional lowkey hip hop outings but there are a few really interesting instrumentals in the mix as well. Droog is his typical blend of stone-faced and confident and Fahim mostly keeps up with the exception of a track or two where he shows off rhyme schemes that feel below his pen game. The record features numerous slick interpolations of sampled vocals that I find super interesting as the transitions between songs and only really has one or two beats that ...

Your Old Droog is a Brooklyn based Ukrainian American rapper who first emerged around the middle of the last decade drawing comparisons to Nas with many even believing he could be Nas rapping under a pseudonym. Since then he has released 6 records highlighted by 2017's critically acclaimed Packs . Droog released 3 full studio albums of material in 2019 alone and quickly turned around to release Dump YOD  which appears to address his Ukrainian history.  Review By Lav: I've been a pretty big fan of Droog since first hearing Packs  in 2017 and last year his Transportation  album proved to be a favorite of mine even though I didn't have time to review his third album of 2019 Jewels  before the year was out. Droog once again dropped a December album and I wasn't gonna let it get by me again, especially given that Dump  seems like Droogs most personal and conceptual record yet. As it turns out that concept extends much more to the instrumentals of the record than...

Your Old Droog Is a New York MC with strong ties to east coast rap pedigree and a flow so classic many believed when he first began making waves that he was Nas rapping under a pseudonym. After taking 2018 off he released his It Wasn't Even Close record earlier this year and now just a few months later has surprise dropped Transportation once again without any singles teasing towards its release. Review By Lavender: Looking at it from my perspective there isn't much about Droog that isn't likeable. He's an old school style MC who consistently delivers clever bars and a stone cold flow, so when there are weaknesses to his projects I'm usually not blaming him.  This was the case on It Wasn't Even Close earlier this year where Droog performed consistently but the complete indebtedness to east coast lyrical rap across this record makes it a bit of a drag in full length. So where Close was consistent but uninteresting, Transportation serves as its true compani...

Your Old Droog is a New York rapper and predominant old head who rose to popularity across 2014 and 2015 when many believed his early mixtapes were Nas rapping under an alternate persona. After revealing himself to the public Droog dropped his first big breakout album Packs  in 2017 and has released a number of features and a set of looseys since then, as well as one single leading up to this album. Review By Lavender: Droog is truly an old head's rapper, more so now than ever before. Coming from New York he matches stylistically with the conscious and lyrical flavors of rap music that came out of the east coast in the 90's, carrying the torch for artists like Wu-Tang, Mobb Deep and of course Nas. Packs  actually surprised me with its variety in sound and consistently sharp performances, this was the album that proved to me just how capable Droog was of blended the sounds of new and old into sharp and intelligent hip hop for the ages. But on It Wasn't Even Close ...

We're back. And what a shitty week to be back. Some real digging had to be done to assemble 10 tracks I can genuinely reccomend to you this week, but I've done it nonetheless so let's get started. 10. "The City" YG Hootie (Ft. Kendrick Lamar) YG Hootie shows his lack of experience as an MC all over this track. Barely stumbling through offbeat meaningless bars the song actually turns out pretty good for what it is. Kendrick is quality as always but nothing special for his status. The chorus really brings it home, it's simple and catchy, which is really what makes this one worth returning to. YG Hootie by himself doesn't seem like an appealing proospect and his next track may not even make enough noise to come across my glance, but this song is just good enough. 9. "Blue Pill" Metro Boomin (Ft. Travis Scott) Blue Pill is exactly what it is. Metro Boomin produces just like he always does  distant, base heavy, and trap flavored. Travis Sc...