Young Dolph was prolific and released multiple projects almost every year of his career, and when he died it had been over a year since his last solo album, Rich Slave, which was one of my favorites. So I had some hope that he left behind enough material for a good posthumous album, and Paper Route Frank really exceeded my expectations, it's top shelf. I've said many times that Dolph and Bandplay is one of the best MC/producer duos of the last few years, and I'm happy to get a few more jams from them, especially "Uh Uh" and "Old Ways." And the only guests are guys he always worked a lot with (Gucci Mane, 2 Chainz, Key Glock, etc.), I'm kind of happy it didn't become a Pop Smoke-type all-star posthumous album, even if that might have gotten more attention. Check out the Young Dolph deep album cuts playlist I made a couple months ago. 

I don't know if the title of Brendan Benson's 8thh album is at all a reference to his commercial profile, but I just learned that he had a new album out on Schnitzel Records the day it was released, compared to the higher profile rollout for his last album for Third Man Records. But Low Key is excellent, his shortest album to date but it doesn't feel unsubstantial, and "People Grow Apart" in particular stands out as an all-time great Benson song. When I interviewed Benson in 2020, we talked a bit about his love of hip hop and the Kendrick reference on his last album, but it was still an interesting surprise to hear him do a straight up cover of Nasty C and T.I.'s "All In" on Low Key, he sounds a little silly singing some of the lyrics but musically it totally works. 

Ctrl made SZA the biggest new female R&B star in at least a decade, and she's been consistently releasing hit singles for the follow-up album for the last two and a half years, but for some reason Top Dawg Entertainment kicked the album around the release schedule for the most bafflingly unnecessary and unjustified series of delays since Tha Carter V. That being said, I'm not SZA's #1 fan, a little of her unique singing style goes a long way with me, so 68 minutes is way more than I need. But it's a good record, so far the standouts for me are "Notice Me" and "Ghost In The Machine," a SZA/Phoebe Bridgers collaboration could've gone either way but I think it was executed really well. The posthumous Ol' Dirty Bastard feature, though? Why? 

4275 is still Jacquees's high water mark but this album is excellent too. He may not be an amazing singer or a "king" of R&B or whatever, but he's got a great ear for production and writes some beautiful melodies, "Reason Why" and "Start Over" are standouts. I wish Tory Lanez wasn't on the album, though, fuck him. 

2021's Sometimes I Might Be Introvert was my first time hearing Little Simz and I was impressed. But No Thank You feels a little more my speed, particularly in the production, which feels a little less overbearing, and hangs back enough to let Little Simz go on these long epic verses on "Angel" and "X." 

Rap supergroups and collaboration albums are always less than the sum of their parts. But it's pretty fun to see four of the greatest MCs to ever come out of California, two from L.A. and two from The Bay, get on the same page and make a gang of songs together. The odd man out is Ice Cube, arguably the best MC of the four in his prime but the only one who hasn't sounded cool on record or comfortable on contemporary production in well over 20 years, occasionally shitting up songs with stupid cancel culture bars that don't even rhyme. But mostly the album holds together really well, like a solid late period E-40 album where he just happens to share the spotlight with 3 peers. 

Ab-Soul was always the least commercial member of TDE's original core Black Hippy quartet, the cult hero who could write vulnerable personal songs and wordplay-crazy bars but never seemed to have the skill set or the inclination to make a hit single. And during the 4 weeks that SZA has held down #1 on the Billboard 200 with one of the label's biggest albums ever, Ab-Soul released an album that missed the chart completely. It's pretty good, though, he occasionally does drop the kind of eye-rolling bars he always has ("she say I got a beautiful dick, I make her uterus do unusual shit") but it feels a little less indulgent than some of his other albums, a little more focused on his strengths. 

I don't think I like Baltimore rapper Miss Kam's second album quite as much as her 2020 debut Tew Faced, but she's still definitely one of the more promising MCs in the city right now and Tew Be Continued really picks up on the second half, "Tired" is a really impressive introspective track and "Let It Simmer" is a Baltimore club banger. 

Finesse2tymes has a very modern rap kind of Cinderella story: he was a local star in Memphis when he shot at someone outside a club in 2017 and went to prison for 5 years. But by the time he got out in July 2022, a lot of his friends had become famous, and he basically hit the ground running and by the end of the year had a major label project out and a national radio hit. The first time I heard "Back End" on the radio, I had to Shazam it to figure out if Juvenile had a comeback record, and listening to 90 Days I still pretty often feel like I'm listening to Juve. It's a pretty solid tape, "Rules To The Streets" is a standout, although it cracks me up when he does a horny song about girls called "Lil Baby" and then 4 tracks later collaborates with Lil Baby. 

It feels like Metro Boomin peaked as a hitmaker quite a while ago now -- The Weeknd's "Heartless" is arguably the only really big song he's produced in the last 5 years. But he's always had better branding and name recognition than a lot of his peers and competitors, and has leveraged that well to get two #1 solo albums on the Billboard 200. Heroes & Villains has a lot of Khaled-ish event album bluster, including an opening John Legend track and narration from Morgan Freeman, but when it's good, it's mostly because he sticks to a stable of artists he's always worked well with (four appearances each from Future, 21 Savage, and Travis Scott). I hate The Weeknd's Mario Winans remake, but the highlight is definitely the posthumous Takeoff verse on "Feel The Fiyaaaah." 

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